Moderators: wanty, Wilbur Kookmeyer
qball wrote:Wilbur, you're right. A whole lot of people created their own problems and their stories make for good soundbites.
But what about the rest of us? My wife's pay has been cut every year for three years. My pay has been cut close to 20 percent in four years. Strangely, our bills haven't. So I found a second job that I worked instead of sleeping. That job dried up a couple of weeks ago. The bills keep coming. Meanwhile, my corporate owner has seen his income go down too. He's only making tens of millions instead of hundreds of millions. I know he has had to cut back too, but it would be nice if some of his cutting back meant more money in the pockets of his employees, at least until we can start earning him gobs of money again, rather than god knows what he spends his wealth on.
In case you're wondering, I have a college degree, which I paid for myself without student debt. My wife has a master's degree, which she earned to get a better paying job. Both are real degrees aimed at employment. I suppose I could get another job, but I make more now than I could starting over in another career.
Yeah, I made some bad decisions but it would have been OK if things didn't keep getting worse.
So, yeah, I want some of that CEO's pay because he got rich off the work of me and a bunch of people like me and the system has been set up so that me and a bunch of people like me don't have a lot of options other than to keep taking it or to take to the streets.
Our economy mostly runs on the sale of goods and services. People have to have jobs to buy that stuff, to make the whole cycle work. The system seizes up when most of the money is in the hands of a few people who can't spend it as fast as they make it.
Tex wrote:I read an article about Occupy Wallstreet discussing all of the different messages coming from this group.
It concluded that action is the message. Regardless of what the 99% is upset about, they are upset enough to get off the couch, turn off the TV, skip the football game and get down on the street and make their presence felt. In Oakland they shut down the port, in Seattle they are laying down inside Chase and blocking off hotel entrances where the President of Chase is staying. On Saturday, a ton of people will be pulling their money out of the big banks, myself included.
Spent wrote:Exactly. It is an experiment in direct democracy and horizontal/anti-authoritarian organization.
Spent wrote:someone was waving a gun around at occupy portland yesterday. i hate to say it but that camp is done. it is not helping 'the cause' at this point. what you have is a high concentration of damaged, homeless, mentally ill and drug/ alcohol affected people living within feet of each other.
it is not healthy and no longer a viable 'social experiemnt' in participatory democracy, because most of the inhabitants are not politically engaged- they are just taking advantage of the fredom to camp out. who can blame them? as the camp probably seems more appealing than sleeping in a doorway and being woken by the cops at 2am but i feel like the wider movement is just using these people as pawns while tainting its own image.
from my angle i can see that the occupy camp has delayed many vulnerable youth from engaging in services that might be able to help them and is enabling them to live in this festering free for all. i was working with 20 youth a week until the camp and now it is down to about 3 and i know where they have all gone... at least work is quiet.
Sparky wrote:I have to say that after reading Wilburs logic in defense of the republician way He has finally presuaded me to go along with him and changed my core beliefs. If you are not rich or don't have a job, "Blame yourself" If your tired of paying high taxes, "Blame YOURSELF".. You could start a multi-billion dollar corporation and avoid taxes like the rest of the big corporations. So if you don't make hundreds of millions of dollars a year, don't cry about it, just "Blame YOURSEF"
Wilbur Kookmeyer wrote:Spent wrote:someone was waving a gun around at occupy portland yesterday. i hate to say it but that camp is done. it is not helping 'the cause' at this point. what you have is a high concentration of damaged, homeless, mentally ill and drug/ alcohol affected people living within feet of each other.
it is not healthy and no longer a viable 'social experiemnt' in participatory democracy, because most of the inhabitants are not politically engaged- they are just taking advantage of the fredom to camp out. who can blame them? as the camp probably seems more appealing than sleeping in a doorway and being woken by the cops at 2am but i feel like the wider movement is just using these people as pawns while tainting its own image.
from my angle i can see that the occupy camp has delayed many vulnerable youth from engaging in services that might be able to help them and is enabling them to live in this festering free for all. i was working with 20 youth a week until the camp and now it is down to about 3 and i know where they have all gone... at least work is quiet.
Spent, you know I have nothing but respect for you and for the work you do. Work that actually matters. I am sorry you are now aware of the sad fact that this thing was destined to fail anyway. Quite honestly I am amazed it took this long to collapse.
I only wish that those that will soon be evicted would realize that their right to free speech is not being denied. I kept hearing sound bites of protesters being chapped because their right to free speech was under atack in all of these clashes with cops, in Oakland, here, and elsewhere. But the reality is their right to free speech was never questioned. They were just ebing held to the same occupancy laws that we all ave to abide. The park closes at 10:00 pm....if you are here after that you will be cited....there is not mcuh in there that invoilves anyone's right to free speech.
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