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Forum Post: I need three that agree...

Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 28, 2011, 7:11 p.m. EST by wavefreak58 (134)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

I'm having a conversation online with someone about OWS in general and some of the motivations behind it. This person has a somewhat skeptical view of the whole thing. At one point in the conversation we had this exchange:

(The background is the idea that the people that get paid huge sums to run large corporations deserve huge sums because it is actually a rare talent and an important part of the economy - this way oversimplifies the conversation but I can't do much better for now)

MY RESPONSE TO EARLIER PARTS OF THE CONVERSATION:

No one with a brain would argue that running a billion dollar corporation is something anyone can do. But the gap between the lower and upper segments is accelerating. The justification for allowing extravagant wealth in a society based on equal rights is that benefits will accrue to all when the some are fabulously successful. But the data tells a different story. I heard a story on NPR today about a company that went from 50,000 employees to 30,000 and a stock price of $10 from a peak of $70. The departing CEO received a severance package of 36 MILLION dollars. He got over 50 times the median income for essentially a massive FAILURE. Why shouldn't people be pissed off? 20,000 people lost their jobs, stock holders took an 85% haircut and the man at the top walks away set for life.

The problem isn't that some people work their ass off, make really successful companies and get fantastically compensated. The problem is that the pain of failure is not equally shared.

THE REBUTTAL: Find me 3 people at Occupy Anywhere who agrees with your last paragraph and I will give you 100 dollars. :) Srsly. about an hour ago

MY RESPONSE: LOL. That would require me going down to one of these camps and actually interacting with people. Wouldn't that be something to watch?

(Note: I am high functioning autistic and crowds are not a pleasant experience for me)

THE REJOINDER: It is possible online too. Don't try to get out of this. If you are so sure of what it is about via one statement, then show me the "money". I have not yet found 2 people to agree on any ONE point on this one. LOL!

SO, I need three people that agree with the last paragraph above whare I state this:

"The problem isn't that some people work their ass off, make really successful companies and get fantastically compensated. The problem is that the pain of failure is not equally shared."

23 Comments

23 Comments


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[-] 1 points by bensdad (8977) 12 years ago

i agree with you - it is one of the problems - but the CORE problem is GREED - a natural human trait. Society itself has been geared to regulate greed - so I dont steal your car - but Regan started the demolishment of society's well designed regulations and restraints - such as it is illegal to purjure [ Iran Conta ] and corporate power must be balanced by union power.

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[-] 1 points by wavefreak58 (134) 12 years ago

Thank you. I can now proceed with that rather lengthy discussion.

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[-] 1 points by wavefreak58 (134) 12 years ago

Hmmm ....

Maybe I'm wrong? That would be too bad ...

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[-] 1 points by wavefreak58 (134) 12 years ago

No third person?

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[-] 1 points by wavefreak58 (134) 12 years ago

Need one more ...

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[-] 1 points by wavefreak58 (134) 12 years ago

That's 2 - Thanks bronxj

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[-] 1 points by bronxj (150) 12 years ago

"The problem isn't that some people work their ass off, make really successful companies and get fantastically compensated. The problem is that the pain of failure is not equally shared." I agree.

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[-] 1 points by wavefreak58 (134) 12 years ago

Thanks gawdoftruth

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[-] 1 points by gawdoftruth (3698) from Santa Barbara, CA 12 years ago

easy enough. i agree. I'm john mark bassist, this message has my seal of approval.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPR3GlpQQJA

I have been active here since the very beginning, and since the very beginning I have been trying to make some core points. These points clearly have not been digested or fully understood by the mob, and so I'm going to try to make a further attempt here again.

  1. Merely protesting in the streets will not bring change. In fact merely protesting in the streets is in fact a means to the end of avoiding the real work of a revolution, which consists of the evolutionary solutions, answers, problem solving process, and new political alignment we create.
  2. This forum is absolutely disorganized. It won't be read by most people and it won't and can't function as a core organizational system.
  3. Back at the very start of this, I petitioned the admin to add multiple sub forums and a wiki. Multiple sub forums were promised but have never arrived. I think that this tells us that the intention actually of this forum is message control and containment. The entire purpose really of this forum has always been to keep us spinning in disorganization. We are hanging out on a forum that expressly exists to actually keep us confused and disorganized.
  4. The real work of a revolution isn't going to happen on forums, it needs to happen in a much more organized fashion using collaborative software.
  5. The assorted other details about how to collaborate, how to work open source direct democracy, how to focus in on science instead of isms, how to become hyper rational about this, are details which are essential and crucial, without which we can predict the movement to fail.
  6. Technically speaking we are not 99 percent, we are one tenth of one percent attempting to represent the 99 percent. Our core mission must be to communicate to and with the 99 percent, and get them to join us. This forum will not accomplish that and neither will any of the other main websites.
  7. You can follow other people out to other wikis and other websites, where they will try to get you to get involved with what they want and their program, but frankly speaking, there is no other website and no other operation out there which understands the complexities involved with meaningful organization. In short, everyones being led to get involved here there and everywhere else, scattering the movement in directions which ultimately do not gain us critical mass, criticial momentum, or critical systemic lucidity.
  8. I have managed to get a wiki put up and have already put on that wiki evolutionary details which make it more organized than anything else. I can't do this alone. There are 10 or so wikis now out there, most of which were created in response to my pleas for a wiki, and several of which are in domains owned and operated by some corporation, (wikia, etc) And which we can thus assume will simply be closed, shut down, or deleted if they become useful to the movement.
  9. Probably at least half of the invites you have to go participate at some other site are people who are scamming everyone to waste time and energy, distort the movement, co opt it, and etc. When you walk off into a closet ask yourself how you know that the closet isn't created by some fed, or by some republican, or by some democrat, in order to sway things in their direction.
  10. The only meaningful strategic option we have for real change in this country is to create a new third party, and take every political office in this country.
  11. Once that is done, we can have an article 5 convention. If we have an article 5 convention before getting rid of the oligachs, that just opens the genie from the bottle for them to abuse that process with their corruption and evil.

For these reasons, I beg of you to please immediately join me on the wiki. We need to have all of these details and all of these ideas put together in an organized fashion, rather than posted in a long scrawl which will never be read.

http://occupythiswiki.org/wiki/THE_99%25_POLITICAL_PARTY

http://occupythiswiki.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://www.followthemoney.org/?gclid=CMbY87bB-qsCFUPt7Qod9HE8mQ

http://maplight.org/us-congress/guide/data/money?9gtype=search&9gkw=list%20of%20campaign%20donations&9gad=6213192521.1&9gag=1786513361&gclid=CP61oYbB-qsCFQFZ7AodcTF0jw

http://www.opensecrets.org/

http://occupywallst.org/forum/our-new-wiki/

http://occupywallst.org/forum/non-violence-evolution-by-paradigm-shift/

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