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

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Not really because Wall street demands capitalism and unfairness for everybody except themselves. For themselves they demand socialist government bailouts of a trillion dollars and at the same time they demand the luxury of million dollar bonuses which are given in recognition of their efforts to make money by flipping trades, buying and selling debt and derivatives, all of which help to bring down the American economy.
:rotfl: We don’t have capitalism in this country!!! :rotfl: Because of the Republicans AND the Democrats, we have economic corporativism, also known as fascism. Olbermann was right when he called Bush a fascist. Unfortunately, he refused to call Obama one as well. Based on their government/economic policies, both parties are fascistic and work to promote their corporate buddies and investment banker buddies to the detriment of the nation.

The predictions of Thomas Jefferson have come to pass.

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”

“The (currency) issuing power should be removed from banks and restored to the People, where it rightfully belongs.”

And people here call Ron Paul “the nutty professor”. Most of his economic policy is developed after Thomas Jefferson. Apparently, one of the founders of our nation, the man who defined liberty for us, and our third President was as much of a nutcase as his is.

Even John Adams, back in his day, wrote about the #1 cause of societal turmoil,

“All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects of the Constitution or Confederation; not from any want of honor or virtue, as much as downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.”

And lastly, I like this quote from William Pitt, it reminds me of this “list of demands” of the OWS crowd,

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.”
 
" Video Exposing How ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Was Organized From Day One by SEIU/ACORN Front – The Working Family Party, and How They All Tie to the Obama Administration, DNC, Democratic Socialists of America, Tides and George Soros."

theblaze.com/stories/video-exposing-occupy-wall-street-was-organized-from-day-one-by-seiu-acorn-front-the-working-family-party-and-how-they-all-tie-to-the-obama-administration-dnc-democratic-socialists-of-america/

Banks in USA must adhere to laws set forth by Congress and which are supposed to be administered by the President.
Wall Street must also conform to laws which effect it.
If people wanted to protest current policies/laws they would picket the White House and Congress… Not try to destroy the economy, by making the finanicial system an enemy.
The ‘Federal Reserve’ needs to be audited so proper legislation can take place, and only Congress with the signature of the President can sign this into law.

For the common good, we are supposed to be a Nation of laws, not anarchy which is being proposed by SEIU etc.
 
Not really because Wall street demands capitalism and unfairness for everybody except themselves. For themselves they demand socialist government bailouts of a trillion dollars and at the same time they demand the luxury of million dollar bonuses which are given in recognition of their efforts to make money by flipping trades, buying and selling debt and derivatives, all of which help to bring down the American economy.
Louis:

Wall Street didn’t demand the Bail-outs - our elected officials offered it to them, claiming some corporations were “too big to fail”. What’s really hilarious, they allowed Lehman Brothers to fail and then bailed out Bear-Stearns ($29 B), AIG ($85 B), Automakers (Chryster & GM - $40 B) “IndyMac” (Freddie Mac & Freddie Mac - $200 B)… We’ve gotten the money back (with interest) from Bear-Stearns & AIG, most of the money back from the automakers, but we’re still pouring money into Fannie & Freddie (& “IndyMac” is still losing money)…
Analysis: Washington’s Trillion Dollar Wall Street Bailout

Did you know Fannie & Freddie paid the same bonuses as Bear-Stearns & AIG? Why isn’t anyone upset about bonuses paid to executives of a company where we not only haven’t seen a dime of our initial “investment”, but we’re still pouring in good money after bad? Why haven’t we seen the rage over the companies which are arguably part the cause of the mess we’re in?
youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs

You’re worried about bonuses, but what if the bonuses are earned? The Scriptures said that we should earn our living by the sweat of our brow, not that we should work our butt off, then have the money we earned redistributed because someone thought we earned too much, or thought we were arrogant capitalists, or we’re angry that a bunch of idiot politicians bailed out companies they had no business bailing out… None of these give us the right to take money away from someone who’s earned it.

Remember, members of both parties voted for the Bail-outs - Democrats and Republicans. When President Bush proposed, and Congress voted for, the Bail-outs, Most economists thought the other choice was Depression - Not Recession - Depression. Our Country had dodged the Depression Bullet in Late 2000 - Early 2002 (Remember the attacks on 9/11 and how close the Markets came to crashing then?). They had all heard from their parents & grandparents about how bad things were in the 1930’s, and none of them wanted to risk a return to those conditions. You can disagree with what they did, but you can’t disagree with why. And, whatever you may want to think, People aren’t unemployed because of the Bail-outs.

I recently saw the world’s fastest speed reader, Howard Berg, read the 25,000 pages of Federal Government Regulations we now have in place governing everything from the significant to the trivia. Corporations in America spend $1.57 Trillion in Costs of Compliance with Federal Regulations (Tax, Environmental, Safety, other), + $500 Million in State Regulations. These costs disproportionately fall on small and medium sized business owners who don’t have the resources to Lobby Congress or donate large sums of money to Politicians. Many of these small and medium sized business owners don’t have the means to avoid paying Taxes as GE does, and usually pay the maximum Tax Rate (Individual or Corporate). Our Corporate Tax Rate is the Highest in the Industrialized World (35% versus the average of 15%) - This forces many smaller businesses who pay that rae to chose between paying their Taxes (legally required) or Hiring people (needed for our economy to recover) or buying new equipment (also needed for our economy). Employers who don’t pay the Corporate Tax Rate still pay the Maximum Individual Tax Rate of 28%. If we reduced that to 20%, and simplified the Tax code, small business owners would be able to hire extra people or replace aging equipment (see above). And, a true million with a net income of $10,000,000 would still pay nearly $2,000,000 in Federal & FICA under my plan…

FYI, Do you have any idea about the true legacy of Communism/Socialism?
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (International Socialism):
  • Lenin - 1,000,000 killed (1917-1925), 5,000,000 Imprisoned
  • Stalin - 50,000,000 killed* (1930’s, 1940’s) ??? Imprisoned
  • Kruschev & Brezhnev - 2,500,000 killed (1953 - 1980) ?? Imprisoned.
  • Excluding 20,000+ Killed during WW II.
    People’s Republic of China (International Socialism):
  • Mao Zedong - 70,000,000+ Killed ??? Imprisoned -
    “Long March Forward” (1950’s) & “Cultural Revolution” (1960’s)
  • Deng Ziaoping - 1,000,000 (1970-1990) ??? Imprisoned -
    Including Tiananmem Square, where over 10,000 were slaughtered in one day in June, 1989.
    People’s Republic of Vietnam & Cambodia
  • Pol Pot - Khmer Rouge (1970’s) 2,000,000+ - over 21% of the Population of Cambodia was slaughtered or starved to death…
  • Ton Doc Thang - Vietnam - 1 to 2 Million killed and 2 Million Imprisoned during the 1970’s - people who had fought against the Communists…
    Nazi Germany (National Socialism)
  • 18 Million killed in Holocaust from 1939-1945,
  • ?? “Undesirables” killed from 1936-1945, &
  • 73 Million killed in the war they, the Italians & the Japanese started.
Continued…
 
Louis - Continued from Previous:

Almost all of the former members of the USSR and the former Warsaw Pact have numerous environmental problems - Many of these countries could be called “Environmental Disaster Areas”. PR China has some of the worst Worker Safety Records in human history - It’s normal for scores of minors to die in mining accidents that wouldn’t happen, or would be survivable, in the West. In 2009, we had an accident in West VA where miners were over 500’ underground. We saved them all. The same thing happened when the Chilean Miners were trapped even further underground in 2010.

As the world watch both of these rescues, Chinese miners died from accidents where the Chinese simply didn’t have any of the equipment required to saved them…

Capitalism works, when we don’t strangle it - If you have any question about that, try to live without your iPhone, iPod, iPad, or iMac, and try to get to work without driving your car.

If you’re saying we should take better care of each other, take a hungry person out to lunch, or give someone who has nothing to wear something out of your closet, or give someone who needs a lift to church a lift to church… Answer, Am I my brother’s keeper?" With a , “Yes, Lord, I am.”

In Christ, Michael
 
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.
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.

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-

"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:

:rolleyes:
These are nothing but excuses.
 
Welcome to the generation raised by helicopter parents. These kids don’t know how to work for what they want.

I’m 38 years old with a degree in radio broadcasting and haven’t stepped foot in a radio studio since my last day of college. Three months later, I was a temp processing Christmas gift subscription order forms for various magazines. 18 years later, I’m with that same company making over $40K per year.

Life isn’t always fair.
 
“We should pay less attention to the individual lunatics, and more attention to what a movement is really about. Occupy Wall Street, at its core, is a reaction to the increasing power and influence of large corporations. The Tea Party, at its core, is a reaction to the government’s constant interference with private enterprise. But wait a minute—aren’t those things connected?”

howconservativesdrovemeaway.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-vs-tea-party.html
 
That’s silly dude. The Tea Party didn’t essentially exist three years ago, and actually had candidates run and win elections. Not to mention, 700 arrests and counting? How many tea Partiers have been arrested in the years of existence? Look at the people at the OWS rallies. Demographically speaking, it simply doesn’t represent mainstream average America. Not opinion, just facts. Whether you use age, employment status, race as your barometer, they are hardly the norm…

I hope you were as positive and supportive of the Tea Party rallies as you are of OWS. I have no issue with anyone protesting, **peacefully. **Here are some interesting tidbits about the movements and how they are treated…

kokomoperspective.com/news/heck-textbook-media-bias-tea-party-vs-occupy-wall-street/article_cec8eeee-f341-11e0-b24f-001cc4c002e0.html

So after being sick a few days, I start my crash course exposure to the weeks’ news and saw this printed in the New York Times about these little anti-capitalist rallies that got started out on Wall Street recently:

A loose-knit populist campaign that started on Wall Street three weeks ago has spread to dozens of cities across the country, with protesters camped out in Los Angeles near City Hall, assembled before the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago and marching through downtown Boston to rally against corporate greed, unemployment and the role of financial institutions in the economic crisis.

With little organization and a reliance on Facebook, Twitter and Google groups to share methods, the Occupy Wall Street campaign, as the prototype in New York is called, has clearly tapped into a deep vein of anger, experts in social movements said, bringing longtime crusaders against globalization and professional anarchists together with younger people frustrated by poor job prospects.

Populist campaign? Tapped into a deep vein of anger? Could someone remind me, please…were these the characterizations that were being offered by the New York Times to the town hall protests and Tea Party rallies that began being held a few years ago?

Clay Waters of Newsbusters remembers things a bit differently:

While the Times’s coverage of conservative Tea Party rallies pointed out the most extreme and “fringe” elements present, the paper has thus far eschewed labels like “far-left” or even “liberal,” and ignored the cadre of Communists and offensive posters decrying “Nazi bankers” in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan.
And while the massive-yet-peaceful Tea Party rallies were seen as ruptures of inchoate and ignorant anger orchestrated by conservative think tanks that constantly threatened to explode into violence, the young, arrest-prone leftist campers near Wall Street are portrayed as the thin edge of an uprising of justified citizen anger.


Another great lesson in the objectivity of the American media. Communists marching around with Nazi signs don’t even get labeled “far left” or “liberal,” but instead “populist.” Despite 700 of them being arrested for blocking traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge, they get credit for being tapped into a national sentiment.
However, remarkably peaceful taxpaying and hard-working American citizens angry that the government continued to rob from them and borrow from their grandkids to waste on out of control government spending get hammered as violent, radical, racist nuts who are intent on escalating their vitriol until someone got hurt.
And it’s not just the pathetic New York Times that is carrying on this transparent charade. ABC and NBC have both been party to the double standard in reporting. Maybe the real story would be if they actually were objective, huh?
 
“We should pay less attention to the individual lunatics, and more attention to what a movement is really about. Occupy Wall Street, at its core, is a reaction to the increasing power and influence of large corporations. The Tea Party, at its core, is a reaction to the government’s constant interference with private enterprise. But wait a minute—aren’t those things connected?”

howconservativesdrovemeaway.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-vs-tea-party.html
The two movements are very similar in their complaints. The Tea Party solution is the get the government out of the market. The OWS solution is to get rid of the market.
 
“We should pay less attention to the individual lunatics, and more attention to what a movement is really about. Occupy Wall Street, at its core, is a reaction to the increasing power and influence of large corporations. The Tea Party, at its core, is a reaction to the government’s constant interference with private enterprise. But wait a minute—aren’t those things connected?”

howconservativesdrovemeaway.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-vs-tea-party.html
The basic difference maybe is that the tea party was a movement of overtaxed middle class greys, and this movement is now the turn of the jobless children of those same middle class tea partiers to give teh same message from their own perspective.
 
thegatewaypundit.com/2011/10/pro-obama-working-families-party-seeks-advertises-for-professional-activists-to-fight-wall-street/

In case you had any doubt that these Wall Street protests were being manufactured by the far left, there’s this–

The pro-Obama Working Families Party of New York posted this advertisement on Craig’s list. They are looking for energetic progressives to help them to fight to hold Wall Street accountable. And the pay is $350-$650 a week depending on the responsibility and length of time of staff.
 
thegatewaypundit.com/2011/10/pro-obama-working-families-party-seeks-advertises-for-professional-activists-to-fight-wall-street/

In case you had any doubt that these Wall Street protests were being manufactured by the far left, there’s this–

The pro-Obama Working Families Party of New York posted this advertisement on Craig’s list. They are looking for energetic progressives to help them to fight to hold Wall Street accountable. And the pay is $350-$650 a week depending on the responsibility and length of time of staff.
But I thought this was an organic movement, wrought from the hearts of caring, sincere, ethical people?

Pathetic, as are those who will defend this garbage.
 
That’s silly dude. The Tea Party didn’t essentially exist three years ago, and actually had candidates run and win elections. Not to mention, 700 arrests and counting? How many tea Partiers have been arrested in the years of existence? Look at the people at the OWS rallies. Demographically speaking, it simply doesn’t represent mainstream average America. Not opinion, just facts. Whether you use age, employment status, race as your barometer, they are hardly the norm…

I hope you were as positive and supportive of the Tea Party rallies as you are of OWS. I have no issue with anyone protesting, **peacefully. **Here are some interesting tidbits about the movements and how they are treated…

kokomoperspective.com/news/heck-textbook-media-bias-tea-party-vs-occupy-wall-street/article_cec8eeee-f341-11e0-b24f-001cc4c002e0.html

So after being sick a few days, I start my crash course exposure to the weeks’ news and saw this printed in the New York Times about these little anti-capitalist rallies that got started out on Wall Street recently:

A loose-knit populist campaign that started on Wall Street three weeks ago has spread to dozens of cities across the country, with protesters camped out in Los Angeles near City Hall, assembled before the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago and marching through downtown Boston to rally against corporate greed, unemployment and the role of financial institutions in the economic crisis.

With little organization and a reliance on Facebook, Twitter and Google groups to share methods, the Occupy Wall Street campaign, as the prototype in New York is called, has clearly tapped into a deep vein of anger, experts in social movements said, bringing longtime crusaders against globalization and professional anarchists together with younger people frustrated by poor job prospects.

Populist campaign? Tapped into a deep vein of anger? Could someone remind me, please…were these the characterizations that were being offered by the New York Times to the town hall protests and Tea Party rallies that began being held a few years ago?

Clay Waters of Newsbusters remembers things a bit differently:

While the Times’s coverage of conservative Tea Party rallies pointed out the most extreme and “fringe” elements present, the paper has thus far eschewed labels like “far-left” or even “liberal,” and ignored the cadre of Communists and offensive posters decrying “Nazi bankers” in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan.
And while the massive-yet-peaceful Tea Party rallies were seen as ruptures of inchoate and ignorant anger orchestrated by conservative think tanks that constantly threatened to explode into violence, the young, arrest-prone leftist campers near Wall Street are portrayed as the thin edge of an uprising of justified citizen anger.


Another great lesson in the objectivity of the American media. Communists marching around with Nazi signs don’t even get labeled “far left” or “liberal,” but instead “populist.” Despite 700 of them being arrested for blocking traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge, they get credit for being tapped into a national sentiment.
However, remarkably peaceful taxpaying and hard-working American citizens angry that the government continued to rob from them and borrow from their grandkids to waste on out of control government spending get hammered as violent, radical, racist nuts who are intent on escalating their vitriol until someone got hurt.
And it’s not just the pathetic New York Times that is carrying on this transparent charade. ABC and NBC have both been party to the double standard in reporting. Maybe the real story would be if they actually were objective, huh?
Yea, I always find it quite amusing how the same people who make a brouhaha about a couple of people in a crowd booing then go on to pontificate how we ought not focus on the extremists, which exist in any movement and in any crowd.

700 getting arrested for disruptive behavior tends to suggest that the fringe is a large part of this garment.
 
:rotfl: We don’t have capitalism in this country!!! :rotfl: Because of the Republicans AND the Democrats, we have economic corporativism, also known as fascism. Olbermann was right when he called Bush a fascist. Unfortunately, he refused to call Obama one as well. Based on their government/economic policies, both parties are fascistic and work to promote their corporate buddies and investment banker buddies to the detriment of the nation.

The predictions of Thomas Jefferson have come to pass.

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”

“The (currency) issuing power should be removed from banks and restored to the People, where it rightfully belongs.”

And people here call Ron Paul “the nutty professor”. Most of his economic policy is developed after Thomas Jefferson. Apparently, one of the founders of our nation, the man who defined liberty for us, and our third President was as much of a nutcase as his is.

Even John Adams, back in his day, wrote about the #1 cause of societal turmoil,

“All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects of the Constitution or Confederation; not from any want of honor or virtue, as much as downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.”
This I agree with 👍
And lastly, I like this quote from William Pitt, it reminds me of this “list of demands” of the OWS crowd,

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.”
This I do not.

The necessities of others may infringe upon human freedom, but that is the price one pays for living in a Civil Society. Limiting freedom is not tyranny or slavery - it is social contract. Our Church expects us to give up certain economic freedoms for the welfare of others, and to use civil government as a means of enforcing a just and equitable arrangement.

Libertarian principles dove-tail with Catholic principles in many ways, but they are not a perfect match, so it is important to distinguish where we agree and where we do not.

Peace 🙂
 
Okay…this is hilarious…in a sad, pathetic way. I hope Obama and the Democratic Party enthusiastically embrace this movement, because it will marginalize them and get the country moving in the right direction. These are left-wing nut jobs:

youtube.com/watch?v=3QZlp3eGMNI&feature=youtube_gdata_player
That video is disgusting and scary. The guy is like a cult leader and he silences the speaker and half of the crowd by shouting “we have a consensus” and getting everyone to repeat it. Like 1984.

There are a lot of reasons to be angry at the banks but it is like these left-wing extremists are paid by someone to deter any normal people from ever having an independent voice. These “leaders” who deny they are leaders is the reason I would never go on a protest like that.:mad:

It reminds me of what St Josemaría Escrivá said in The Way:
“Don’t you think that equality, as some people understand it, is synonymous with injustice?”

escrivaworks.org/book/the_way-point-46.htm

The lie of “horizontal” decision making is unnatural and is an excuse for tyranny by just one leader by destroying all proper and just hierarchies.
 
What are they … 2nd graders?

left wing nut jobs is right.
That is one link I regret having opened.
There used to be a book out " All I Ever Really Needed to Know, I Learned In Kindergaten".
For these people, play school lessons would even be more advanced.

It is embarrassing to see people actually act like that. This is not a serious movement.
 
Okay…this is hilarious…in a sad, pathetic way. I hope Obama and the Democratic Party enthusiastically embrace this movement, because it will marginalize them and get the country moving in the right direction. These are left-wing nut jobs:

youtube.com/watch?v=3QZlp3eGMNI&feature=youtube_gdata_player
For all of those who do not understand why the crowd repeats everything the speaker says, it is because they are emulating the “Human Microphone” that was developed as a response to the prohibition placed on the protesters on Wall Street from using “amplified sound”.

npr.org/2011/10/06/141109428/the-nation-we-are-all-human-microphones

John Lewis arrived without notification at the Atlanta protest. He was not silenced, but was asked to wait until after the agenda had been completed. He had another engagement and could not wait. The group has issued an apology. John Lewis says he is not upset about it.

This is an example of fishing for reasons to diss this movement. I suppose everyone who is outraged is a real John Lewis supporter :rolleyes:
 
For all of those who do not understand why the crowd repeats everything the speaker says, it is because they are emulating the “Human Microphone” that was developed as a response to the prohibition placed on the protesters on Wall Street from using “amplified sound”.

npr.org/2011/10/06/141109428/the-nation-we-are-all-human-microphones
It is what they said and how they said it that I found disturbing. I figured you would like it and defend it. They are looney.

Btw…is a bullhorn “amplified sound?”
 
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