Forum Post: Devices the 1% use to keep the 99% down PLEASE CONTRIBUTE!
Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 7, 2011, 10:57 p.m. EST by BlueRose
(1437)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Credit and lack of healthcare keep the rich in power. The rich can afford to pay hospital bills, the uninsured can't, so they get bad credit trying to pay, then they don't get the banking (or many other kinds of jobs) because they have bad credit. The system is designed to keep the classes static.
I can't move out-of-state because if I did, I would have to pay 3x college tuition costs for being out-of-state. I have limited choices when it comes to where I can work.
I need a fixed work schedule that's more than 20 hrs a week. Companies love to only hire part-timers, and rotate their schedules so they can't get another job and eventually leave the hell company. You can easily be fired, because some other part-timer will be willing to accept the extra hours.
If I am unemployed, it is legal to discriminate against me for hiring in 46 states.
How else is the system rigged? How have you been affected? I got a million examples but it's getting late...
Voter suppression.
Using money to have undue influence in our government.
An education system that is unequal. Kids in wealthy areas generally get a better education.
Advertising and consumerism to convince people to buy stuff they don't need.
FAFSA is unfair. If you're a poor schmuck with some money in the bank you have to report it as an asset, but if you own a company with fewer than 100 employees you don't have to report it as an asset. A company with 99 employees can be worth millions.
Temporary workers.
No more defined benefit pensions.
The constant shaming of poor people. The "It's your fault if your poor" mentality.
"Employment at will."
Degradation of worker's rights.
Decline in wages. Makes people dependent, vulnerable, obedient.
And on and on.
I was told I could not vote because my lic was out-of-state. I had to jump up and down and read their own manual to them before I could vote last time!
They are targeting students who are out-of-state that they think will vote for Obama. They are trying to return us to Jim Crow.
OMG you are right, as the students are the ones with out-of-state IDs! It is an example of how our own people keep us down, these polling place workers are so ready to believe everyone is ineligible to vote.
Also, 25% of African Americans do not have driver's licenses or gov't issued photo IDs. This is largely because they are poor or live in cities.
8% of whites don't and lots of old people don't.
It is obvious who they are targeting and why. These people have no shame.
I myself went a long time without an ID, either because it was stolen, I didn't have the $25, my name was different on social security (a problem a lot of women have), or I couldn't find time to sit at DMV with my hectic schedule.
It happens to a lot of people. They are claiming that there has been voter "fraud." There have been something like 86 cases of voter fraud over the past 10 years or so and they are using this as an excuse to disenfranchise millions of people.
why do women have problems with s.s i.d.'s? if you maried why didnt you change it ? cant spare the time? poor you.
Actually, my step father never legally changed my name when I was a child. SS and birth cert were different. Not as easy to fix as you think. I had to hyphenate for a while. After I had a hyphenated ID I was able to change ss card.
And either do those who choose to live in poverty rather than submit to the bureaucracy of obtaining an ID; really... I actually have photos of couples living miles into the woods, in rural locations, literally on gathered scraps, simply because they would prefer to forgo the hassle of obtaining an ID. Heretofore, I had never seen such incredible poverty as a matter of personal choice. But it definitely exists in even our more prosperous areas.
They may be happier than the rest of us and they should be able to vote, also. It is their business how they live.
I didn't think about the out of state license and college students but that is a big deal during election time. A large portion of college students are democrats or independents who sways towards democrat. This is soo screwed up.
Yes. Just to clarify, in TX I was able to vote w CA ID as long as it was not expired, BUT, I had to educate the poll workers on it.
why don't you have a license from the state you vote in?
Out-of-state student.
if you're in college don't you have a school issued photo i.d.?
Not a legal form of ID.
if you want to vote than get one.
Only in certain states is it required. Won't be needing an ID next election.
a photo i.d. should be a requirement to vote. fraud is too easy otherwise.
This fear of voter fraud is really overblown.
no it isn't. miltary ballots that are not sent out , and when received, not counted, dead people voting, ballots suddenly "found", early voting by mail, signing up tp vote on election day with no I.D.
Military ballots is not an ID issue, that is a separate issue. Dead people voting, I want you to guess how many fraud cases have ever been reported.
It is well known that jor kenndey bought the presidency for jfk. joe kennedy boasted about it. the chicago machine went after 0bama's opponent to insure his win at the local level.
Gooood stuff! Thanks so much! Did not know about that Fafsa thing.
Voter suppressions gonna get real bad soon. In some states, if you come in with an expired driver's license, they will legally block you from voting. Some states make you go through a deputization ceremony with an election official before you can register someone to vote!
I know. I wrote to the President, my Congressman and my Senators yesterday about this. It is a targeted attempt by Republicans to disenfranchise minorities, the elderly and the young. It is wrong, wrong, wrong. Must be stopped.
Unions had success against practices like these for decades, but they are stuck with NLRB "secret ballot" elections which are a farce. If management wins an election, they've won. If the union wins an election, nothing happens for often 2 years.
If a person is illegally fired for union activity (which even the NLRB Bush appointees agreed happened about a quarter of all vote contests), there are zero punitive damages against the employer. None.
You left off the lack of affordable housing, and although housing fell, rent didn't, and in most areas, taxes didn't fall either.
Then there's the price of gas and driving in general, which in many areas, can limit your ability to search for work. Buses don't go everywhere, and rarely fit a work schedule.
Ok here is my example: credit score agencies have rigged us in to using credit. Here is how: you apply for a job the job can do a background check on you if you have bad credit they think you are unreliable even though that has nothing to do with job performance. When you buy a house or a car if you have bad credit you can't get a mortgage or a loan, or if you do the interest is too high. If you want to rent a apartment some of them do background checks if you credit score sucks no apartment. If you are actually someone who lived in their means and never had a credit card in their life you have a problem no rating score so now they don't know what to do with you so guess what your getting discriminate against. This is the truth of the matter they want every one to have a credit history but what if you don't should you be punished for being responsible.
And if a credit report is issued on your behalf it adversely effects against your credit score. If you pay off your credit account off early, it lowers your credit score. If you...(never mind.) You get the idea.
Yes, and banks often want a credit card as your second form of ID. I had such problems opening an account before, as I had no credit card and didn't want one.
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How about interest rates? When the interest rate goes up, lenders make more money and borrowers lose more money. If you have to renew your mortgage and suddenly are paying 5k more a year it is quite a hit, however the interest rate will go down again.
Economists normally talk about lowering interest rates for slowing inflation, however inflation means that your investments and debts are both worth less. So in general, keeping inflation down favours the rich money lenders, not people with mortgages and student debt.
The economy is cyclic. When things go bad for the general population, only the very rich have the resources to claim vast amounts of property and businesses at discounted rates. When the economy is doing well, they sell investments for much more than they are worth and move to more secure investments until the next crash.
Cycling interest rates is a form of economic manipulation that helps to keep the cyclic nature of the economy which acts as an enormous barrier between classes.
Hi BlueRose! The phase-out of retirement plans and phase-in of 401(k) plans gets money out of the hands of hard working people and into the financial banks (if you're fortunate enough to even have good employment). Now this big push to get rid of Social Security? So that workers will be even more inclined to put more into 401(k)s? Get rid of Medicare? Why? So the insurance companies get that money, cuz we need health insurance when we're retired, right?? Insurance companies invest the money they receive as premiums and where does most of that investment money go? Wall St investment banks, of course. Insurance companies pass their losses on to us in the form of higher premiums. What a set-up! ~ Thunderclap
The # 1 tool they use is psychology - how many times do they point out that it's our own damn fault we can't afford health care or that we are unemployed.
How many times have you heard Capitalism is beyond reproach. It's perfect. you're the flaw.
"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a Communist."~Hélder Câmara
Exactly. And, funny thing, it is nearly always Christian white males who inherited something, who profess "free market capitalism" to be just peachy!
The problem with religion is it makes you more vulnerable to believing without questioning.
Just remember that a lot of those privileged white males were sent to the best schools, groomed for business, dressed up nice and given jobs in the banking sector with fat salaries. They didn't get there because they were really all that smart. They are the ones who are dealing the potentially explosive derivatives lurking inside your bank that may or may not show up on your banks balance. There are smart guys out there ---they might be at Goldman, there's probly a few running hedge funds, the smart ones are going to see the opportunity lurking in the derivative crap the not so smart privileged guy that works at your bank is selling. When the next flaw in the over leveraged unregulated system shows up it will probably be huge and you will be on the hook for the bill again because we have changed almost nothing since 2008.
The companies who make a huge cattle call for a few stupid positions really irk me. How many man-hours have been wasted by people who line up around a block to find there are only a few positions to be filled?
I'm known for being a pretty consistent saver. When I filed a worker's comp. claim at a job I was doing at the insistence of my manager no less, it was denied just as many others were.
I won my case with the help of a contingency attorney but had I not saved enough in what I call my 'emergency fund' there is no way I would have been able to endure the legal process to conclude and win the case with the aid of a legal professional over the course of almost a year.
The way I see it, when it comes to labor law the big companies have everything rigged so that the rank and file 99% who rarely have enough in savings to survive a 1 to 2 year employment deficit or layoff (because they typically have around '0' months, 2 to 3 months worth of income saved) are 'easy marks' for a legal process that makes a lawsuit when necessary not readily pursuable!
If I had not had the habit of squirreling away a portion of earnings for my personal 'emergency fund' then there's no way I would have ever had legal recourse to follow through with the case.
Also, product, service or goods that are 'tiered' and only available to economically classified members and only which most of us are unable to see since few know about the difference in care from a 'free service provider' to a Platinum one it begs the question as to WHY many Americans don't want things simplified and become more demanding to change these things so there isn't this kind of discrimination!
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Oh let us not forget Koch Brothers and their Libertarianism, "trickle down economics", and Austrian school. All designed by and for the 1%.
Absolutely true. Love your mind, BlueRose...
a) http://www.businessinsider.com/these-are-the-30-american-companies-that-paid-less-than-zero-income-tax-from-2008-2010-2011-11?op=1#ixzz1ejBOPiGq ,
b) http://www.ctj.org/corporatetaxdodgers/CorporateTaxDodgersReport.pdf ,
c) http://www.storyofstuff.org/movies-all/story-of-broke/
d) http://rt.com/programs/keiser-report/ ,
e) "Home Burns While Firefighters Watch" : http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29909.htm !
qui tacet consentire ...
The first step is getting rid of dishonest companies!
http://occupywallst.org/forum/make-a-stand-join-the-clan/
The Revolution starts here!
RIGHT ON!!!!
Thank you. I only hope you tell as many people about Toshiba as possible. Also tell them about this:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/enterprise-rent-a-car-murders-children/
They're almost as bad. :(
The 1% tells small businesspeople over and over, "Your jobs are for teenagers only". The people believe it, then rightly get sued for age discrimination. Just because your master tells you to do something, doesn't make it right. This notion of "teen jobs" vs "adult jobs" cause all wages to suffer. Some teens are supporting families themselves.
Don't fall for the gangsters' political tactics. They keep moving the posts to the "right" (i.e., the Republicans) so far that you feel like you have to vote for the "not so far right" (i.e., the Democrats). But all along they have moved everything to the "right". Obama (the black trojan horse) got more things done for the mega rich oligarch banksters and client corporations than George Bush from the economy, healthcare, militarism, to the environment.
It is all about the economy. The economy is all about capitalism, capitalism is all about profit, profit is all about theft, theft is all about private ownership. As long as we have an economic system based on private ownership, they can steal and accumulate and become more powerful and do it even more effectively becoming richer and richer on the backs of the poor becoming poorer and poorer. The enemy is not even the 1%, it is capitalism (and even more specifically private ownership which is at the heart of profit and greed). We need to establish an alternative economic system based on common ownership - i.e., where no one can steal because everything belongs to everybody.
The first step is to learn to share, not any kind of sharing, but the type where you and the other person owns something together so now your fate is sealed (at least in that on initial aspect) and have to decide jointly, cooperatively, "succeeding" together of "failing" together. Using "science and technology" should help significantly. Then you could extend that to other aspects of survival (e.g., from food, to shelter, energy, transportation, etc.) and other people gradually developing a self-reliant / autonomous tribe / commune / community in the true sense of the word, carving an existence out of capitalism which steals every working person's life energy from them in the form of profit and uses it against them through oppression and repression.
We need to move forward systematically, by experiments, and by example. The first thing is to occupy our minds, rethink the old assumptions (all injected into us by the current power structure) that imprison us, and work out an escape route that is feasible and practical based on evidence and experiment, even if it had not been tried before.
"Everything could be considered a utopia until it succeeds".
I have commented on this myself. They want OWS to shift right, and GOP to shift far wacky Libertarian. We should go wayy left if we want to pull them back.
I agree with you, though somewhat relatively. I think we should get out of trying to play "politics", i.e., their game. We should become grounded, i.e., propose / experiment / implement plans not based on what is "politically" palatable, rather what is "economically" necessary (to survive, including elements of both labor and environment) and secondarily based on what is possible (again not based on politics, rather based on "science and technology"). We should not fall into the game of giant capitalists or capitalists period, who make the game, make their own rules, and then don't even follow their own rules changing the posts arbitrarily according to their profit imperative.
Ultimately, we need to establish an alternative economy based on common ownership, effectively removing their source of profit and private power - i.e., private property. This will emasculate them / rendering them powerless. Short of that we will always get the short end of the stick.
I definitely agree, the private property stuff is a big scam, we need to value labor. I did add to my previous statement (below), I am happy to have GOP fight for the 99%, but not take over OWS for the 1%.
Do you actually believe GOP can fight for the 99%? GOP represents the most aggressive / fascist elements of capitalism in the world (not that the Democrats are any different despite using a different language for the sam purpose). That is like saying masters (GOP) fight for the slaves (the 99%). We need to understand what class antagonism means. It is a life and death issue. The rich can't become rich unless they steal and kill the poor. GOP by definition cannot fight for the 99%, it has to fight against them - do or die. The rich recognize this very well and that is why they actively undermine any attempts for the working class (the 99%) to become class conscious and organize.
No, I do not personally believe GOP as an institution will help at all. I think we are on the same side, saying pretty much the same thing, really. I weigh the benefit of a nonpartisan image of OWS.
You seem to understand that the system is rigged, though I am not sure to what extent you have researched this. Of course your personal experience helps a lot, but you know they want you to always have a ray of hope about "the American Dream".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q
Have you thought about trying to live outside of capitalism and how to get there?
However, of course I want a good portion of the 99% to be involved in OWS. Trouble is, Republicans seem to to vote against themselves, and the 99% en masse.
Decline in wage worth.
Using threat of unemployment to keep workers from protesting abuses.
Insisting employees keep wages secret under threat of unemployment - hence limiting their ability to bargain for better wages.
Requiring "open schedules" for employees, limiting their ability to get secondary jobs.
Abuse of Part-Time Work (ie, using it to fill positions that were once full time. Forcing workers to choose between it and being laid off)
Discrimination against Lack of Credit History. (You can't get loans for houses, student loans, etc without credit history. You can't get credit history unless you have debt. If you have debt, you shouldn't be applying for loans. Talk about an oxymoron)
Finally, some really serious discussion about real and not imagined problems that are being talked about.
Hierarchies are the biggest tool the 1% use to restrain those below them. The triangular structure, with the most people on the bottom and less and less people upwards, until you have the owner or few board owners at the top. It keeps decision making controlled and constantly in check, keeping the top-level vultures in power. It's time that we find ways to crack the ladders and watch the top suckers fall to the ground.
I've always found it a bit ironic that we live in a free country, but get forced to work in dictatorships to earn a living.
I have just discovered something interesting that I think is directly related to this topic; moreso than even the OP. It is the "Act of 1871". Its implications are so ridiculous that I at first did not believe that it was possible. Further research has led me to change my original opinion. I will leave it to you to do your own research on the subject for I do not believe that I can offer any explanation that will sound even remotely credible.
Move your money to a credit union, if they don't have your money to play with they don't have power, if you have not moved your money out of Bank of America and the other big guys then you are the problem, not them.
21st-Century Slaves: How Corporations Exploit Prison Labor In the eyes of the corporation, inmate labor is a brilliant strategy in the eternal quest to maximize profit.
http://www.alternet.org/world/151732/21st- century_slaves%3A_how_corporations_exploit_prison_labor/?page=entire
Union Workers Replaced With Prison Labor Under Scott Walker’s Collective Bargaining Law http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/07/06/261319/scott-walker-prison-labor/
Here's the whole agenda. http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=376
EXcellent...
Glad you liked it . Here's another good site that shows why we have so few jobs in the US. http://economyincrisis.org/content/trade-data-to-hint-at-u-s-economic-difficulties
In Texas, you can pay someone under 20 below state minimum wage. You can pay them $4 and some change an hour for the first 3 months of a job. So this means people who have summer jobs can get paid a little over $4 til they are 20! Another thing Texas loves to do is make positions "independent contractors", exploit workers by abusing internships, and cities are turning paid positions into volunteer positions.
Translation: "let me tell you why I can't make it in this country and are destined to be a permanent loser".
It's more like, "I don't take $@#! from nobody, not only that, I don't let others take $#@! they don't deserve.
Who decides what others "deserve"? You? Lololololol!
I thought this an interesting read about how the stock market works.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11345/1195753-109.stm
Seems GardenRidge is forcing me to disclose my age on the online application. Isn't that illegal?
Can someone please HELP me complain to the EEOC that Garden Ridge online application forces me to put my age? I am not over 40, so they will not let me complain legally. I think this is wrong, maybe you want to apply and you think this is wrong and you are over 40?
Isn't THIS convenient!!!
"A congregation or other group may use voter registration lists to identify unregistered voters, provided that it does not target voter registration efforts to those who are registered with a particular party."
http://texasimpact.org/PDFs/FIT07VoterRegDrive.pdf
I think congregations are more organized than "other groups".
Republicans pay a bounty as much as $20 I have seen for absentee registrations in key districts. Democrats as a rule don't pay for these, in my experience.
I suggest all OWS vote absentee if your state allows, you are more likely to vote if you sign up to vote by mail. Republicans have pushed for absentee registrations for YEARS.
"If I am unemployed, it is legal to discriminate against me for hiring in 46 states". So talk to your law maker ! Geeez !!!!
I don't have that kind of cash to get him to listen.
then you need to get a bunch of his constituents together & show him you have the numbers to unseat them. Yea - it takes a little effort. Look at the Tea Party. Very successful
I suggest you look up "Occupy Wall St" and see what they are about.
The oil business is one of the largest industries in the world. It’s also the most costly enterprise for collecting, processing, and distributing energy ever conceived. Virtually all of the other critical industries that emerged from the oil culture and feed off of the fossil fuel spigot — modern finance, automotive, power and utilities, and telecommunications — were, in one way or another, similarly predisposed to bigness in order to achieve their own economies of scale. And, like the oil industry, they require huge sums of capital to operate and are organized in a centralized fashion.
Here's a good list to start with...
https://sites.google.com/site/the99percentdeclaration/
I was hungry but I didn't have any money so I took a can of tuna from the mini market. I don't think that makes me a crminal. They had a lot of tuna
They put cops at polling places to intemadate people who might be criminals from voting! Thats WRONG! Just because you commit crimes dosnt mean you should not be allowed to vote!
Felons are not allowed to vote, in some cases they can get their rights back.
I HATE to say this here, because I don't want to discourage voting. But your voter info is PUBLIC RECORD, and collection agencies use it to find you. That has GOT to change. People go to the polls and inspect those sign-in sheets with your name and address!
That's why some people I know opt out of voting. Your address and name aren't supposed to be public record without your permission.
Still, if you think that's wrong, then think about this: There are businesses who make a profit by keeping track of people who commit minor felonies. They keep their names and IDs on file, and are paid by companies to look up the info on every person they hire.
So, let's say you're a reckless teen and you get caught shoplifting. Hard lesson learned, so you quit effin around, finish high school, go to college, etc. Ten years later, you apply for a job. And the company says "Sorry, you have a criminal record, we can't hire you."
I get mad at people who shoplift at the stores I work for, but I don't believe in punishing someone for a minor mistake ten years later, especially if they've cleaned up their act. Those records should remain in the hands of the law enforcement, not a private company who profits from their use.
Did you know, people go to courthouses to collect names, if you even have a case filed against you for nonpayment of rent, you go on blacklists? Landlords buy these lists. Does not matter if you win your case or not, you are never going to get an apartment if this happens.
I'm not surprised by it. I understand that these were originally to protect them from those that abuse the system. But at this point, it's become an abuse of the system. You shouldn't be denied a job because of an error you made over a decade before, or denied an apartment because you had to go to court to settle a case against a landlord - especially since you may be the one in the right, or the situation might have been caused by circumstances you couldn't prevent. (ie, medical emergencies and job layoffs.)
Well, this rich guy cut me off in his BMW M3 once, does that qualify?
Sorry, sometimes I feel the need to lighten the mood.
Yes, especially if you talk about his sense of entitlement at the expense of the general welfare of others.
Go to Mexico, then reenter the U.S. as an illegal, you will get in state tuition, free medical all sorts of things.
Renouncing citizenship has its own set of problems... I did pay out-of-state and it was 3x as much.
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foreclosures for everybody else... While the billionaires steal our tax dollars... Fair share...4 sure...
"The banks have said, leave us deregulated, we know how to run things, don't put government in to meddle. Then with that freedom of maneuver they took huge gambles, and even made illegal actions, and then broke the world system. As soon as that happened then they rushed out to say 'bail us out, bail us out, if you don't bail us out, we're too big to fail, you have to save us'. As soon as that happened, they said 'oh, don't regulate us, we know what to do'. And they almost went back to their old story, and the public is standing there, amazed, because we just bailed you out how can you be paying yourself billions of dollars of bonuses again? And the bankers say, 'well we deserve it, what's your problem'? And the problem that the Occupy Wall Street and other protesters have is: you don't deserve it, you nearly broke the system, you gamed the economy, you're paying mega fines, yet you're still in the White House you're going to the state dinners, you're paying yourself huge bonuses, what kind of system is this?
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/talktojazeera/2011/12/2011121074125944352.html
The ministry of plenty.
In my state if you have a 2.7 high school GPA and a 21 on the ACT you can go to college for free in-state. You can also get completely free health care. We also have section 8 vouchers that pays 1200 dollars for apts/houses if your income is below a certain level. That free college tuition, though, should keep people from needing the latter though.
What state is that?
Devices? You mean like hand cuffs and stuff? I don't know; they dressed me in a mini-maid-skirt and that alone kept me down most of the day.
Here is some advice. Are you listening? : Dont be poor
Here's some for you. Don't ever have misfortune.
this movement is not about misfortune. It is about class envy.
The only way it is class envy is the rich envying the poor for having real human experiences.
hahaha! - ok - keep smoking that stuff - it's really helping you I can see.
They also hate the fact that the poor can see a sunset for free, smell the flowers for free...
yea - ok. keep it up - the hallucinations just keep getting better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mkRFCtl2MI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EewGMBOB4Gg
http://thezeitgeistmovement.com/
http://blog.thezeitgeistmovement.com/
http://www.thevenusproject.com/
Ya know, it really takes a lot of guts to yell at everyone and blame the world for your problems instead of actually going out and doing something real about it. I applaud your courage.
Another way the system is rigged is free medical care for criminals.