The "Occupy" Movement

[Redeye]

I'm not sure whether it's a 'straw man' or not. I, like most, am having trouble dicerning exactly what their agenda and focus is. Right now, I'm getting a sense of entitlement from the movement. They want, whatever, but are not prepared on their part to do much but complain to get it. So, perhaps, if this fellow's beef is poverty and not being able to make ends meet, maybe the fact that he's got a $2500 laptop doesn't make a lot of sense to most. Hardly a straw man on that point. It would be akin to welfare people tapping away on twitter and facebook with their iPhones and Blackberrys that they cannot feed themselves on the money they receive for nothing.

That's not, generally, the message. At least not from those intelligent enough to articulate one (and there's been some that frankly aren't) - the problem is that the disparity between the haves and have nots is widening, and that is troubling. There's also a reasonable concern that while most countries happily socialized the losses of various sectors, the profits remain private. The BS of "trickle down" is just that and there seems to be a lot of people getting fed up.

There's been a lot of strawmen employed to criticize the "Occupy" folks when there's legitimate stuff to discuss about what their goals are, and when means they'd like used to achieve them.

I just don't know. We can't do much if they don't define their demands. For most, I think, it's just the flavour of the day to participate and feel like their doing something. Even if they don't know exactly why they are.

I think that's it for a lot of people. They want to get engaged even if it's not clear how they should do so, I think. That's why that restlessness, that energy has to be channeled into someting.

I might be totally off base, but that's the way it's appearing to me. However, I will admit, I'm not getting too excited about it.

:2c:

Fair statements all.

 

[Haletown]

I just took a stroll through the Occupy Vancouver site . . very few middle class types . . 90% the street kiddies usually seen hanging around Granville St..  The tattoo and 'dreds, dreamers and wannbes set for the most part.

The signage is 99% along the lines of  Social Justice is a Right-Save the Great Bear Rain Forest-Proud to be a Vegan-Stop the Tar Sands-Be A Sustainable Human-Free Education-Legalize Pot-Marx is the Answer.

They have a place where you can make you own sign so I made up a "Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad" sign and hung it on a  railing with the others.

I don't know if irony is part of their core values.

 

[Edward Campbell]

We have to be careful with the inequality gap which I agree exists in the West, is widening, at its extremes, and is troubling, in the West.

Part of the problem is the focus on the extremes. There is little, maybe no doubt that the top 1% are getting richer faster than ever before and the bottom 1% are staying horribly poor or, if possible, getting poorer.

But: while the top 10%, are getting richer, but so are the top 50% and so are the top 90%, maybe even the top 95%. In other words almost everyone is getting richer and richer in both absolute and relative terms. The problem is that some, a minority, are getting richer faster than the majority and, thanks to modern communications in the broadest sense, we can see "how the other half (only 10%, actually) lives."

Almost everyone is getting richer and richer in the Americas and Europe but, on a global scale, we were all relatively rich 40 years - two generations - ago. Circa 1970 there were about 3.75 billion people on earth and only about 15% (almost all in the West) were "rich," relative to all the others. Now, 40 years later, there are 7 billion people (that 7th billionth will be born this month, I believe) but only about 15% of them are "poor" relative to all the others. That's an enormous change of huge, historic social significance. In fact the world is getting more and more and more equal at a rate that is unparalleled in all of human history.

My point? The children, as I said, are frustrated and disillusioned with a system which they cannot fathom because they are ill equipped to "see" the whole world in any kind of historic context and to ascribe our increasing global equality to the people who are making the world better and better - the greedy capitalists and global business.

 

[CountDC]

hmmmm - sweep them all up and ship them to an eastern country - Newfoundland! That will teach them to get on with it and get a job.  >

 

[Fishbone Jones]

hmmmm - sweep them all up and ship them to an eastern country - Newfoundland! That will teach them to get on with it and get a job.  >

 

[a_majoor]

Well, even if CTV seems to think that a demonstration featuring huge CUPE banners is "spontanious" and "leaderless", and CNN can overlook the SEIU presence at the various OWS demonstrations in the US, there are leaders, and this article even has .jpgs of the emails....:

http://bigjournalism.com/dloesch/2011/10/16/journolist-2-0-occupydc-emails-show-msm-dylan-ratigan-working-with-protesters-to-craft-message/

Journolist 2.0: Occupy Wall Street Emails Show MSM, Dylan Ratigan, Working With Protesters To Craft Message
Posted by Dana Loesch Oct 16th 2011 at 5:47 pm in Democrats/progressives, Exclusives, Featured Story, Mainstream Media, Uncategorized, media bias | Comments (225)

Big Journalism has learned that the Occupy Washington DC movement is working with well-known media members to craft its demands and messaging while these media members report on the movement. Someone has made the emails from the Occupy Wall Street email distro public and searchable. The names in the list are a veritable who’s who in media.

Journolist 2.0 includes well known names such as MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan, Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi who both are actively participating; involvement from other listers such as Bill Moyers and Glenn Greenwald plus well-known radicals like Noam Chomsky, remains unclear. The list also includes a number of radical organizers, such as Kevin Zeese.

In these emails we see MSNBC’s Ratigan, hawking his book in the footnotes, instructing occupiers on how properly to present their demands and messages while simultaneously appearing on television reporting “objectively” on the story (when he’s not taking part in the protests himself as content.)

Other emails include Taibbi’s:

The full searchable Occupy DC list is available here. We’ve only begun to discover the full scope of MSM’s involvement and are still combing through the archives after the list was brought to our attention late last night. (If you find something interesting that we have missed, please leave us a note in the comments.)

We know that the original movement was kicked off by a Soros-funded group called Adbusters; that union groups and radicals routinely overthrow leadership unfriendly to an occupation of the occupation (check out how Occupy St. Louis was hijacked by ACORN off-shoot MORE); and now we know that media, including MSNBC itself, is apparently helping occupiers better influence the public by both writing their messages and giving them a platform.

So how long are we going to pretend that this is a “grassroots” uprising?

And how can the media continue to report on the occupy movement objectively when it’s part of it?

*Updated to reflect that the email distro is part of the OWS, not exclusive to one particular city.

 

[nickanick]

don't know if you guys saw this video about a US marine trying to send a message to the Cops

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WmEHcOc0Sys

Respect.

 

[Journeyman]

don't know if you guys saw this video about a US marine trying to send a message to the Cops

While I admit that I gave up on his theatrical tripe before the one-minute mark, I only saw the police standing there not threatening anyone, and no evidence that anyone had been hurt.

            :boring:

 

[Redeye]

Is everything "Soros funded" to clowns like Andrew Breitbart?  : I'm guessing he read the factually deficient Reuters article that made the claim and was fairly quickly retracted. There's no reason Soros would fund Adbusters, it's not part of his scope of interest.

As for unions getting involved, only natural give common interests, but they weren't the ones who started it, nor are they the ones who're leading it.

Well, even if CTV seems to think that a demonstration featuring huge CUPE banners is "spontanious" and "leaderless", and CNN can overlook the SEIU presence at the various OWS demonstrations in the US, there are leaders, and this article even has .jpgs of the emails....:

http://bigjournalism.com/dloesch/2011/10/16/journolist-2-0-occupydc-emails-show-msm-dylan-ratigan-working-with-protesters-to-craft-message/

 

[Redeye]

I took a stroll down to the Grand Parade last night to listen in on the Occupy Nova Scotia crowd. The ones there in the evening were mostly younger, but there was a fairly diverse group there having quite a discussion. I didn't have enough time to get a real feel for the teach-in going on - but I was impressed by one of their chalked statements.

"The rich stay rich. The poor stay poor. The middle class pays for everything." I can't really argue that statement looking factual, nor that it's not really a good thing for society in the long run.

 

[OldSolduer]

"The rich stay rich. The poor stay poor. The middle class pays for everything." I can't really argue that statement looking factual, nor that it's not really a good thing for society in the long run.

That's not exactly new.

 

[turtlerace79]

I read an interesting opinion article in the National Post this morning that I thought I'd link here:

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/reaping+what+they+sowed/5564849/story.html

 

[GAP]

Good article.........

but these Occupy (whatever) could have it their own way.....simply vote communist....the proletariat would own everything, everyone would share equally, no one would do without, why has no one suggested this....................they have?.............oh........that Russia......

 

[OldSolduer]

I read an interesting opinion article in the National Post this morning that I thought I'd link here:

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/reaping+what+they+sowed/5564849/story.html

Good article, and IMO true.

 

[Redeye]

That's not exactly new.

It's not. But as the middle class seems to be shrinking while the rich get richer at their expense, it was only a matter of time before some folks started getting angry about it.

 

[OldSolduer]

It's not. But as the middle class seems to be shrinking while the rich get richer at their expense, it was only a matter of time before some folks started getting angry about it.

From what I've seen on TV it seems to be middle class university types.  I refuse to even go near those people....limosine liberals, without the limosines...smart cars maybe.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I read an interesting opinion article in the National Post this morning that I thought I'd link here:

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/reaping+what+they+sowed/5564849/story.html

This little snippet caught my attention: "[the author] paid off the debt, invested the balance and vowed to both save and pay monthly bills in full, promises I have kept ever since." I learned - relearned, actually, because it was a family 'custom' - that same lesson, not nearly as painfully, perhaps, as the author, but I, too, kept that promise to myself.

I have watched otherwise smart, very well educated, successful people lose their homes (in the USA) because they overextended themselves and had "things [they] couldn't otherwise afford (and mostly didn't need)" (a luxurious but heavily mortgaged cottage, a boat, a Hummer just to haul the boat) that were rendered, effectively, valueless in 2008 but on which they were still making payments. Equally, I have watched (again in the USA) a Hispanic family who bought a bit more house than they should have been allowed (by sensible mortgage regulations) and who endured the sudden increase in payments etc and who kept their home by virtue of working two jobs, each, having only one old clunker of a car (because they live in a suburb without transit) and invest what little money they end up with at the end of each month on things that might help their children do better.

It is a good article and Tasha Kheiriddin is on the money, so to speak.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I took a stroll down to the Grand Parade last night to listen in on the Occupy Nova Scotia crowd. The ones there in the evening were mostly younger, but there was a fairly diverse group there having quite a discussion. I didn't have enough time to get a real feel for the teach-in going on - but I was impressed by one of their chalked statements.

"The rich stay rich. The poor stay poor. The middle class pays for everything." I can't really argue that statement looking factual, nor that it's not really a good thing for society in the long run.

Except that the quote is  :bullshit: - reflecting an abysmally low level of historical knowledge. Never, in all of human history, has money or wealth been so mobile. Never, in recorded history, has it been so easy to move up and down the income ladder - it no longer takes generations to move from craftsman to small business owner to nouveau riche industrialist etc - it can be, routinely is, done in one lifetime. And the reverse is true: the scions of the former "landed gentry" are working in "trade," their manor houses long gone.

What the"chalked statement" tells me is that the education system is a massive failure, maybe a fraud. Because the idea is both factually incorrect and reflect a "gimme" attitude that speaks of mortal decay in our society.


Edit: grammar

 

[ModlrMike]

This little snippet caught my attention: "[the author] paid off the debt, invested the balance and vowed to both save and pay monthly bills in full, promises I have kept ever since." I learned - relearned, actually, because it was a family 'custom' - that same lesson, not nearly as painfully, perhaps, as the author, but I, too, kept that promise to myself.

...snip...

It is a good article and Tasha Kheiriddin is on the money, so to speak.

I agree Ed, a very good article.

My family too learned the lessons of overextending ourselves. In the late 90s we were two kids, one income, and every dollar counted. We had amassed 20K in consumer debt with no plan to pay it off. We took a good hard look at our situation and made some tough choices, going to a cash only economy. Now we're debt free, save the mortgage. We still buy everything paid in full. If we want something special, we take our example from Gail Vaz-Oxlade and put money in a jar.

The 99% are for the most part, responsible for their own situations, but are equally unwilling to accept that fault. It's easy to blame the 1%, but they didn't force you to run up credit you couldn't pay back. As for education, if you're going to get a degree in creative basket weaving, don't complain when you have no marketable skills. The object of any enterprise should be to put food on the table and a roof over your head. If your choices don't contribute to those goals, choose again.

 

[Redeye]

I understand the sentiment - particularly in the context of the origins of the movement in the US. Billions of dollars were handed to the financial industry to save them  from their own incompetence, essentially socializing their massive losses. Granted, most of the funds doled out under TARP are being paid back, but the overall cost to the economy was nevertheless huge. Pensions eroded, massive budget deficits in some jurisdictions because of the knock on economic effects,  Who's going to pay for that? What kind of moral hazard problem has been created there? The bailouts were undertaken and mostly tolerated with the thought that there'd be some sort of regulation or restructuring of the system to prevent anything like it from happening again.

I'll aggree there is some mobility of wealth - but that doesn't change the fact that the growth of income disparity has never been good for societies, and it's not unreasonable to expect some anger that there's bailouts for Wall Street but not for Main Street. I'll also agree that many of "Main Street" made their own bad decisions - but that's the whole thing - no calvalry came for them. Sadly there's a lot of strawman arguments about them though.

Except that the quote is  :bullshit: - reflecting an abysmally low level of historical knowledge. Never, in all of human history, has money or wealth been so mobile. Never, in recorded history, has it been so easy to move up and down the income ladder - it no longer takes generations to move from craftsman to small business owner to nouveau riche industrialist etc - it can be, routinely is, done in one lifetime. And the reverse is true: the scions are the former "landed gentry" are working in "trade," their manor houses long gone.

What the"chalked statement" tells me is that the education system is a massive failure, maybe a fraud. Because the idea is both factually incorrect and reflect a "gimme" attitude that speaks of mortal decay in our society.