Who are the protesters behind Occupy Wall Street–and what do they want?

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Scott_Lafrance said:
Part of expressing a right is the ability to prove that you are capable of expressing that right, like citizenship, age, and that you have only voted once in a particular race. Having a right doesn’t mean the freedom to do whatever you want.
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I agree with you - but I also believe that it is our responsibility as citizens to oppose power grabs by powerful organizations who want to rig the system in their favor. At some level, we should have the integrity to rise about “party” affiliation and seriously examine whether injustices are being done.

“They do it too” is no excuse. The GOP wants to win the 2012 election. Good for them! But if they can’t do it with integrity, then what good is it to any of us? INTENT is the most important criteria for evaluating anyone’s behavior, and I do not believe the GOP is being honest about their intentions for making it harder for people to vote.

The ya-hoos who want to simply poo-poo this issue and inject mockery into this discussion are not being responsible citizens. They are what is wrong with this nation.

I am not pleased with either political party and look for candidates who have some sort of integrity. Ron Paul is one such candidate - even if I don’t agree with him on all the issues, I know at least that he stands on principle and believes in both liberty and justice. I think that’s what the OWS crowd wants too. They want liberty and justice. They want to get rid of the oligarchy and neutralize the disproportionate political power that the top 1% of the wealthy in this nation enjoy…

…and the GOP is working to disenfranchise them. Hmmm.:hmmm:
 
bellasbane said:
I do not believe the GOP is being honest about their intentions for making it harder for people to vote.
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You are just plain wrong, but it is a free country. You are free to believe in whatever conspiracy theory floats your boat. 👍
 
Scott_Lafrance said:
You think voting is going to help anything? Both Republicans AND Democrats are the ones that are making corporation and banks as powerful as they are. Thinking that putting Democrats in power is going to reduce corporate power is as naive as thinking that putting Democrats in power will limit abortions.
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Scott, perhaps we need more than 2 major parties. A guest I heard on The Chris Matthews show this morning said if the GOP nominee is Romney, there could be a conservative 3rd party candidacy for the Tea Partiers and the left might even run a 3rd party. Chris said it could be 1948 all over again.
 
rlg94086 said:
Yea for them. 👍

So, whom do they vote for? Is Obama the enemy of Wall Street and corporations? Is the Democrat-controlled Senate the enemy of Wall Street and corporations? Let me guess…it’s all the Republican’s fault, right?

Again, whom do they vote for?
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Rig, from those I have seen interviewed outside of FOX news, the movement is not about Democrat/Republican and a number in the movement are actually not all that keen on Obama either. Now if he decides to come along, then great. For that matter if Cantor and Cain, et al, want to drop their rhetoric such as Cain’s attacks on the unemployed when he said for them to blame themselves, and take different stances than they now have, then the more the merrrier. 👍
 
CMatt25 said:
Rig, from those I have seen interviewed outside of FOX news, the movement is not about Democrat/Republican and a number in the movement are actually not all tnat keen on Obama either. Now if he decides to come along, then great.
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I understand that…I don’t watch TV news. My question though is how does Obama co-opt the group for his campaign. Only the most dense of the OWS group would buy the fact that Obama is on their side.
 
CMatt25 said:
Scott, perhaps we need more than 2 major parties. A guest I heard on The Chris Matthews show this morning said if the GOP nominee is Romney, there could be a conservative 3rd party candidacy for the Tea Partiers and the left might even run a 3rd party. Chris said it could be 1948 all over again.
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Was Chris feeling a “thrill up his leg” when he said that? 😛
 
Saburo said:
Having just engaged in a most cretinous attempt to stoke the flames of class warfare, you now applaud an unruly mob of anarchists and communists engaged in what you incorrectly perceive to be standing up to class warfare?

Do the several opposing voices in your head ever give you pause?
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No because when a very powerful army but minority class of a percent or so declared war on and began firing bullets at the rest, the rest are going to eventually take a stand.
 
SamH said:
A college senior that hasn’t graduated is complaining there are no jobs in her field. Perhaps she should take this opportunity to switch majors instead of skipping classes to protest people that don’t owe her anything.
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One has to be concerned that the economy is not absorbing college graduates at previous levels. One might almost come to the conclusion that there has been a fundamental change in the order of the economy and that it will never again be what it was.

Protesting may make the protestor feel better but it will not create jobs.
 
rlg94086 said:
I understand that…I don’t watch TV news. My question though is how does Obama co-opt the group for his campaign. Only the most dense of the OWS group would buy the fact that Obama is on their side.
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Well I think you answered your own question, Rig. For the group to get strongly behind his campaign, he is going to either have to come to their side. And not for instance support another extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy as an example. Or at the very least paint a portrait of his opposition as being much worse than he. And the group would then have to buy into this and once again we have an election between the “lesser of 2 evils”. I’m not sure the latter changes much in the current DC climate. But you simply asked how he gets the group for his campaign. I don’t have any inside info into the movement nor into the Obama campaign though. 🙂
 
rlg94086 said:
Yea for them. 👍

So, whom do they vote for? Is Obama the enemy of Wall Street and corporations? Is the Democrat-controlled Senate the enemy of Wall Street and corporations? Let me guess…it’s all the Republican’s fault, right?

Again, whom do they vote for?
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That’s easy. Join the tea party movement if you are truly against the corporatist agenda
 
rlg94086 said:
I’m glad louis91766 is on board. 👍
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Yes exactly. “Fair is fair” works both ways or else it just wouldn’t be fair. If the way that the current system is now designed even gives the appearance of unfairness, then that is enough reason to take rational steps to fix it so as not to give the appearance that someone wants to game the system.

I am glad he is on board now too:thumbsup:
 
CMatt25 said:
Well I think you answered your own question, Rig. For the group to get strongly behind his campaign, he is going to either have to come to their side. And not for instance support another extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy as an example. Or at the very least paint a portrait of his opposition as being much worse than he. And the group would then have to buy into this and once again we have an election between the “lesser of 2 evils”. I’m not sure the latter changes much in the current DC climate. But you simply asked how he gets the group for his campaign. I don’t have any inside info into the movement nor into the Obama campaign though. 🙂
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I like that strategy. I know I sold you all out the first four years, but now I am on you side. Trust me…I’ve changed…at least you should hope I have. 😛
 
bellasbane said:
I agree with you - but I also believe that it is our responsibility as citizens to oppose power grabs by powerful organizations who want to rig the system in their favor. At some level, we should have the integrity to rise about “party” affiliation and seriously examine whether injustices are being done.
Click to expand...
Sufficient photo ID is a pretty standard format of providing proof of who you are, from everything from a credit card purshase to buying liquor to getting on a plane.
Injecting racism in it by suspecting that blacks are incapable of providing such proof is actually quite vile
“They do it too” is no excuse. The GOP wants to win the 2012 election. Good for them! But if they can’t do it with integrity, then what good is it to any of us? INTENT is the most important criteria for evaluating anyone’s behavior, and I do not believe the GOP is being honest about their intentions for making it harder for people to vote.
Click to expand...
The ultimate intent of any polticial party is to win votes. That is a tautology. It is as possible to say this about the Republicans as it is about the demagoguery of leftist methods which infuse the paranoia of right wing racism into every discussion. Whatever this is, it is not a voting “purity” issue, and it is vile to say so.

It is not an unreasonable proposition that people might have some proof of who they are before they partake in the privilege of casting their vote. We are not talking about the tribes of Borneo after all, but a modern sophisiticated society whose members are required to demonstrate who they are in a myriad of other lesser activities.
A vote is an important thing, at least as important as buying a bottle a wine, and ensuring that the person is a legitimate player in such a transaction honors the gravitas of the process.
The ya-hoos who want to simply poo-poo this issue and inject mockery into this discussion are not being responsible citizens. They are what is wrong with this nation.
Click to expand...
Well for myself, it is often better to mock than to express the full level of contempt that I have for those who propagate the SIXHIRB arguments.
any other yahoos who you might be referring to will have to speak for themselves too of course.
I am not pleased with either political party and look for candidates who have some sort of integrity. Ron Paul is one such candidate - even if I don’t agree with him on all the issues, I know at least that he stands on principle and believes in both liberty and justice. I think that’s what the OWS crowd wants too. They want liberty and justice. They want to get rid of the oligarchy and neutralize the disproportionate political power that the top 1% of the wealthy in this nation enjoy…
Click to expand...
The OWS crowd is pretty much a joke, as far as I can tell. Yowling in pain at the fact that the world is not an utopia doesn’t buy a movement any integrity.Actually working toward solutions that aren’t laughable is what gives a movement some respect.
So they are against greed? So what! That is not special. People everywhere are against greed and badness in general.
Expecting everybody else to pay for your way in life is greedy too, not to mention wildly narcissistic.
…and the GOP is working to disenfranchise them. Hmmm.:hmmm:
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Ha!
Well if six years of education at the finest schools in the land doesn’t give enough knowledge to the student as to how to get themselves a valid form of ID, these rising young heroes of Obama’s new Democratic army deserve all the mockery that they are running into.
The culture and the party of death is now proudly becoming the party of stupid.

In the meantime Goldman-Sachs financed Obama’s rise to power more than they financed any other candidate during that cycle.

Chumps.
 
bellasbane said:
The Tea Party has been taken over by those who fund it. It is not a “grassroots” organization. It may have started as such, but it now exists to perpetuate the corporatist agenda of its billionaire masters…
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Cyncism is not the same as being rational. Not everybody can be bought. Many, many Americans and American politicians have integrity.
Herman Cain and Michelle Bachmann and even Ron Paul are three good examples of this in the current cycle.
Big money is a part of the system too of course. No one need be under any illusions that it is not.
But an electorate holding their politicians feet to the fire is the ultimate Chairman of the Board. Mature voters need to know that compromise is necessary in the American system, because of the extreme division of powers.
 
Darryl1958 said:
Sufficient photo ID is a pretty standard format of providing proof of who you are, from everything from a credit card purshase to buying liquor to getting on a plane.

It is not an unreasonable proposition that people might have some proof of who they are before they partake in the privilege of casting their vote. We are not talking about the tribes of Borneo after all, but a modern sophisiticated society whose members are required to demonstrate who they are in a myriad of other lesser activities.

A vote is an important thing, at least as important as buying a bottle a wine, and ensuring that the person is a legitimate player in such a transaction honors the gravitas of the process.
Click to expand...
This is the “you need a photo ID for other things” argument. The problem with this argument is that none the “other things” you mention are constitutional rights. Photo IDs have been around for at least 50 years. Voter fraud isn’t new either - and was certainly more rampant during the Boss Tweed days. So why all of a sudden is there a concerted effort on the part of Republicans to use photo IDs to protect against voter fraud?
  • Because Republican voters are more likely to have photo IDs.
Darryl1958 said:
Injecting racism in it by suspecting that blacks are incapable of providing such proof is actually quite vile
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You are overlooking the correlation between race and poverty:

http://forums.catholic-questions.org/picture.php?albumid=1367&pictureid=10411
bsos.umd.edu/socy/vanneman/socy441/trends/povrace.jpg

Poverty and its associated stressors makes it more challenging for some people to comply with the photo ID laws - not skin color. Plus, photo ID is not the only strategy Republicans are using - in Florida they have eliminated voting on the Sunday before the election. Do you know who votes in the greatest numbers on the Sunday before the election in Florida? Members of Black Churches.

State Rep. Perry Thurston, D-Plantation, told Dunkelberger that he worked with black ministers in Broward County to encourage voting.

“On that Sunday before the election, they told their congregation members we’re going to leave church when church is over and we’re going to the polls,” Thurston said. “They didn’t tell you who to vote for, but on that day that was part of what was done at the end of the service.”
theledger.com/article/20110625/edit01/110629619?p=2&tc=pg

Republicans don’t discriminate against black voters because of their race, they discriminate against black voters because Obama has an 85% approval rating among them.
Darryl1958 said:
The ultimate intent of any polticial party is to win votes. That is a tautology. It is as possible to say this about the Republicans as it is about the demagoguery of leftist methods which infuse the paranoia of right wing racism into every discussion. Whatever this is, it is not a voting “purity” issue, and it is vile to say so.
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Not a voting “purity” issue? Tell that to Tennessee Sen. Bill Ketron (R):

In pushing this legislation for the past couple of years, Sen. Ketron has argued that it is needed for the “purity of the ballot box.”
dnj.com/article/20110920/OPINION02/109200306/Stockard-Purity-ballot-box-just-pure-politics-Voter-ID-
Darryl1958 said:
Well for myself, it is often better to mock than to express the full level of contempt that I have for those who propagate the SIXHIRB arguments
Click to expand...
"I was listening to Dennis Prager on the radio the other day and he mentioned this acronym, SIXHIRB as a guideline for names that Leftists call their intellectual opponents in order to avoid intellectual and rational debate.

So, keep this in mind when reading articles, watching talking heads on TV, or just in conversations with friends."

S - Sexist
I - Intolerant
X - Xenophobic
H - Homophobic
I - Islamophobic
R - Racist
B - Bigot

sugarplumssolo.blogspot.com/2010/07/sixhirb-and-bush.html

Are you suggesting that I am trying to “avoid intellectual and rational debate” :confused:
Darryl1958 said:
any other yahoos who you might be referring to will have to speak for themselves too of course.

The OWS crowd is pretty much a joke, as far as I can tell. Yowling in pain at the fact that the world is not an utopia doesn’t buy a movement any integrity.Actually working toward solutions that aren’t laughable is what gives a movement some respect.
So they are against greed? So what! That is not special. People everywhere are against greed and badness in general.
Expecting everybody else to pay for your way in life is greedy too, not to mention wildly narcissistic.

Ha!
Well if six years of education at the finest schools in the land doesn’t give enough knowledge to the student as to how to get themselves a valid form of ID, these rising young heroes of Obama’s new Democratic army deserve all the mockery that they are running into.
The culture and the party of death is now proudly becoming the party of stupid.

In the meantime Goldman-Sachs financed Obama’s rise to power more than they financed any other candidate during that cycle.

Chumps.
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:rolleyes:
 
louis91766 said:
Oh?
You mean the way that George Bush stole the election from Gore in 2000?
“DELAND, Fla., Nov. 11 - Something very strange happened on election night to Deborah Tannenbaum, a Democratic Party official in Volusia County. At 10 p.m., she called the county elections department and learned that Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000. But when she checked the county’s Web site for an update half an hour later, she found a startling development: Gore’s count had dropped by 16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up 10,000–all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters.”
scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0310/S00211.htm
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The same election where Gore won the popular vote and the SCOTUS chose the POTUS strictly along a party line vote 5-4 with Republicans in control of the SCOTUS.
 
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