Forum Post: Inuits hired by OWS
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 2, 2011, 4:54 p.m. EST by Thrasymaque
(-2138)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
In its bid to prepare for the winter months, OWS's general assembly passed a motion yesterday to hire two Canadian Inuits from Nunavut. Mr. Aguta Akluitok and Mr. Arjalinerk Ataneq will be tasked with training OWS protesters. Their curriculum is impressive. Both have extensive experience in traditional Inuit tracking and hunting and have served on the Canadian's special reserves as elite winter survival specialists. Confidential sources reveal they served as headhunters during the frantic Obama Bin Laden search in the snow covered caves of Tora Bora.
With this move, OWS aims to put to rest any speculation that the movement will die during the upcoming winter months. After the purchase of numerous iPads and MacBook Pros, this is their biggest expenditure yet. Something to the tune of $100,000.
Of what significance is it that people own iPads and MacBooks?
They're significant if they're bought using money that was donated to Occupy Wall Street. A lot of people are laughing over the 15 minutes spent during this GA to debate purchasing an iPad: http://www.nycga.net/2011/10/30/nycga-minutes-10302011/ That debate over the iPad neatly captured many different facets of criticism about the movement and embodied them in a caricature.
In that General Assembly there were a bunch of people using their little sparkle hand signals and their human microphone to spend all of that time debating the purchase of an iPad using donated money instead of working on zeroing in on one demand that "awakens the imagination", so that the movement could actually accomplish something other than purchasing an iPad with donated money. They rationalized that they could use the iPad to "add to the body of scientific literature", but then immediately after that they admitted that they have no plans to write scientific papers, they're just going to publish blog posts. Presumably using the iPad. While they're taking a break from using it for Facebook.
The iPad is significant to people considering donating money into that bank account, if that's the kind of thing that it will be spent on. And more importantly it's significant to people who have been hoping for some kind of a counter-balance to the Tea Party's "Contract From America", which is what this movement was originally going to be about before it was co-opted by nihilists and anarchists.
What I mean by that is obvious if you look at the original call to action from AdBusters that started all of this:
Whatever happened to zeroing in on that one demand? Why is this movement unable to come up with anything approximating a platform of issues? This is what the Tea Party managed to come up with: http://www.contractfromamerica.org/the-contract-from-america/
10 clear points! Solid positions on specific issues! Something that people could get behind! Something that could be advanced by like-minded candidates! Who were then elected! Who then went to work accomplishing progress! Will that ever happen with this movement? Highly unlikely! The iPad is just one detail in the political cartoon in peoples' minds.
OH, and....
Here's where the Contract "From" America actually came from:
"The commission is being organized by FreedomWorks, the libertarian advocacy group that helped grow the Tea Party movement and mobilize it for the midterm elections. And its recommendations are likely to line up with the goals of that group, which in turn tend to reflect those of libertarian organizations like the Cato Institute. "
This quote is taken from the Contract From America website.
A bunch of Tea Party grannies sittin' around the kitchen table did not come up with that wonderful platform of "10 clear points"!!!!!!
A bunch of policy wonks from FreedomWorks did it for them.
Go ahead & criticize but let's be honest & transparent about it.
I'm not a Tea Partier. I don't support all of the items in that platform statement, so it's easy for me to figure out whether I support them or not. Not so simple with this crowd.
I've seen you try to present yourself as a legitimate critic of this movement but more often than not, you post like a smarmy troll.
The minutes you posted a link to say this regarding the Ipad:
"We’re asking for funding in the amount of $538 to purchase an iPad that we would set up as a mobile voting booth to set up in the Plaza here for people to come and participate in the experiment. "
It says they wanted to use the Ipad to set up a voting kiosk in the park.
Yet you feel the need to denigrate with this baseless comment:
"....purchasing an iPad with donated money. They rationalized that they could use the iPad to "add to the body of scientific literature"
And, yeah. It is DONATED money. Not public money. If you don't like how they spend it, don't donate.
I don't post on Tea Party forums to tell them how to spend THEIR money.
The Democrats aren't telling the Republican party how to spend THEIR donations (only the law is)
If the donors are okay with them buying 1000 Ipads or hiring 100 Inuits, what do you care?
And if the Tea Party platform is so great, stick with your Tea Party rallies & forums and stop being a smarmy troll.
"baseless"? They're not planning to publish a scientific paper. They're planning to write a blog entry.
Also, for what they paid for that iPad, they could have bought two PCs. I guess PCs aren't hip, though.
They also spent $20,000 on MacBook Pros and other toys. The iPad debate was just a lot funnier, since the $20,000 was spent quietly.
That AdBuster article was the inspiration that lead to the first meeting. However, a US anthropologist (I forget his name, you can search yourself), took over the meeting and proposed and alternative to the AdBuster article. He had to idea to make no demands and keep OWS as vague as possible, at least in the beginning. The idea is it's easier to gain supporters this way. As soon as you start focusing on proposed solutions, you are bound to lose many supporters.
Yes, that's true. As soon as you pick an issue and a position on that issue you're going to alienate somebody. But never picking any issues or positions is also going to just bore people who might support something if there were something to support. Intentionally deciding to not focus on any objective is the same thing as intentionally failing to accomplish any objective.
Not sure, I copy/pasted the news clipping. I own a MacBook Pro myself. I rather enjoy it.
Ah, what was the source?
It was in Jakarta Post this morning.
So you are going to hunt elk in lower NYC
I guess Bear Grylls was busy?
Ya, he's full booked with Juice Plus ads.
Cool!
Okay, so we're talking about CIA operatives.
More Canadian connections. Anyone else have a problem with this?
US and Canada are interconnected like your father and mother were the day you were conceived. What's new, and what's the problem?
We may be Canada's biggest trading partner. However, we are a sovereign nation. We do not live in a north American union. People thinking this are completely unaware of how most Americans feel about their country.
Who thinks this? Uneducated Americans who can't differentiate between Austria and Australia on the world map?
and many far left goons from Canada and the NE United States.
Finally some minorities are gonna be there.
Do Inuits write my Tax Software? If so, thank you, it is very helpful