Live: #D17 Occupiers in Times Square
Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 17, 2011, 7:50 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
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Change comes through sustained political action. You people complaining about the occupy movement should be ashamed of yourselves.
Pardon the intrusion into your comfort bubble, but the world really does need to change; and quick before its too late.
Yes, sustained political action, but not through the two parties of the 1% that exist primarily to fool us into believing that we live in a democracy. For that matter the whole corporate state is so rigged that any serious change and any genuinely democratic political action has to take place entirely outside its institutions. Solidarity Forever!
Absolutely. The Occupy Movements have started something that´s going to lead to massive changes. Like you said, the world and its inhabitants desperatly need change. We need to fight for a world with sustainable societies and more democracy - a society where the good things in our nature will come to the fore.
struggleforfreedom
Being first to raise awareness of injustice, oppression and uneven playing fields is never an easy task, being a clearing house for all of those together in a leaderless format even that more daunting. I see the messiness of all of this every day and suffer through the difficulties on some level day to day with the core of you across the country thanks to social media and live feeds from daring camera folks. Keep trying to better your organization, be responsible and transparent, spend a bit more time thinking through your actions, enlist more boots to help make actions more pronounced and please accept responsibility for the outcome of any loss of property, injury or arrest. The time for you to craft a new future has come, the baby boom generation got fat and happy even though it recognized the destruction of the planet and its people through pollution and war, you are the last hope to prevent the final stages of what Christians call Armageddon. Peace
Yes, we did get fat and happy. We were deeply involved in ending the war or our era, we were involved in the civil rights movement which lead to the Civil Rights Act, womens rights including Roe vs Wadeand more. Peace
And might I add, took a vacation from the voting booth at least until the Clinton years, then in the meantime, maxed out our credit, took our eye off the ball because we had "career tracks" with salaries and benefits, we allowed money into politics that should have never been there, we allowed white collar criminal activity there as well. We stood up for environmental concerns and laid down when Carter and Brown had a real plan. Yes, we stopped a war, firmed up some civil rights, gave women a choice over their bodies and pissed away the future for our kids and theirs. I'm writing not as a condemnation, but as one who willingly participated and has the balls to stand up and take responsibility. I occupy for these and other reasons and I stand ready to die for the necessary change. I hope you do as well my fellow boomers.
So long as any part of OWS supports the fascist disease brought on this country by Ronald Reagan and all of his followers and the religious right??? some part of OWS is going to be under attack.
Oh, that really strong. People have to work and support their families. Why do yo think Reagan is so esteemed? Because he got the economy going again and put people to work.
Right breeding more people than we can provide jobs for to create an oversupply of labor to drive the price of labor down that's really good for families. I suppose you'd support the idiot who wants to bring back child labor too. Then Americans can be competitive with the little five year olds slaving away in Chinese sweat shops. If sweat shop labor is your model for the future, why bother to protest. Thanks to Ronald Reagan and his OBSOLETE and FAILING supply sided economics and trickle down theory which we can't see any way to get rid of now, that is where we are headed. Third world America here we come, thanks to you and your short sightedness.
Well said. I can picture these lazy asses sitting pretty criticizing the people on the streets demanding the changes! But if one day the changes for the better happen, they ALSO benefit and will not feel guilty about doing nothing. People do not take any action or make any bit of effort because of all any of these social and economic problems, they should think why they DON'T and are not in a position of criticizing the protesters!
I'm not ashamed of myself one bit. I gave 5 children and a wide that I need to provide for so I have to go to work every day. I don't want to work tomorrow but I have to. I see people sitting in tents, smoking pot, injecting drugs and defecating in the streets and wonder who you people are? I have to work.
The majority of protesters DO work. According to survey, only 13% o.f this crowd are unemployed, most of them fully employed or partially employed taking their own time to support and voice up the problems. High percentage of people in this crowd have higher education. What you see are NOT majority.
It doesn't look like from my point of view. I walk by the OWS encampment in Sf an see a bunch of people sleeping.
And we should ask why. I bet tons of reasons behind being just sleeping there. But I am also seeing bunch of young kids with degress graduated colleges running around finding nothing to work. The problems are much deeper than what we see in our eyes. Just one example, just like seeing people having mental issue, we cannot identify from outside how they look.
We need to get the economy growing again and the way to do that is to build confidence by cutting spending and sound and transparent monetary policy. Class warfare is just nonsense and does no good.
Protester are NOT raising the class warfare, they are presenting their deep grievances to the goverment and raise awareness of all kinds of social problems and economical problems and ask people to come together to demand for changes. They are non-violent and they absolutely have the first amendmen right to protest. Talking about raising class warfare, it is exactly what the 1% is doing by not willing to pay fair share of tax and shamefully claim.ed themsevles job creators and actually, they created jobs for China, India and other countries by outsourcing job. These are the one CREATED this movement, they pushed ordinary people to the streets.
So you want to take money from one group and give it to another. Explain to me how that is fair?
Are the 1% not ordinary people, did they not work hard and strived to get ahead?
So how about most ordinary hard working people pay more tax to feed their profits? Taking money from one group?? Who are the ones taking money from our hard working middle class?? And really? The 1% is working damn hard that they have the right not to pay fair share and not only that, sent jobs to oversea? Are we not all working hard and striving to get ahead? Are we able to use our $$$ to control the government to bend over to listen to us? NO! But they can. The GREED of this small group of people are taking away ordinary people's lives. They control every damn thing in our society, legislation, media, entertainment, all politicians, environment, whether we should drill oil or not, whether have electric car or not, etc, etc. A county owned by modern mafia and internal terrorists!
If you guys all have jobs, then how the hell are you able to spend so much time sitting on your ass complaining?
On second thought, I don't think my boss would have any issues with me taking a 3 month sabbatical to improve my drum circling, weed smoking, and street defecating. Zucotti here I come!
Bring toilet paper and soap.
Who asked YOU to have FIVE children. You are aware that there are nearly SEVEN BILLION people on planet earth who all need jobs, education, health care? You think you are THAT special? ... and you think they will all have a shot at the 1% too boot? The very idea of the 1% necessitates a massive poverty class world wide. You buy into their politics you deserve what you get. Why are you on occupy? You should be out there behind any one of the morons running on the Republican ticket. Better still, move to China or India where you can get a real taste for living on an overpopulated planet.
This is the most pessimistic attitude I have seen in a long time. Economic activity is not a zero sum game. It is my choice to have five children and you want to take that liberty from me. You fight for the ability for women to abort children but then criticize when people provide life.
This is one of the darkest comments I have seen in a long time.
nonsense it is the most positive criticism of our time. You want to serve NOTHING but your GREED and EGO. Grow up. The world does not cater to your SHALLOW EMPTY WHIMS. Believe it or not there is more to life than lusting after women's breasts and fornicating.
You want to control people's families to limit their children. Grow up? How old are you and do you have any children. How shallow are you to put your ridiculous ideas above human life. You probably have never accomplished anything in your life.
Tel me, what is more to live than family? This bunch of liberal nonsense I want to hear.
By the way I was accepted to Harvard were you?
YOU WANT to PAY for them???? Aparantly not. You speak BIg about family but you pay small for it. You know damn well you are breeding a slave wage class. IDIOTS will hear what you say but I know better.
I'm not worried about your ridiculous slave/owner opinions. I know they are not true. My children live in a free country where they are allowed to worship and work as they please. I only worry that people like you will build up a government and take that away from them.
Get a job and get off the computer. Do something with your life.
Read a book you lazyintellectual SLOB.
No you children live in a miserable far right wing FASCIST IMPERIALIST war mongering, murdering, lying, stealing nation drug through the political international mud by corrupt republicans who think religious freedom is the right to RAM their filthy PHONY fundamentalist religion down EVERYBODY's throats even through the laws. Thanks to YOU we live in Nazi Germany.
Then please move. You are not an asset to society so move to another country where they will take care of you. And please take your pessimistic attitude with you.
You never worked or earned anything in your life have you? Boy really creative with your invectives, go ahead and use capital letters.
Do you want met to help you move. Send me your information and I will get it going for you. Where do you want to move to? How about Iran?
National self criticsm is the highest form of patriotism. And all of we who objected to the republcan policy of deregulating the banking system did so in order to prevent 2008 from happening. People like you, on the other hand, cause the economic crash of 2008 and continue to do so with your dirty filthy corrupt money grubbing lying cheating politics.. It is you who are a traitor to my country, not an asset You like overpopulation so much why not move to China. I'd say India, but at least they are smart enough not to have you. When you tried to steal Bolivia's water and then charge them for it they kicked you out of the country. Nobody likes you; you are making my country look like an ass hole.
Couldn't help yourself with the curse words, could you. Deregulation had nothing to do with the banking crisis, leverage did. And that comes from the supply and demand for money. But that's obviously above you.
"Nobody likes you; you are making my country look like an ass hole" You are really worried about who likes you? What is this high school? Where you the unpopular kid. Your issues go deeper than economics.
Curse words never hurt anybody as much as lies people like you tell. And male cow ca ca, does that make it better? talk about kindergarten ... even Alan Greenspan himself admitted himself that the banking industry can't self-regulate. If that's not good enough for you then check out Jack Abramoff's post prison book in which he speaks not only of "crimes" he committed but even crimes not yet on the book he should have gone to jail for. And as for my childhood, I never had one ... because the right wing has no class and made victims of distant relatives of one very great senator related to me whom I did have the very remote pleasure to meet. I have been a life long hate puppet of your party's politics and I intend to run you into the ground, especially your propensity to shoot and torture unarmed women and children.
Your issues go deep...
don't forget that the U.S. is in a recession. http://www.aim.org/newswire/census-recession-taking-toll-on-young-adults/
the recession is raising awareness that we're all subject to a system we can't control.
let's relentlessly question all our assumptions and experiment with many alternatives!
Does change come from breaking into private property? Does change happen by walking into the oncoming traffic? Does change happen by putting a child on the tracks in Portland? Does change happen when you stretch the police force to the max and overload the court systems with senseless arrests, which btw are paid for with my tax dollars? Tell me, how are things going to change which these actions? I'm not against OWS, Im just against the actions which are going no where.
Yes. It comes when people are willing to walk in front of a tank and put out their hand, when they refuse to sit at the back of the bus, and when people take to the streets.
Its going to work the same way it always works, whether it's the woman's movement or the civil rights movement or the peace movement. Enough people stop being apathetic, and they get together and make change happen.
The Police are not there because they need to be there, they are there because the people in power want to waste your money in order to keep the movement out of sight, hoping that it will fizzle out.
You didn't answer my question of how these actions will make any change?
The police are there for crowd control, as they are for any large crowd, whether it is a concert or a ballgame or NYE in Times Square. Did you truly expect the NYPD to not be there to uphold the law and to protect the rights of Trinity Church? And yes they have rights. They own the property and have said no to it being used as an encampment. They have reached out more than any other organization in NYC towards OWS, yet OWS felt it was ok to break down the fences. Bite the hand that feeds you kind of mentality.
If this movement claims to represent the 99%, then it needs to start representing us in a respectable and law abiding way.
The women's movement had Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton who formed the Womens Suffrage Association who paved the way for the rights of women to vote. The civil rights movement had Frederick Douglas and MLK who led the way. Why not groom someone within the movement to speak for the issues we ALL face in this country? The leaderless concept is just plain silly. And the mayhem created is turning people off in droves, the 99% you claim to represent.
I don't look at it as representing the 99%, I look at it as advocating for changes which benefit those in the 99% income bracket, those ones without Koch brother influence over elected officials.
The Police do not need to be there for crowd control, and they could have just let people stay in Liberty Square. A tiny park is not more important than the global issues, plus these are peaceful demonstrations.
Sorry to say, but a narrow ideological view that places park bylaws over the freedom to voice very serious social issues is shortsighted. In a free and democratic society, the government would recognize the value of peaceful expression and give them an exemption. These are serious issues and elected officials should be encouraging the dialog, not preventing it. period.
You cite some examples of movements with leaders, but look at what happened to the leaders of the 1960s movements. They ended up on FBI lists, got shot, got 30 years jail sentences over a few flakes of Marijuana. The concept of needing a leader is silly if you ask me, we can work together and that is the point of the movement; plus it makes the movement much easier to destroy. Just take out the leader.
Its already making change. Judge Rakoff told the SEC to take its feeble settlement with Citi group and shove where the sun don't shine, the Republican party is afraid to use the word "Capitalism," income inequality, freedom of speech, issues which nobody cares about suddenly on the radar... after only 3 months. It may take years, but change is coming. We are educating more and more people, and we are building connections with more and more like minded people.
That's what makes them the most afraid. We are informing others about the problem, and giving them the opportunity to help us do something about it.
Nice dodge on the issue of the attempted seizure of the private property of the church, a church that had been generous to the movement and had declined the request to use it's property. Good thing the police were there - police we are all paying for.
The days are long gone where the movement can be upset about public stereotypes seeing them as a bunch of spoiled brats who feel entitled to other people's stuff. With every protester who climbed a chain link fence to seize private property yesterday, that impression was proven true.
I know very little about the politics of the church decision or how they treated the occupiers in NYC previously. But I'm quite sure I have a good idea what Jesus would have said about a church refusing to offer a platform for people trying to change the world in a manner more consistent with his teachings. He would be very very disappointed.
Like I said, had the city let them continue to use public property... it would never have been an issue. Nonetheless, you're elevating property rights above issues which are more important, like fighting for a sustainable future and a more egalitarian world. Maybe a world where property is once again seen as a shared resource.
I don't know how old you actually are, but as someone who has to live on this planet for another 40-50 years, I've had enough of your generation's obsession with materialism and rampant planetary exploitation in the name of owning more stuff.
Its too bad my generation is the one that has to suffer the consequences of your generation's insatiable greed; it's also too bad you value "stuff" so highly that you choose to antagonize a movement which trying to build a brighter tomorrow.
Perhaps all that stuff will bring you comfort in the end, because it certainly won't be the feeling that you made a positive contribution to humanity.
You'll want to look into the issue before you post again. According to what I read, the church had provided food, rest rooms and office space to the movement. Several protesters I read about had the grace to be embarassed that a supporter of the movement had been treated so poorly. Entire threads on this forum have expressed similar feelings today, with some threatening to withdraw their support of OWS if the attack (their words, not mine) is not explained. It is a big deal, whether or not you choose to see it that way.
"The city left them with no choice but to seize private property." Good luck selling that as an explanation. And lack of camping space in not the equivalent of stopping them from fighting for a better future, unless there is so little creativity in the movement that it can't move forward without camping on private property. If that's the case, there are more significant problems.
I'm not here to defend my generation, nor to attack yours. I'm just saying that breaking and entering in a church is a mighty odd way to begin to improve the world. And it's one that will lead to the movement being rejected by the vast majority of the 99% you claim to represent. Ignore the warning if you wish, but this issue matters.
Well now that's I've bothered to take a closer look at things, it would appear they were trying to set up in a vacant lot owned by the Church's real estate arm... not even adjacent to church property. Not sure how that qualifies as "breaking and entering into a church"
I never said "the city left them with no choice but to seize private property" but clearly, had the city allowed them to use public property to exercise their rights and create dialog... they would not be looking for an unused lot as an alternative. Perhaps you should call the City and ask them to open some public land for a worthy cause.
http://www.observer.com/2011/12/occupiers-trinity-church-duarte-square/
Perhaps the land it received from the Queen should be returned to the indigenous people it was stolen from; but the least Trinity could have done is let people use a vacant piece of property to promote ideas consistent with the teachings of Jesus. A mighty odd way for a tax free real estate trust to show the world what Christianity is all about.
Nonetheless, your generation needs to learn how to share, how to be compassionate for your fellow humans, and how to respect the earth. You've raped, pillaged, and exploited it so badly it is sickening; and now that we inherit this terrible mess you leave behind, you not only refuse to help, but you actually antagonize us for trying to help ourselves out of your mess.
To answer your question. No, a vacant unused lot is not more important than the global issues this movement represents. There will not even be anyone left to care about that lot in another 50 years if we continue down this road.
Believe it or not, you won't get any argument from me about the poor condition we are leaving the world for the next generation. Like many others, I cringe when I realize that our kids are the first American generation in a long time that doesn't expect their lives to improve over those of their parents. We have failed you in many ways, and I mean that.
In your case, one of the ways we apparently failed you was that we didn't instill in you the sense that it's wrong to impose your values on others against their will, and use their property over their objection. Defending this attempted seizure of the church property is unthinkable, and it is mind boggling to hear you defend the indefensible. I hope you'll listen to the many other voices in this forum that grieve that decision.
Well at least we agree on that much.
I'm not generally not the type to impose values on others, but I have to look at the long term situation realistically. We don't have the luxury of time; unless this culture of greed changes very soon the consequences will be very severe.
A base of operations out in the public eye is critical to reaching out and educating other people, and the largest obstacle to real change is still ignorance at this point in the struggle.
I would probably agree that it wasn't a great PR move by OWS, if they had actually stormed the church building I would defiantly agree with you; but as someone who appreciates the severity of the global issues we are facing, I'm sorry, but commandeering vacant lot no-one is using to advance issues which the survival of our species will ultimately depend on... well it seems less of a concern.
Looks like we'll have to agree to disagree on the attempted seizure of the church property, alexrai. Though I don't think yours is the right path, I hope things improve for your generation. Thanks for the exchange.
you too, good nite!
and point taken, optics are important in building support.
The banks had the audacity to de-regulate themselves, cheat people with bogus mortgages, allow banks to lend 10 times as much money as they have, allow people to bet on whether or not someone's house burns down, they brought down the world economy ... that was change .... and you are here griping because a group of people stop a bus? The banks walked out in front of the whole damn world and disrupted it. You really have a skewed sense of priorities.
Who was griping about a bus? You have no idea what my priorities are, so don't assume to know them. Change needs to happen in many issues, I merely asked a simple question that no one seems to be able to answer.
I don't own a car I ride a bus and a metro system to get where I am going, do you? If you were present earlier you would know that people were complaining about occupy because they were disrupting traffic. Jumping to conclusions. Idiot.
Does change come from deregulating your banking industry so that you put a freight train in front of a world economy that trusts you?
Again, you avoid or are unable to answer the simple question I posed. Seems to be most action is about getting arrested. Doesn't make much sense to me , or to most people.
Too all occupiers keep fighting the good fight!☮☮☮
The "why i occupy" speeches are real cool.
i'm a big ocw suporter.. i think it's a great movment ..i also think it needs to stick to it's message..that people are fed up , and we are sick of corruption in this country. by staying one step ahead of the issues that come up , and bringing the awarness to people so they could come on board , seems to have been working good .. i dont think it should be just about taking over a park or times square.. seems when we hit them with the issues at hand , is when it hurts them the most .and more people jump on board .then take it to the next leval
great video excelent m realy speech less....
http://sah2009-shakeelahmadhashmi.blogspot.com
great ows people i salute you.
http://sah2009shakeelahmadhashmi.blogspot.com
i love the idea of ows, but actions since the eviction of zuccotti have become so lame and poorly attended, i am getting discouraged. any ideas?
Hello they just sold more of our country. To get extended payments for the unemployed and tax cuts out of SS??? for the middle class they agreed to a pipeline. Hello Occupy Wall Street? Anybody home?
So we get more energy?
temporarily. It is like spending the inheritance your parents saved for you to pretend the republicans had a point. Happy spending!
The pipeline brings more oil to the market, how is that bad. Please explain. You OWS people are nuts.
It is bad because it encourages lazy brainwashed dolts like you to breed like rabbits, WASTE oil, pollute the land and atmosphere and impoverish that nation of its precious natural resources. You really don't give a damn about anybody but yourself in the here and now do you? Some OWS people are nuts but YOU are psycopathologically SELFISH. ME ME ME ME ME, my baby my SUV why doesn't the world revolve around me? I just don't get it. DER???? THINK! USE YOUR BRAIN if you ever find it.
Now you have to resort to name calling.
We need energy to produce goods and the pipeline brings more of it to us and lowers the price. But you obviously don't understand economics.
Do you live in the area of the pipeline, probably not. You are like those people int he seventies who were worried about the Alaska pipeline and overpopulation. Oh those predictions came true.
Miserable person.
What begging the question? Just try to find a parcel in America that hasn't been polluted by one form of greed or another, from hazardous waste to petrochemical fertilizers. And thanks to certain self-centered greed mongers, "We," have gone way beyond what people NEED in this country. Perhaps we should require people who breed like rabbits and demanding more than their fair share of goods and services to get up off their LAZY fat selfish asses and ride a bicycle or walk to the corner drug store every once in a while. Would it have been possible to love your children if you only had two? Probably not, because it isn't about your children it is all about you and your big fat selfish ego. As if contributing to world overpopulation you have done the world a big favor. You know it really doesn't take a hummer and 600 gallons of gas to get you here and there??? Just because you know how to waste money that does not make you economy savvy. Furthermore, who said the energy we DO need has to come from dirty stinking slimy polluting oil? We have 6 BILLION people on the planet who would't be alive without oil, people keep on breeding and oil production has peaked. Where in the hell does that get us? The only reason SOME people want to burn oil is because oil is in their stock portfolio and they utterly LACK the imagination to think of using any other resource for energy. God forbid it be a clean renewable source. If a woman spreads her legs and pops out babies for a man for a living that does not make her the world authority on everything. It is very convenient to use religion as an excuse for fornication without the use of birth control, impose your will and your greed and your selfishness on others, murder civilians in other countries and poison and bleed the earth to death isn't it? And you have the gall to call ME miserable. My vision of hell would be to die and find people like you in heaven.
Who are you to say what people need. Stop pushing your control economy on everybody else. If you want to live miserable in your little world so be, but leave the rest of us alone.
You've never produced anything in your life and obviously don't understand the benefit of energy. Oh yeah, let's all power everything off of wind energy. Go somewhere else and live in you fairyland.
I love these comments - fair share of goods. Who says what's fair, what have you brought to the economy, do you work, what benefit have you brought to the system.
Where does burning oil get us? it's been a great source of energy for 100 years and has moved us away from disease and hungry, that's where it has got us. How would you do it? And you can't just fold your arms and blink your eyes and produce food and warmth.
Excuse me, it was YOU who was telling me what we need. YOU just told me and the whole world people have to have oil. What makes you think it is you with all other people on one side that have to have oil and me on the other???? With a complete and utter lack of imagination or knowledge of any oil alternative you are ramming your oil economy down our throats as you ram your religion and your STUPID obsolete unsustainable supply-sided unlimited growth economy down our throats. I have had your STUPID right wing politics and your OIL wasting rammed down my throat for thirty damn years and I am sick and tired of it. Oil has made it possible for the population go grow from 1 billion to SEVEN BILLION in 100 years with billions living in profound and desperate poverty and millions performing slave labor doing work you are to damn lazy to do and to damn CHEAP to pay for. OIl has multiplied human misery while your supply-sided stupidity has brought back slavery. Work, ha! When is the last time YOU spent a full day working in a Chinese sweat shop for 20 cents a day? You don't know what the hell work is. You have NEVER in your pampered cocoon of selfish ignorance lifted a finger to do any! If you don't have enough oil, get up off your fat lazy self-centered ass and walk for once. Who the hell do you think you are? The queen of England? Believe it, the world doesn't revolve around you. Had we in the early 80's invested our money wisely in oil alternatives and THEIR mass production rather than blowing it on SUV factories and Dom Perignon we wouldn't even been having this argument right now. Thanks to the stupid republicans we didn't. We had to have a STUPID baby boom. We had to fill our SUV's with literally tons cheap petroleum - based plastic materialistic trash produced by 5 year olds in third world countries. "We" created a bloody living HELL for the rest of the planet where the out and out theft of labor couldn't be enough, where we had to drop bombs on civilians in order to build pipelines to rob them of THEIR oil. Once we abuse our own landscape and poison ourselves where then are we going to turn for oil, HMM? Who else is going to do slavery and forfeit their peace freedom and clean environment and lives to your lazy selfishness?
It's not me telling the world to consume oil, it is the market. That's the point.
So now you are saying that I'm stupid, fat, lazy and you are the smarter than everybody else, This is priceless. More people live better today than in anytime in the history of the world. More countries have embraced and are embracing supply side tenets than in 1980. So who is the stupid one. You must be smarter than the rest of the world.
"we had to have s stupid baby boom" Yeah, babies are horrible and we don't need them.
Good luck with this. By the way, if you are so educated and so smart, did you miss the class where they taught you to use paragraphs? Builds a lot of confidence.
It is only the market because the right wing SUPPLY SIDE dictated it. If people were sold other alternatives the market would change. THAT IS THE PIONT. Furthermore, what is living better is not narrowly defined in your wal-mart world. And, If you think overpopulation is terrible stop encouraging people to breed it. If the country was smaller the government would be. My college professors know me for the worlds longest and most complicated paragraphs. Be thankful I spared you one of those. When I am ready to publish a book I will hire an editor - if any editor can manage not to mangle my meaning in the name of efficiency.
Good job guys! This is a good way to practice to speak to a crwod. More people practice this way, more people will be capable of doing teaching-in to educate the public about all the problems/issues that we desperately need CHANGES!! We should widely spread all these messages out to Youtube reaching as many viewers as possible! I believe everybody has his own particular issue to reasonate with the OWS protesters!
Happy birthday!! Many more please.
Go to central park. Occupy it. Call it Hooverville, as it was in 1930 after the stock market crash! The public lived in central park when everyone lost their jobs.
It's great to honor the fallen officer, but the officers should be competent enough to do so without obscuring their badges (as the reporter here clearly states that some are).
[Removed]
One positive piece of press -- very powerful and short http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/ows-protesters-march-to-protest-healthcare-system-20111217?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter Occupy Wall Street Health Care in front of St. Vincent’s symbol of what is wrong...luxury condos where a Hospital was.
http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/ows-protesters-march-to-protest-healthcare-system-20111217?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
We have a protest 6:30 to 7:30 this Tuesday by Rudin Sales offices 120 West 12th Street and Christmas Eve in front of St. Vincent’s with Christmas Carols and band-aids. http://no-third-term.blogspot.com/2011/12/st-vincents-christmas-eve-protest.html?m=1
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I am a socially liberal, fiscally moderate, politically active senior in college. I worked extremely hard to land an internship last summer, and busted my ass enough that I was able to secure a job offer following graduation. I get that there are plenty of people that are working as hard, if not harder, than I did, but through bad luck or whatever, they have yet to see their efforts come to fruition. I get that, and I understand it sucks.
Here's my issue though: the last time I took a lap around Zucotti (before the NYPD gave the park back to the city) I could have probably made a list of about 1,000 complaints or issues that the occupiers were upset about. Litterally, 1,000 distinct complains that people were passionately screaming about. The rights movements that ows frequently cites all had specific goals with a clear begginning and end. The amount of meaningless platitudes that I saw people complaining about gave the clear impression that this isn't a movement, but rather a bunch of uneducated whining about how life isn't fair sometimes.
Seriously, there's a lot of stuff that sucks in this world, like AIDS and Paris Hilton, but it you want to do something about it, stop complaining and do something. I'm sorry, but the individual screaming his/her little heart out about the difficulties of being a transsexual prostitute is a glaring example of how meaningless this whole thing is.
The cops work for everyone, and right now you guys are a big kink in the hardest working, most effecient, and downright awesomest city on the planet. I want the cops there. I drove past a bunch of the boys in blue in their full battle rattle yesterday and I couldn't help but shed a small, prideful tear. You guys vandalized a fucking church, so please stop complaining when you catch a baton in the teeth.
I think we're pretty darn good on the whole, but I also agree that we can do way way better. The sooner you stop holding us back, the sooner we can start making changes.
You have no idea what you are talking about. These problems have gone back THIRTY YEARS at least. Much of them are the product of this country stupidly embracing an old OBSOLETE supply-sided infinite-growth economics, OWS is the first sign that anybody noticed or cared. It is the first time in three decades people stopped bitching about the government and addressed the problem: Wall Street. What the greed mongers on Wall Street have done to this country is not pretty darn good, its not even bad, it is OUTRAGEOUS! If you can't see that then you can not identify the problem and if you can't identify the problem you can't have a solution.
seriously you friggin idiots - THE COPS are wearing BLACK bands across their shields in honor of a fallen police officer KILLED in brooklyn ny last week by a drug dealer who should have never been allowed out of jail! Get a clue people! you really have NO idea what u are protesting ! it's a big joke!!!! GO HOME!!!
If the US didn't have such stupid drug laws it never would have happened. Everyone in an American prison is just as much a political prisoner as they would have been in Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia. Our two party system is nothing more than the most flexible of totalitarianisms with the so-called two parties being nothing more than two different wings of a totalitarian ruling class who openly discuss their differences so as to give the rest of us the illusion of democracy.
Yes. Prohibition is all fun & games until one of your co-workers gets shot.
Tragic waste of life, and even more tragic because there is a far better way to handle the situation; it starts with legalization, followed by intelligent regulation.
Exactly!
There will always be those who will experiment with drugs, there will always be those who will regularly use drugs, there will always be those who never try drugs, and there will always be those who get addicted to drugs.
The only thing that outlawing drugs accomplishes is to create a multi-billion dollar income for illegal business and turf wars. Again another lesson forgotten from the past of prohibition.
Legalize like alcohol and tobacco. Regulate it and control it. Don't try to deny it, as you are only setting up for failure and also supporting criminal elements that are tearing down our society. Take money out of illegal drugs, stop providing for a temptation for our youth to get involved in selling illegal drugs so that they can make the big money and live their dreams illegally, as they figure looking at society today that this may be their only chance to make good money..
By a state that is already rigged seven ways to Sunday by the 1%? The last thing we need are more phoney regulations from the corporate state.
In all honesty I'm quite ok if the extent of the regulation were proper labeling laws... like "Whiskey, 80 proof" except "LSD-25 500ug per tablet."
I'm not opposed to regulation, per se. Or even the state. I just don't trust THIS corporate state or for that matter the corporate states that control the rest of the world to regulate anything.
the whole concept of coming onto the occupy wall st. social networking site, and be incendiary and vitriolic, is a tired tactic that 'opposition' has tried to do since this site when live. Its too late for that. Nothing you say on here will slow down this movement. Literally...nothing.
You cant tell the world to go home. you are in, or you are out. but this transition of power will happen, regardless.
You realize they have a history of hiding their badges as well as a history of committing crimes for which they are successfully prosecuted.
Yeah, because the police never covered their badges before..... They know why their protesting, they are not happy with the direction America is going in. That's enough of a reason.
Sorry, you are clueless. Please educate yourself beyond main stream media! From a 64 year old woman ...
It's totally a party down there! Wooo hooooo! That's about it though.
And . . .quickly . . . . ..anyone .. . . ... . WHAT'S the POINT....!
Isn't everybody getting kinda tired of this . . . uh . . . this. . campout ?? Have a party . . .go to somebodys basement and get trashed thre . . . Quit trying to prove you are doing something important by "Occupying" this that and the other. It is getting old, uninteresting and of course pointless. If ya wanna have a party . . . .go have a party . . .but don't clog up other peoples lives with this ideological pretense of saving the world. This is going to be your tatoo to wear the rest of your life. "Yup . . .I was there with OWS, son. And it was quite an affair. We'd build these Tent cities and move 'em from place to place. Beggin for food. Sitting on our butts. Sometimes meandering around. Those were the days son" "Is that why we live in the woods and eat bark, Dad??"
The point is to get corporate money out of politics, end the federal reserve, and protect from exploitation by big businesses and the government. You haven't even tried to figure out what the movement is about have you? Just keep watching Fox News...
Pffft.you don't even count, go back to sleep, Oh and take your trash you threw at OWS with you. It came from your mind, that's right, its your B.S. you believe in. Take off your blinders and take the cotton out of your ears and you may become aware of what is going on around your little world you boxed yourself into.
the world . .especially yours....isn't perfect . . .and could use a lot of fixin ' ..........It's just your methods . . .of following some ideological impossible dream by sleeping in the gutter and moaning and being a general nuisance .......... is . . .childish . . .unproductive . . .and at best will produce an embarrassing memory . .once your are emotionally grown . . .if ever.
You gotta look deeper. You helped bring this about. Now you help clean it up. You too have some growing up to do and we all have a lesson to learn from it. Getting at each others throat solves nothing. What is embarrassing is the gap between the rich and poor. We did it to ourselves and we need to fix it.
Fishb8, you are right on the money. That is exactly what is motivating these kids. Many of them will get old and reminisce about the good ol' days. The rest of them will grow up and be a little embarrased about the whole thing.
Who you calling kids? The average age of an OWSer is 33. Personally, I'm 68.
And you are living in a hippie camp . . .? Or just pissed in general from afar?
I wouldn't characterize myself as pissed off, though I am distressed at all the injustices in the world, injustices that not only do violence to countless people every day and perpetuate wars all over the planet, but which also are moving toward making the planet uninhabitable for human beings. I believe if we act, together, in solidarity with each other, we may be able to bring an end to those injustices.
I do not consider myself a hippy and I do not live in a hippy camp. I have a job and health problems but I do try to participate in an occupation as often as possible given those limitations.
then you should have a life long developed common sense approach to the way things get done. Maybe your influence might convince these youngn's to be clear in their objective, and take real world steps to achieve what ever it is. In this case so far, I see only poor behavior as their method . . .and no real objective defined . . . . .complaints and envy, over and over and over.......
Have you ever been to an occupation or a GA? If you have I don't think you would talk about convincing anybody of anything there, and certainly not an entire GA or even a single working group of substantial size, That's not just how things work there, It's not that people are not open minded, It is that the consensus decision making model is extremely sluggish, by design, though undoubtedly more efficient than the US Congress,
I've been active in social movements for the better part of 50 years and quite frankly I think those of us from older generations have very little useful practical advice to give to this new movement, I think it is already miles ahead of the student movement of the 1960s or even the civil rights movement of the 1950s which really had a much narrower vision, As for the labor movement, well the main reason why sections of organized labor have attached themselves to OWS is because OWS has done more effective organizing in the last 3 months than the labor movement has done in the last three decades,
It's not that I have no advice to offer or that it is not respectfully considered, but I don't expect or demand much either, So far OWS has given me more than I could hope to give it even if I had more years left than I do at my most optimistic, So while I actively contribute as much as I can, mostly I am along for the ride and happy to be,
"That's not just how things work there, It's not that people are not open minded, It is that the consensus decision making model is extremely sluggish, by design, though undoubtedly more efficient than the US Congress."
If thats your take on it .. .I guess were stuck . . . how about rooting out the fraud and ineffectualness of the current system .. .rather than open the door for socialists and communists ?
The fact is that, far from "opeining the door" to anarchism, the initiators of OWS are strongly influenced by the anarchist intellectual tradition, It's not that they allowed anarchists to come in, in many instances they are anarchists, Very shortly after the occupation began it excited the imagination of countless liberal and those whose political views are not particularly well formed. At the same time the handful of socialists in the United States also began to identify with OWS, In terms of communists, there numbers are so small that it doesn't even deserve comment,
Right now, while the overwhelming majority of the base of OWS would probably either characterize themselves as liberals or politically unformed, the minority of radicals are much more coherent politically and so, even though they are a minority in the movement their views tend to dominate,
There are differences in the movement on how to move forward and the liberals in the movement I think would tend to agree with you that we need to find legislative remedies to the fraud and ineffectiveness in government,
On the other hand the radicals tend to have a much more comprehensive vision of the kind of change they want and have a vision of a society so fundamentally different than what we have no or even on that has ever existed that it is difficult to articulate exactly what it would look like, That is one of the reasons why OWS makes no demands as there is no point in making demands on a system that is seen as ultimately irrelevant,
Meanwhile, in my view, the radicals have done a far superior job of organizing than have the liberals, It is they who have built the first alliance between sections of organized labor and the left intelligentcia since the 1940s, it has built an alliance with sections of the religious community, with the debtor class, with the foreclosed, with the stop stop and frisk movement, with the homeless and with other sectors of society,
Of course we have a long way to go, We are a tiny movement in a nation of 300 million, But we are also a new movement, Talk to me in a year or 10 years and we will see where the movement is,
Our Labeling of everything has gotten in the way of that very "Description of what It would look like" AND what IS "IT" ? ...... alas..... It is the Liberals dream of Utopia that the truly Evil are and will prey on, and use it to convince them of the "Real" way of making the world perfect. I fear that some will just follow, caught up in the hysteria, allowing things to happen that would never happen if not for the rolling FLASH mob using overwhelming stifling, smothering influence.
The whole thing has strong components found in cults . . .and it is worry some , that the marvels of new technology provide instant mass reaction and little advanced thought. Cult x 100 fold . ... .or should I say "99". These people are RIPE for a false prophet . . . Danger . . .Will Robinson . .Danger
I am not speaking of how we label things although if we have a common agreement on definitions sometimes labels can be a useful shorthand, What I am talking about is how people label themselves, The fact is most of the intiators of OWS freely admit that they are strongly influenced by the anarchist intellectual tradition, This is not something I am attaching to them, This is something that they attach to themselves, And it is completely anecdotal, based entirely on my personal experience but I have interviewed formally and had dozens of informal conversations with dozens of OWS activists at half a dozen occupations, My impression from these conversations and interviews and based entirely on what these activists told me about themselves and what they said about themselves is that the vast majority of activists in OWS either self identify as liberals or claim that they had no particular political views before becoming OWS activists,
Not disagreeing . . . .this web site comes from Canada and had its name registered before anyone occupied anything.. Pretty good for Nancy Pelosi's definition of an "organic" . "Genuine" "focused" movement. All these tactics have been laid out before them . . .the trick was to make some of them think that it was their idea . . . not hard to do if you have experience in destroying government systems, and manipulating information as the Soros' of the world well know.
It is extremely difficult to have a serious rational conversation with someone who to me appears to have a demented and confused conspiratorial vision of how the world works, If everything is really all that conspiratorial there is really nothing to be done about anything and we all might as well become hedonists,
So even if how you see the world is true, I can't act as though it is true, because that would mean any political act by anyone or any group is immediately suspect and you can never know if you or anyone else is acting out of free will or being manipulated by unknown and inscrutable forces, I choose not to believe such nuttiness for the simple reason that I chose to believe that my behavior has meaning, at least for myself if no one else,
Only in America would Nancy Pelosi be considered a Leftist, And Soros is no friend of OWS, You don't have to look very far to see that OWS is as opposed to Obama and the Democratic Party as it is to the Republicans, If you can't see that you have not been paying attention and know very little about what OWS is and how it functions,
You've heard the phrase "Jump on the Bandwagon" I am sure. It isn't a left or right thing, or even a political thing . . . it's a human nature thing.
Its a Fact that Certain ideologies linger like a rat snake waiting for the precise most effective time to strike. OWS is extremely vulnerable, naive, and ripe for the pickin's . "Progressives" of all ilks are likely to infilitrate and briefly adapt the beliefs of any group of people in order to utilize their resources. AND . . .take advantage of their numbers. Mantras like "I'm Just Like You", "We 're All in this together", "THEY are to Blame" "It's ALL THEY're fault" . . . . certainly were NOT invented by this newest mob.
But you've seen those phrases many times before . . .in many devastating periods of history . . . don't those associations cause some alarms to go off in your head . . .?
Redjazz43 says: "it was a tendency of Old Left groups in the 1930s to infiltrate each others outfits, but that tendency is long past discredited and gone,"
What conspiracy told you that ??/
Your formulation suggests that ideologies have a consciousness outside of the human beings who hold those beliefs, which seems just nutty to me, The whole notion of "infiltration" again suggests a conspiracy theory so comprehensive that it would render all conscious human action meaningless, Sure, the cops infiltrate and it was a tendency of Old Left groups in the 1930s to infiltrate each others outfits, but that tendency is long past discredited and gone,
I frankly don't know where you are getting the expressions you are coming up with, They seem like the products of an extremely demented and disturbed brain to me, It's certainly doesn't bear any relationship to anything that I have personally experienced in OWS or in nearly 50 years of political activism, OWS has raised the issue of solidarity, but I don't see how that has any relationship to anything you are talking about which is difficult to comprehend in any event, Sounds like all kinds of alarms are going off in your head, Get help, The best help I could advise is head directly to the occupation or GA nearest to you and stay there, They will help you,
And what of people who wasted time naysaying it since it clearly is totally irrelevant? How will they Think back on their time?
One hopes they are beng paid.
LOL you think right now is considered "the good ol' days".
it will be for you . . .in 2o years or so