Forum Post: Please...help me understand this movement!
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 4, 2011, 12:20 a.m. EST by fireman97045
(15)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I am a career firefighter (Over 26 years) on the west coast, and was in NYC last weekend for our annual Tunnel to Towers run for one of our fallen firefighters in 9/11...I spent part of Sat. night with you guys in the park. Please share with me why I should be involved, and what this is all about. I do NOT like our current elected officials, I did NOT vote for Obama. I support LESS government, less rights for huge business and values like this...share with me why someone like me should be involved. Its a bit confusing...
I found this article to help me understand just how far gone the income inequity is in our country. http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph
Thanks for the link!
revg33k - I have read that link...Thanks! Still needing more...gawdoftruth - read that too....Not overly impressed with that. Need straight forward communications on this movement. replies from gawdoftruth not really needed. lol
Please don't make it be, "other people have more money than me", or "most of the money is made by the top whatever %". This is America you can make money if you do well, that is your right. If everyone to the right and left of you doesn't make money, it's not your fault. You cannot "equalize" income.
HOWEVER, if you're cutting jobs while at the same time giving yourself a bonus, that's wrong. Or if you hire enough CPA's you can get enough loop holes that defers your millions in taxes, that's wrong. Or if a company donates to your fund you introduce laws that benefit those companies that's wrong. Or if you move all the jobs overseas or let trade in without it benefiting the economy then something is wrong.
Many many people are not for Obama or are republican and want to support this cause. We need to make it as independent as possible.
@yosteve
Beyond "leaderless resistance to fight greed & corruption" I also get
"a decentralized non-violent rebellion against economic tyranny.
It is a leaderless movement that has been dependent upon tens of thousands of individuals taking it upon themselves to take action and fight back against their own personal financial hardships, and in defense of their family and friends who are desperately struggling to make ends meets"
http://ampedstatus.org/a-report-from-the-frontlines-the-long-road-to-occupywallstreet-and-the-origins-of-the-99-movement/?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed
ALSO: "The global banking cartel, centered at the IMF, World Bank and Federal Reserve, have paid off politicians and dictators the world over — from Washington to Greece to Egypt. In country after country, they have looted national economies at the expense of local populations, consolidating wealth in unprecedented fashion…”
I can see that! Thank you for your reply....
I have also been trying to figure it out. I think it is based on "participatory democracy" and trying to get consensus from people directly rather than being forced to chose from the available options that are all corrupted by funds from monied interests. I am a liberal who did vote for Obama, am frustrated with how our government is working (or not working) and with the partisan tennis game that just seems to be getting in the way of solving serious problems (and disagreements) we have.
I feel your frustrations! Our govt. can't continue to give everything away. I wish this movement was more about being accountable for one's OWN well being...just saying! Thanks for the reply!
no offense fireman but I just don't see how a comment like that can come from someone who risks their life for others for basically nothing, by that logic then people should all just buy fire extinguishers and take care of their own fires so that we don't have to pay into a public institution that goes around taking care of other peoples mistakes.
LOL, govt. handouts with no checks and balances! Thats what I am talking about. We get paid quite well and very few truly help others as we do...Handouts and special programs that enable people to never get off govt. programs is NOT helping others...taxes are something that we all must pay BUT wasteful Govt. spending should be stopped as well as Corp. greed! Both are wrong.
Which government spending do you think is more wasteful: tax money spend on public services such as healthcare, education, police and the fire service - or subsidies, bailouts, tax loop holes and tax cuts for corporations and the rich?
In my opinion spending tax money on public services is beneficial to all individuals in society, while spending tax money on corporations and the rich is harmful to society because it takes funding away from services that do benefits society, so there will be less of those.
I am not disagreeing with that...I am saying that some of the social services programs have failed and continue to cost millions such as welfare. Drug testing and monitored spending of basic foods should all be mandated, like they are starting in Florida. Healthcare is another huge expense that was supposed to be reduced with ObamaCare but we are seeing skyrocketing increases all the same...
From what I understand, this movement stems from a general frustration with big business and unregulated financial institutions. Specific political stances, like supporting/hating Obama, are secondary. This is about holding banks and corporations responsible for the damage they've caused the average American.
Also: Thank you for 26 years of saving fellow American citizens. You are a true patriot.
Thanks for the kind words! That makes some sense, should Govt. not be blamed even more since they have created the laws in which big business operates? Lets go after who is really at fault...waste, greed, profits....
I definitely think governments and financial institutions are intertwined and I understand your point. But think of it this way: big business and government are like a Pitbull and its owner. We're a whole bunch of little kids on the street and the Pitbull has pulled free of its leash. Which do we take down first--dog or owner?
Our immediate concern should be what's chasing us-- the Pitbull (financial institutions that are still trying to screw us). Then we reform the owner (which is what allowed the financial institutions to get so deregulated). That isn't to say we shift blame completely, but I do think we should prioritize things.
Good description! I can not say that I disagree! Well said....
Check the link after the edit mark on this page for a working list of goals http://occupywallst.org/forum/first-official-release-from-occupy-wall-street/
and this Warning from the original Tea Party before it got hijacked http://occupywallst.org/forum/an-open-letter-and-warning-from-a-former-tea-party/
I am trying to find out the goals and ideologies behind this as well, so far the best I have found out is this:
This is a non-movement movement, it has no official goals or even reason.
Check the link after the edit mark on this page for a working list of goals http://occupywallst.org/forum/first-official-release-from-occupy-wall-street/
and this Warning from the original Tea Party before it got hijacked http://occupywallst.org/forum/an-open-letter-and-warning-from-a-former-tea-party/
Thank you, I have been looking these pages over.
no prob, the style of the forum can be intimidating at first.
here are some quotes from other conversations which i think answer your question. the summary is that you are being con scammed and screwed over by caste warfare, and we are standing up for everyones rights including yours.
sorry, i do know exactly what feudalism is. You trying to talk about its main features and then say that other features of feudalism are not the feudalism is silly. The dominant or single most relevant point is land ownership, certainly, but there are other features of feudalism, one of which is most certainly taxes, and to the point, by definition taxation as such begins in feudal systems. It is remarkably futile and silly to argue with me. It would be wiser to stop and take your opportunity to chat with the DJIN. capitalism is ALSO a system which has NEVER existed.
the core issues; 1. Corporate Personhood. 2. Caste Warfare; they started it. 3. Its legal to lie to the USA public. 4. They are OUR airwaves. They should be used for WETHEPEOPLE not leased by the government to corporations. Put Local colleges in charge of all the media. Arrest and seize all mass media devices and then give those devices straight out to the local colleges, including the land they sit on. We need education public media; not legalized lying and propaganda wars against the people. 5. Education reform. Everyones being kept stupid and ignorant on purpose in school and repugnicons want to argue about how to pay or punish teachers. We need child centered education reform, not a con scam to privatize education and thus score all our children for corporate zombotification. 6. Free market system. Not slave market system. Not caste market system. Not Caste warfare market system. Not rigged Casino. Not making something off of nothing and making bubbles to grease a gravy train either. Free market system. We must have one of those. Its time to have one of those. We have NEVER YET had one of those. 7. Realistic regulation of the government to regulate and control corporations so that what they do is fair and just and ethical and under control instead of a parade of unleashed godzillas turning the masses into to toe jam. 8. Real and direct representation, including no more lobbying, and including an evolutionary use of the internet with organized forums and wikis replacing the old style of congressional/ mayoral office.
"Right, but that still doesn't preclude taxation, which is in fact necessary to regulate the value of money"
nope. taxation period of any kind is merely and only a means to the end of creating a caste system. And even deeper, taxation dynamically entropizes a system, so its not only not necessary to regulate money, its the single largest entropic contributor to the system. The ONLY reason why we pay taxes is thats the feudal system; the idea that we pay anything remotely approaching the same thing or fair to what the rich pay is preposterous. The whole point of taxes is to distribute wealth from the poor to the rich. period.
gawdoftruth (Santa Barbara, CA) 1 points 0 seconds ago
"the end goal product should be that every small community takes care of its own. Any federal system is a problem definition of something requiring more serious attention to solve. long term social programs managed by nation sized meta entities is a disaster not only socially and civilly but to the people who get third rate borg social services. A well functioning system does not need a welfare system, it only has a highly evolved net which catches people and only involves less than one percent of the population at any given time, not punishing but rehabing and educating folks. Until such time as that end goal is achieved, no hand outs is a paradox... you have to spend time and thus money in order to fix the problems till their fixed past needing time or money."
"Why aren't u in office???"
aspergers syndrome. you want to run,? i can ghost write your platform? :)
?
"Understood we need more ideas then politicians anyway. The fixes are so simple but so difficult to get implemented."
? gawdoftruth (Santa Barbara, CA) 1 points 0 seconds ago
i'm running for chief of staff. bit early to announce yet since i have no clue whos running on my ticket for president?
http://forums.keller2012.com/index.php i created this forum org structure. but scott keller turned out to be an idiot.
your still missing the point. your playing with math. your right. its something more like the 99.99 percent. There are 4000 or 100,000 persons depending on wether we are talking the inner or outer circle of oligarchs keeping the rest of us trapped in a "capitalism" Hotel California con scam. While you can climb upward from the bottom there are increasingly more powerful glass cielings. And on fact one of the effects of the recent bush era caste war changes is that the people who imagined themselves to be in the inside are amongst those that are losing it all. The real question is not how YOU define it. The real question is; as a system org structure, how does it operate? Thats 100 thousand peeps keeping 3 million peeps as cattle.