Forum Post: Them versus Us.
Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 20, 2011, 12:46 a.m. EST by HitGirl
(2263)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
There is only one story: the story of Them versus Us. THEY get homes bigger than Disneyland, WE get foreclosure notices. THEY get private jets to private islands. WE get tar balls and lost futures, and pay their gambling debts with our pensions. THEY get the third trophy wife and a tax break, WE get sub-primed. THEY get two candidates on the ballot and WE are told to choose. THEY get the gold mine, WE get the shaft.
- from the new book by Greg Palast, "Vultures Picnic"
Another good book is "The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger" by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett.
At least it sounds more positive than "Vulture's Picnic".
LOL!
Excellent post HitGirl. Greg Palast is on our side. He's a valuable activist who stands with us on many causes. I'm glad you brought this up! I suggest for everyone to take a look at this man he has much to say and share for the movement!!!
The book is cluttered with the crimes of BP and the other multi-nationals. Greg Palast is a f--kin' hero! Badpenny too!
The truth is what we need. The truth is the most powerful idea we can know.
Thanks HitGirl!!!
Picking a scapegoat to demonize never works. Hitler tried to blame all of Germany's problems on the Jews. The Westboro Baptist Church blames military deaths on homosexuals. Occupy wants to blame every problem on it's own scapegoat but it's the same hateful mentality.
I see this as more like blaming Hitler.
Blaming ANY scapegoat is a fallacy. It accomplishes nothing.
If i catch you robbing a bank you're the one I'm going to throw in jail. It has nothing to do with scapegoats.
Blaming your problems on somebody else is a way to avoid responsibility.
simple
The truth will set us free!
If you really want to know why we had the economic meltdown.
Watch the Documentary; Inside Job.
This will without a doubt explain the Occupy & 99% movements as well as the increasing attacks on the Occupy & 99% movements.
Share, circulate, educate and inspire.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/inside-job-documentary/
Educating as many people as possible in the most efficient manner possible with an almost religious respect for honesty should be the mission of OWS.
Exactly why this Documentary ( Inside Job ) should be pushed to go viral.
For a concise and accurate explanation of why the Occupy & 99% movements were born and in regarding what is wrong that needs public action/support. As well as pointing out how it all went wrong. This is an easy one to support.
Ouch. The US vs THEM attitude will only result in the creation of the same system. Co-opt the THEM into the US!!!
It has been THEM attacking US for thirty years now. Wake-up and smell the ashes of the middle-class. THEY chose to make war. THEY chose to divide this country into classes! You can't invite the super-wealthy to join us in the ghetto. There IS a time to fight! That said, OWS is more about ideas than classes. Rich people, educated people, veterans, all types of people understand and support the reasonable goals of OWS.
sounds like Mr Palast is a true soldier of class warfare. Keep promoting that divide.
No less than the true soldiers who promote that divide by bribing our representatives to pass laws that are destroying the middle-class of America. You can't do more to create a class divide than that. Can you? Pallast isn't in control of the people he reports on, of the sick things they do.
He just cashes-in on the division.
I've seen people cash-in on worse things. At least he is serving a useful purpose by informing people. Knowledge is power.
Them vs Us, R vs L, Dems vs REps, Good vs Evil, blah blah blah.
Those are the types of messages for the mouth breathers. Very effective, but just keeps the idiocy going..
I have been thinking lately and it is to occupys benefit that the NDAA be passed. The shock alone from kids getting arrested on the streets for absolutely no injustice at all will help. It would be pretty remarkable if Obama realized this system will never work and his true goal is to crush it. Just a thought. I will continue to go on the fact that he has lied to us though, until of course he shows me different.
He has fought to end egregious corporate tax loopholes. He has appointed some decent people. But some of his actions are just wrong. Maybe Obama is just a fallible human being in a really tough position. In the end you have to draw your own conclusions.
yea you are right. In the end its all messed up and we have to show the world why and how it can be fixed.
We got this.
Without popular, focused outrage at injustice, bankers and politicians continue on with our tacit consent. We are a cheering and booing crowd, easily and legally dispersed. They get along by making the rules. We get along by following them.
So we learn and teach - because the future depends on it - popular focused outrage. The injustice is already there sitting next to the bankers and politicians.
Ah, the original HitGirl.
cool
ZenDog from Yahoo?
um, I dunno - if so only briefly as an email address for the coffee party
This is me here
I've been active on MySpace in the past, first as Wolfman, and then as Zen Dog, and
a social networking site called TBD which is now caput, the resurrection of TBD on Ning
I was on the Coffee Party website - but they kept giving me the boot. Too rabid an animal for their taste.
And now I am here.
Looks like here won't be here much longer . . . but o well.
I checked out your profile earlier. Very active :) I'll put it on wordpad to check out when i have more time.
The profile here doesn't offer much in the way of personalization.
My website is mostly an essay, a short story, a bunch of poetry, and a wordpress blog where I rant on occasion. I picked up verse as a means of rebellion.
Oh, there's also a link to a movie - of me! It's hosted on You-tube - the file format of the movie wasn't allowed on the server where my website is.
The other links - two to myspace
Wolfman,
Zen Dog
and one to ning
That's what I do,
I rant
I rant because I'm I.rate
; D
LOL
You like that? Words . . . . they are so malleable . . .
In sum it all looks quite mad, which of course it is . . .
But if you compare this with this
It may appear that all is not exactly as it appears . . .
Nice blog.
well thanks.
. . . umm . . .
Which blog would that be? I think I've listed four there.
Oh ho I get it,
you like them all!
well of course that is perfectly understandable -
I know
my
brilliance
is just so luminescent
. . . unless you think it's just another full moon . . . .
; D
I just clicked on the this.
well don't stop now
hitgirl!
yer on a roll!
; D
I haven't read the book, only the reviews, but I think the term he coined, "Vulture Capitalism", is right on the money, puns intended.
The "vultures" in the book - guys who prey on whole countries using the tools of capitalism - were named by the bankers. That is how the international bankers refer to these guys.
Credit to the international bankers then for the aptly applied vulture moniker. Sounds like good reading, but I'm on a tight budget.
When the bankers think you're a greedy vulture, you must really be one sick puppy!
THEY work hard and have the guts to start their own businesses, YOU are lazy and are too risk-adverse to start your own business.
Who are "they"?
Where are all these gutsy businesses?
If "they" are so good at starting businesses, then why is unemployment so high?
Oh, yeah. I forgot.
Republicans ran us over a cliff.
Never mind.
Tune in the Rush Limbaugh for latest in BS.
Truth be told, the 99% hold all the cards. Who gives the rich money? Who works for the rich? If you want to fight them, you are going to have to become rich and not act like them. Don't flaunt your money, don't act like an ass, and give an honest day's pay for an honest day's work. I've been talking about two companies to go after that would really help OWS' image, but nobody listens because they don't understand how to fight.
Name the companies here if it helps. Sometimes people need to be taught how to fight.
I'll do one better, I'll use the links to show how to spread the word. Basically, when you see a bad company, advertise about it. :)
http://occupywallst.org/forum/make-a-stand-join-the-clan/
http://occupywallst.org/forum/enterprise-rent-a-car-murders-children/
The Revolution starts here!
Thank you HitGirl. :)
Well here was another opportunity to spread the word on these two companies why did you not take it. Work on your advertising skills. By the way. Who has money to flaunt?
You didn't look hard enough. They were right below your comment, but I will copy it here. :)
[-]HitGirl1 points 2 days ago
Name the companies here if it helps. Sometimes people need to be taught how to fight.
↥like↧dislikereplypermalink
[-]stuartchase1 points 1 day ago
I'll do one better, I'll use the links to show how to spread the word. Basically, when you see a bad company, advertise about it. :)
http://occupywallst.org/forum/make-a-stand-join-the-clan/
http://occupywallst.org/forum/enterprise-rent-a-car-murders-children/
The Revolution starts here!
Thank you HitGirl. :)
I stand corrected. Thanks.
[Removed]
So now that you know you're being screwed, what are you going to do about it?
plan the National General Assembly
http://www.the99declaration.org/
Good question. I think try to alert and convince others.
OWS did that. It is done. Anyone left who needs convincing will waste your breath. The 99% has moved to the next level. They've all gone, you should go too.
NGA 199 days away http://www.the99declaration.org/
Do you know how many people I meet everyday who still don't understand any of this? Why do you think Greg wrote the book in the first place? Are you that misinformed? OWS got noticed and thanked. That's all.
Isn't that what Occupy has been doing for three months already? Glad to know you now understand the 99% vs. 1% rhetoric. Better late than never.
Occupy is like the guy standing on the street corner with the sign. The sign isn't wrong but it doesn't explain much either.
How are you different? You just posted a sign on this forum which is already about the 99% vs the 1%. It's not like you explained much more than them. It just looks like you're very late for the party.
I was pushing the truth long before OWS had it's "party". I can prove it with my Youtube account. How about you?
What is the purpose of this post then? I don't really understand it. It makes it look like you just understood what Occupy was about.
Did you ever notice how the Republican propaganda machines repeat things again and again. It is done so that enough people will hear it so many times that it will stay in their heads as if it were some valid truism. There's research behind it. It is also why Thom Hartman repeats what he's said in earlier shows. Consider how native Americans passed down knowledge by repeating stories they were told again and again over generations. In short: the truth bares repeating.
Fair enough.
This may be as big as crop circles. Intellectual , sociologists and tenured professors at hundreds of universities around the globe, will publish book after book, study after study and get the "based on a real story" credit on several failed movies. Like other made-up courses, cultural sensitivity, women studies, environmental psychology, communications, acting, basket weaving, . . . . . a course of study : Occupy , the four year degree . . .. . is already in development.
Students loans will be available, no qualifications needed. Once achieved, graduates can hang their tassel from their tent and post their thoughts here.
You get foreclosure notices because you took out a mortgage you couldn't afford. Yes the bank shouldn't have given them out, but you'd probably whine if they wouldn't give you a loan for your house. Take some personal responsibility and live within your means.
You completely fail to understand the big picture, and thus end up given a simplistic answer that doesn't answer anything.
His answer is simplistic because the truth is simple - leveraging up to speculate on a house you can't afford is a bad idea.
The truth is not so simple. To think it is shows a lack of culture and understanding.
Everyone is responsible for his and his family's own finances. If you screw up, that's on you. Mommy isn't there to look over you when you grow up and decide to buy a McMansion.
And by that logic it stands to reason that: because the banks knowingly made loans to those who couldn't afford them, they should absorb the loss and not be afforded tax payer bailouts. The blame for that starts with the banks, who were obviously making a gamble that could not pay off, according to capitalist market rules. But that didn't happen...the plutocrats in washington rescued the banks on the backs of the very people the banks duped into these loans. Obviously, the law is made to catch the little fish and is too weak to catch the big fish. This is social injustice, and deserves retribution of a kind equal to the harm...Boycott Corporate goods and services, including entertainment...Withdraw support to the system of privelage. Starve the Beast!!!
But who's the tax payer? The rich.
So the poor bought homes they couldn't afford, screwing themselves and the banks over. The rich (who pay most taxes in this country) had to bail them out.
Says the snake-oil salesman.
Says the 30 year old student still living at home.
Over the last four weeks I've worked 6-day weeks and I don't live at home. How about you?
7 day weeks, 14 hours a day
But oftentimes it doesn't matter how hard you work now. A janitor can work 7 days a week, and it's not going to make much difference.
The key is to work hard during highschool and university. 1 hour of hard work in school = 100 hours of hard work in real life. If you didn't appreciate that and smoked weed instead, that's your stupidity.
So, in your world if you can't go to a university you're f--cked and you might as well just accept a life of poverty? Does that mean you're for free tuition? That attitude of just accept the broken system as it is, that's why you've got OWS and it's growing. People are objecting to a system that they know can be improved. And it's lazy or entitled people like you who don't want to do the hard work of improving it.
Yes, accept a life of poverty if you're lazy. If you don't have money, study hard enough for a full ride scholarship, or work through university. My dad immigrated from a war-torn country, studied hard and got a full scholarship. I worked my way through college and graduated with no debt.
All you lazy people want is a handout. Either in the form of free tuition or benefits (via taxing the rich and hardworking).
The problem is your capitalist utopia doesn't exist. I quote you, "it doesn't matter how hard you work now." You've as much as admitted the system is failing and still you spout your capitalist slogans as if your mind were stuck in a record groove. What you really mean to say is accept a life of near poverty even if you work hard. That kind of logic will make America a war torn country.
It's common sense. If you work hard in your 80-90's that's not going to get you anywhere.
Working hard is essential, but there are times when it is most effective, i.e., when you are young and in school. If you didn't realize that, that's you and your parent's fault - no one else's.
No you don't understand. The banks instead of acting responsibly and in accordance with the law, made fraudulent loans to individuals who couldn't hope to make the payments. What did the banks get out of it? They got the up front fee money.
"who couldn't hope to make the payments."
Thats not the banks fault. Live within your means. If you're going to buy something as expensive as a house, make sure you can pay for it! I sure as hell wouldn't buy a house if i knew i might have an issue affording it down the road.
PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. Cant pay for your damn loan you get foreclosed.
That's pretty cold, especially for Christmas Day.
You're also demonstrating an extremely shallow understanding of what transpired.
Of who the winners and losers were in the great republican real estate gamble.
Thank you.
OccupyWallStreet.
Yeah that's it blame the individual who would like to have a nice home to live in.
You bet that they were wrong in trying to live beyond their means.
But you can not dismiss those who approved the bad loans on artificially value inflated properties. It takes two to tango, but who is in the position/power to lead? Not the applicant, Surely not!
People took out mortgages thinking that land and houses would always go up in price, that they could always refinance or sell at a profit. Trouble is with wages and salaries not going up and everyone in debt up to their eyeballs it had to collapse.