Forum Post: Think It Over
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 19, 2011, 6:49 p.m. EST by DontOccupyWallSt
(-15)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Let me start off by saying that I am not rich and honestly many of you protesters may have more wealth than me. You all need to take a step back and realize what it would be like if all of your demands were met. I bet that even all you believe that America is the best nation in the world but then you blame it for all your problems and set out to turn the nation against everything that it has stood for and everything that Americans have to be proud of. In the long run it would really serve yourselves more benefit to try to work as hard as the rich did to get rich instead of skipping class or your job to hang out with your friends and protest. If you were really the 99% like you claim then this movement you have caught on but it seems that the real 99% are smart enough to not want to live in the Soviet Union. You fight inequality but lets be honest everyone is not equal in fact no one person is the same. Why should hard working intelligent people have the same assets as people who are not hard working and expect everything to be given to them. You all seriously need to take a step back and look at the repercussions of this protest.
My demand basically amounts to an America more like it was during the liberal consensus years of the 40s-70s. Back when we truly knew the horrors of the evil empire, but weren't so reactionary that we sacrificed the common good on the pyre of unfettered capitalism.
Prosperity and relative equality, these are worthy goals.
You think it over.
You mean back in the days when women were paid less than men for the same work. The days when blacks had to drink from a separate water fountain, sit at the back of the bus, and eat a separate restaurant. Back to the days when cars dumped carbon monoxide into the air by the ton and factories dumped pollution into the rivers and lakes.
We've coma a long way and it would be disastorous to go back those days.
Nice twisting. Nobody's talking about going back on civil rights or environmentalism. Remember those movements were a product of the era I'm talking about.
Economic/social policy.
What great econoomic or social policies are you referring to?
The New Deal and its remnants, including tax policy that maintained relative equality until the early 80s, regulatory and monetary policy that kept the economy in stable growth without major periodic crises, Medicare and Social Security, and many others.
On taxation, check this out: http://www.brianrogel.com/the-100-percent-solution-for-the-99-percent
It isn't about ending inequality entirely. Some people will probably always have more than other people. The problem is the rate at which the people with the most are pulling away, and the people in the middle are disappearing into the bottom. That middle is what made America great and not the Soviet Union. We want a system that works. And the fact that it is getting more and more difficult for the social mobility you are talking about to exist is why we are out there. And will be.
Most of the rich were born into it.
Most of the real hard workers just got sore and shafted on their pay.
Not sure what else your trying to imply here.
If you think Rich people are Rich because they are Hard Working rather then simply extremely Lucky, then your view of the world is as rosy as it gets.
No country will be perfect but why not close enough? I don't think as anybody all demands ever really be met but its like what the other guy will agree to even one out of a hundred it would a least some progress and not all protest for nothing at all.
OWS has not made a single demand. In fact that is one of the frustrations of many OWS supporters (but not me).
they must be yelling about something ...or a silent psychological approach?
Well we're really yelling about everything. Check out the Declaration of the Occupation of New York City. It is the most (really the only) "official" political statement that OWS has made and there is not a single demand in it.
If are in direct contact tell them to DEMAND something
To use a formulation like "in direct contact" shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what OWS is. I'm a part time activist in OWS. I'd be full time except I'm 68 years old, have cancer and heart disease and I have to work part time to supplement my social security check. So I'm not exactly "in direct contact," I'm as much a part of it as I can be.
Some of the more moderate elements in OWS would like it to raise demands but they can't seem to get their act together to raise a single set of demands that they can all agree on.
Me I'm fine with the fact that OWS has no demands, nor do I believe it should. I'm for building the movement. Once we are several tens of millions strong we won't have to raise any demands. At that point we can begin to reorganize society democratically from below, which will undoubtedly involve seizing all the assets of the corporations and reorganizing them democratically.
then what exactly is the point...what do you want
My suggestion is to go to the Declaration of the Occupation of New York City which is available on this website. It is really the only "official" political statement that OWS has ever made. I will not repeat it here. Check it out yourself. But I will say, that while there is a list of about 22 grievances in it, it does not make a single demand. 22 grievances are a lot, so there is not a simple, single thing that OWS as a group is for or against and while there are not explicitly stated demands, of course demands are implied in the grievances, though the same grievance might imply different demands (which is to say different "wants") to different people.
Also, it is not a question of what I as an individual want and you really can't ask what a movement wants. By definition it is too big for that.
This country is run by criminals. Your ignorance of the facts does not excuse you.
The thing you guys don't realize is that none of you are struggling to live, the people that are actually are struggling to live end up being helped by the wealthy of wall street who give huge donations to the very poor. Haha when the homeless come to the protests (the people that actually have something to protest) you don't welcome them and take steps to get them to leave.
A LOT of people are struggling to live, you think this is just baseless anger, seriously? http://occupywallst.org/forum/nyt-older-suburban-and-struggling-near-poor-startl/
Oh i know that many people are struggling to live...i just don't think that its a bunch of spoiled college students or idiots that spent them self into debt that are struggling to live. Also its not baseless anger because im not angry and the base is that i would prefer not to live in a socialist nation
Were you alive in the 60s? If so, you lived in a socialist nation by todays standards. It was a prosperous nation too, and a free one.
"Spoiled" college students have changed the world for many before. They aren't just acting on their own behalf. Anyway, it's pretty clear that you're just a low-information, Fox-indoctrinated, right-winger with an axe to grind, so your criticism is irrelevant.
Your protest is irrelevant because while economically you all may be the 99% but guess what so am I but you are the minority of morons who would want all the changes that you want. Most people of the real 99% do fine simply by working like normal people and not asking for things to be given to them. Also I am young too and not saying that college students don't contribute because they do im saying that the ones wasting their time in college which they could be being educated but instead and screwing around protesting.
This is not a liberty movement, this is a communist revolution. If you ever visited or talked to somebody from a communist country, then you know it is about the most disgusting form of corruption - you can rape a chick right in front of a cop, if you pay him.
"A Marxist begins with his prime truth that all evils are caused by the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists. From this he logically proceeds to the revolution to end capitalism, then into the third stage of reorganization into a new social order of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and finally the last stage -- the political paradise of communism." p.10
Saul Alinsky, "Rules for Radicals" - President Obama recommends this book to all high schools and colleges.
It comforts me to know that even on their own site they barely have the majority. You are entirely right and I am truly scared for what could happen if this movement of morons were to catch on.