occupy wall st

[Marcel]

 

[theuserformallyknownasd00d]

thanks for sharing marcel, great first hand story, that must have been fucking terrifying for you all!

the kettling tech is the worst man. i mean, NWO theorys are fairly "out there". a fair part of a nwo takeover involves treating humans like livestock, i see a resemblance here...

d00d

[paradox]

this shit is brilliant

 

 

[Zen Peddler]

As a socialist Ive been waiting for these kinds of movements for a long time. Our democratic capitalism is really just protectionist wealth-based fuedalism. If you dont believe me, go walk through Toorak and count the chandeliers in each house, while children starve in Africa.

There has to be an element of psychopathy in very wealthy people = the endless drive to acquire as much as possible at all costs and the feelings that back that up like endless entightlement and the extreme lack of empathy.

Honestly you wonder about our world - we waste food, while the majority of the world suffers in hunger; we acquire more and more wealth and protect our borders from them; we create laws that protect the wealthy and maintain the current status quo so that the working majority never really make it but keep the cogs moving for the few that have; we treat animals as if they are soulless and have been created purely for us to factory farm, kill and consume.

Our society has reached a level of decidence that would be disgusting to an outside observer.

[Mycot]

A late reminder.

Tomorrow is October 15th Global Day of Action with protests taking place worldwide.

For Australia the following meetups are planned.

Perth Forrest Place Sat Oct 15 1:00 PM

Adelaide Victoria Square Sat Oct 15 10:00 AM

Melbourne City Square Sat Oct 15 10:00 AM

Gippsland warragul train station Sat Oct 15 8:00 AM

Sydney Martin Place and Macquarie Street Sat Oct 15 12:30 PM

Byron Bay Railway Park Sat Oct 15 12:00 PM

Brisbane Queen Street and Adelaide Street Sat Oct 15 9:00 AM

Cairns City Place Sat Oct 15 7:00 AM

Canberra to have a meetup at City Walk on Tue Nov 22 1:00 PM

Recent news is that there are renewed efforts to shut down OWS.

http://occupywallst.org/article/emergency-call-action-prevent-forcible-closure-occ/

In addition to several occupations of indefinate length occuring in US cities demonstrators plan to set up a permanent campsite outside the Reserve Bank in Sydney.

http://www.skynews.com.au/businessnews/article.aspx?id=672827&vId=

In Melbourne, protesters plan to camp out in Swanston Street’s City Square indefinitely in solidarity with their US colleagues.

http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/10/04/the-wall-st-journey-hits-our-shores-but-do-we-need-it/

Viva la Revolucion!

Edited October 14, 2011 by Mycot

[Mycot]

Found a very interesting and encouraging piece of news. Time Magazine recently did a poll asking a good range of questions of political nature of a survey base of 1,001 adults. One of the most interesting was question 11.

Q11. IN THE PAST FEW DAYS, A GROUP OF PROTESTORS HAS BEEN GATHERING ON WALL STREET IN NEW YORK CITY AND SOME OTHER CITIES TO PROTEST POLICIES WHICH THEY SAY FAVOR THE RICH, THE GOVERNMENT’S BANK BAILOUT, AND THE INFLUENCE OF MONEY IN OUR POLITICAL SYSTEM. IS YOUR OPINION OF THESE PROTESTS VERY FAVORABLE, SOMEWHAT FAVORABLE, SOMEWHAT UNFAVORABLE, VERY UNFAVORABLE, OR DON’T YOU KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT THE PROTESTS TO HAVE AN OPINION?

VERY FAVORABLE 25%

SOMEWHAT FAVORABLE 29%

SOMEWHAT UNFAVORABLE 10%

VERY UNFAVORABLE 13%

DON’T KNOW ENOUGH 23%

NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 1%

http://swampland.time.com/full-results-of-oct-9-10-2011-time-poll/

Edited October 14, 2011 by Mycot

[santiago]

you know what - im actually off the protest bandwagon. i have only seen a little of this but it doesnt impress me at all, its just a mob of people with 100 different interests who are gathering in one spot, there is no leader, there is no direction....its just a get the numbers, get down there and figure it out in the long run kinda process.

i know there is a certain type of person including myself who doesnt like certain aspects of political and corporate life, but you know what.....the government does alot more for me than these protesters could do in a life time. two new freeway overpasses and a multi billion dollar hospital are almost opened within a 20 minute drive from my house, where is the congratulations to the government on a job well done on these............nada, zilch, nothing..........just a bunch of loonies who think they can change the world by some secular chants in a mob on wall street, you know what......a year from now occupy wall st wont even register in a community newspaper personal ad. all it is is anarchy.....and we know how well that went for the UK. sure the UK riots was a protest roughly about the same thing, the inequity of wealth. if that was the case then why did the anarchists rob 14 yo kids of schoolbag treats and smash the windows of the local barbers and fruit shops....not exactly targeting the wealthy there.

at the end of the day, its a free world.....anybody and i mean ANYBODY can run with a good idea and make a million dollars if they put in the time and the effort, this is the base of our system. so what - now where meant to hate people who get off their ass and do that, seriously what a joke.

i started to go down this path with my stupid hot dog man and communist manifesto type threads, there was a certain period on this forum where this stuff was just getting outta hand and im afraid i got cought up in that neo political bandwagon shame too. imnot saying the world is perfect and not to protest but there is a certain way to do it, how i dont know - thats political and thats out of my league but thats the way in which we have a garden with wonderful plants too, due to the system we have already........................ if you let this stuff get to you then there really is only one result, you get frustrated that your not being heard (you are being heard but not taking due diligent process) and in order to be heard one must resort to extremism.

twin towers kamikaze's

that belgian dude (who cares) that shot all those innocent people

suicide bombers

the UK anarchists

.....are just some of the pitiful examples of people who have to resort to extreme-ism because just like these occupy wall st people would not have a clue of how to be heard logically so the have to resort to playground child bashing to make their point.

i dont want to be like that.....................if these occupy wall st people really were true to their ideological speeches then why are most of them wearing designer shoes, clothes, eating maccas for brekky................please what a load of shit, parody around like saints who have been robbed by the big bad corporate dude while they happilly buy and wear and eat and shit their wares (whilst they protest)

i forget the quote but its similar to this................if your a true conservationist the best thing you can do right now is get a gun and shoot yourself, that would be true conservation right. well i dont mean go do that...............................but if your a true occupy wall streeter then you bloody better well be sure your naked and you dont eat, because really thats what you stand for and if yopu cant say that well in my opinion your no better than that crazy belgian dude who shot the kids.

[Marcel]

It's all or nothing, eh Santiago?

[Halcyon Daze]

i have only seen a little of this but it doesnt impress me at all, its just a mob of people with 100 different interests who are gathering in one spot, there is no leader, there is no direction....

 

That's exactly what the media wants you to think and you've swallowed it hook line and sinker.

These people know exactly what they want, an end to wall street corruption and they represent the will of the vast majority of the population.

This is the kind of democracy that can bring real change and that's why the media is scrambling to hose it all down.

Edited October 14, 2011 by Halcyon Daze

[santiago]

the only problem is though its kinda rebel without a cause interesting, i have never been brave enough to go to an actual protest though....seems rather directionless to me. i think im kinda waiting for neo to pop up....you know like world war breaks out and 1 million people go enough is enough....then some kind of dude with true character like neo stands up for human rights and then he gets a public execution, then 1000000 million people go bezerko in a human rights rage.......

that sounds pretty interesting, but protesting against a small minority or public or media percieved mogals seems very very lame to me.......WOW would igive my life for that - get real no way...............who cares, let the rich have the rich, lets the champagne and silver flow, its only ever a temporary sense of self worth and being. money in fact could be the ultimate factor in early death if you ask me, the more you have the earlier you die.

great i love the spirit but really its a waste of time, seriously these people should be in the shed tinkering with tools and making childrens wooden toys for charity. imagine all these occupy walls street fools wasting there time chanting when they could actually make childrens toys instead and send them to africa for example.

but im not one to judge, only to say how i feel...........who knows maybe it will be the beginning of inevitable world change, i cant see it myself, i would say if anything its not the media but the use of media and its ugly cousing social media that has in fact hit the twitterseverse...yay i love a flash mob.

[Torsten]

Santiago, just because YOU don't know why they are protesting doesn't mean they don't know. And the fact that you don't know is because you haven't been paying attention. There is a central demand of this movement which is to stop the corporatocracy and the corruption of the democratic process by the super rich. In the USA this is largly focussed on the fraudulent behaviour of the investment banks that the tax payer had to bail out. In other places it may focus on the stranglehold the media has on politics or how mega mining corporations dictate government policies by financial influence.

The movement has no issue with rich people and with people who have worked for their money. It's not about the toorak mansions either. It's about the murdochs, goldman sachs, BOA, the Packers and Twiggy's and BHPs that have so much power that governments throw our taxes at them and then cause them to wilt in the face of any criticism. There is a reason companies don't have a right to vote, so why have we allowed them to become such powerful entities in politics?

Yes, there are communists and anti capitalists among the protestors and the corporate media likes to focus on these to discredit the movement. But the movement is so much more than these small interest groups.If you are happy to have your opinions formed for you by corrupt and unethical media, the national wealth squandered on multinational mining companies, and your government at the mercy of corporate interests, then don't get involved. But if you think any of the above is just not right then hopefully you will join in.

[santiago]

i see we posted this at same time so i get to respond first....cool ay

personally i think lifes going ok, there is no shortage of dollars to earn if your willing to struggle at the same time. im very sad i have not made it into life like i should have, i should have really done better in my life, hindsight allows me to view things this way. but like most amongst us i am able to walk into coles and buy a loaf of bread for a dollar.

i couldnt give a rats about murdoch, sure i really wish i could have got into IT in the 80's, created s ex.co m and had the lifestyle the protestors crave, well thats all it really is isnt it...........some kind of warped jealousy.

why not just be a grey person, so much more can be achieved. even though Torsten you did mention there is so much more to the movement im still lost, what really does it stand for? can i vote for it? can it change my life for the better? or worse?

if i really had tyo look critically and using this sphere of friends, my personal friends and family and so on.............sure there is a struggle or two or three, injustice all round, but isnt that adaption to circumstance what in fact makes us human ourselves.

[Torsten]

if you are happy to pay taxes that get given to corrupt corporations that then chose your political representatives for you so they can tax you some more, then don't get involved.

That's right, I forgot you haven't actually made anythign of yourself and are bludging on everyone elses taxes for your lifestyle, so you don't really care. I wonder if you cared about murdoch if he ran a campaign to kill off social security and you'd actually have to work for your privileges? well, that's basically what some of the people are protesting about cos that's exactly what he did in the USA.

None of this is going to affect me much as I have plenty of options. But you are at the mercy of this system because you are dependent on it. If the system wasn't keeping you so comfortable then you might feel different about it. If you were paying taxes you might also feel different about it.

I am supporting he movement out of principle. I am not in the 1%, but I am also not struggling, so this isn't going to affect me much either way. but I support the movement out of principle because I believe in democracy and have for a long time felt sick about the way corporatocracy is corrupting it. Your view of poor commies being jealous of the rich is very cynical and simplistic. I guess in your limited and spineless world you can't imagine that people actually stand up for what they believe in, wihtout wanting a piece of it. Well, in a way you are right, they DO want a piece of it. They want the piece that the corporations took away from them. They want their fraudulently spent taxes back. They want their de-monopolised free market choice back. They want their vote back.

[santiago]

i didnt know you were rebeliously minded, seemed rather in control to me you do Torsten. which would make me believe you would have more to lose as an individual as you would to gain.

im not a total write off, hindsight at 36 is a bit pre mature, hopefully i can get to 90, thats the way i see it............years.

dont know anything about the corrupt stuff...your last paragraph is a bit harsh but thats cool i think i understand your general tone and thats how you communicate.

will this be something you will stand to in a year.....can i remind you haha

[Torsten]

I have been campaigning against corporatocracy for over 20 years, so I doubt I will change my stance on this anytime soon. Corporations will never have the people's interests at heart as they have a clearly defined mandate to maximise profits for their shareholders. That in itself means that corporate interests must be balanced by individuals to protect the environment, resources, and human rights as corporations will never stop of their own accord. This balance is possible, but not if people are disempowered by corporate lobbying. I am not against capitalism. I am not against money. But you only have too look at a few exmaples to see where the system has gone wrong.

The main example is what has motivated the occupy wall street movement. Investment banks gave loans to people who could not pay them, then repackaged these debts as investments and sold them on. In any other business this would be fraudulent [eg selling empty milk bottles claiming that they are full of milk is illegal]. But instead of these organisations being prosecuted the government hands them phenomenal amounts of tax money to bail them out. And 2 years later these same organisations use their political influence to stop banking reforms that would prevent such things from happening again. These corrupt banks then pool their money to play further high risk investment games rather than making loans available to the average US citizen and business.

This single example embodies the main demands of the movement.

1) regulate the banks to make sure that they can't hide toxic assets.

2) separate investment banks from main street banks to make sure community money stays in the community rather than being funnelled into currency games

3) get corporate money out of politics so that politicians can represent the people, not the corporations they currently rely on.

4) prosecute the people who committed this fraud.

5) make the banks pay back their bail outs, including the lost interest.

These same demands apply to many other corporations too. Obviously it would not be fair to only remove bank funds from politics. All corporate funds need to be removed.

Doing these things will not be bad for business and will not hinder growth or profits, except where such profits are unfairly gained via corrupt influence and/or environmental & social abuse.

As for my own vested interests, I have no investments, no shares, no money in the bank. I pay tax and would prefer my taxes to be spent on infrastructure and services than on grants to the mining industry. I don't depend on corporate media and am not much of a corporate consumer. Most banks, media and other corporations could disappear with little effect on me. In fact I actively support smaller independent business whereever I can so that money stays in my community and supports local jobs - even if this costs more. For a number of reasons [eg I am paying tax for two] I am currently in the highest tax bracket, so any wealth redistribution as inferred by some occupy movements could only be a disadvantage to me. yet, I have no problem with that as long as my taxes get spent wisely. So I am unsure how the occupy movement could benefit me in any way other than that it satisfies my craving for social justice.

[Rabelais]

why not just be a grey person, so much more can be achieved. even though Torsten you did mention there is so much more to the movement im still lost, what really does it stand for? can i vote for it? can it change my life for the better? or worse?

 

I would say it stands for being against the current plutocracy/corporatocracy - a modern day oligarchy, especially in the US.

But why do you matter, santiago? The protests in Australia this weekend are more about solidarity with US protesters I believe...we have some issues here but not nearly as bad as it is in the US.

In a US context, I would say it boils down to general sense of the 'deals' being broken. One deal for example: You go to college, work hard and get good marks, get a job, pay off your student loan and then start to get ahead in life. But how does one get ahead with no job prospects on a 100k+ student loan with upwards of 16% interest. Maybe, if you are lucky, get a job at McDonalds where you can barely make enough to pay back the interest and basically become an economic slave by proxy?

That is how I see it: Corporations using influence to basically get people into economic revolving doors where their whole existence boils down to propping up the economic oligarchy. And the worse the economy gets over there, the harder it becomes to get out of that economic revolving door, and all the while, the rich keep getting richer and exerting more and more influence.

[Rabelais]

Corporations will never have the people's interests at heart as they have a clearly defined mandate to maximise profits for their shareholders. That in itself means that corporate interests must be balanced by individuals to protect the environment, resources, and human rights as corporations will never stop of their own accord. This balance is possible, but not if people are disempowered by corporate lobbying. I am not against capitalism. I am not against money. But you only have too look at a few exmaples to see where the system has gone wrong.

 

^^^This^^^ Very elegantly put.

There needs to be some balance. Corporations are entities, their whole existence is based on the need to maximise profit at any cost. That is all well and good, but there has to be a counter-balance. It is not helped when the conservative leaning US supreme court decides that corporations are 'individuals' in a legal sense and thus are not required to disclose political donations.

It's corruption, man. Needing 100 million+ dollars from donors to run for president in the US is essentially corrupt...there is no other word for it. There needs to be a more transparent and equatable system.

Edited October 14, 2011 by Dale Cooper

[Teljkon]

fghfggh

Edited December 19, 2021 by Teljkon

[Marcel]

Torsten, your post at #44 is possibly the most succinct and clear of all the "OWS Issues" summaries going around (and I've been reading shitloads of these since OWS was just a cute idea on Adbusters). Add a little bit about how Trickle Down Economics never works the way it's believed to work, and you have something worth spreading around.

[santiago]

very interesting thread, it can be a fun late at night when the rest of the world is busy and the big T comes on board to nail you for some hair brained comments...but it was worth it because i think we found out some interesting things about our forum leaders passions, life and this can only lead to more mutual respect i hope.

So I am unsure how the occupy movement could benefit me in any way other than that it satisfies my craving for social justice.

 

yeh well said, i can totally dig that psych.

That's right, I forgot you haven't actually made anythign of yourself and are bludging on everyone elses taxes for your lifestyle, so you don't really care. I wonder if you cared about murdoch if he ran a campaign to kill off social security and you'd actually have to work for your privileges?

i was inferring that the protestors were probably just motivated by petty jealousies as i could describe within myself, the shannon noll song comes to mind what about me, it isnt fair......blah blah blah now i want my share. i have friends i went to school with who copied off me and now they friggin run corporations themselves. am i jealous....no way, but i can see how a person motivated by greed and an over inflated sense of self worth could feel ripped off by the system.......cos when it comes down to blaming something it always seems to be the system.

i dont know what you mean by bludging though, i work just like most people.....i own the symbol of worker class, the famous yellow flouro. have worked since 1991 in a few careers now and unlike my contemporaries who are full time single dads or mums i never stopped working except for about 3 months when my little one was a demanding 2yo, i dont think many would begrudge me this............sure i recieve tax break a/b and rent assistance but my wage nullifies any pension i would be entitled too, so being a bludger doesnt sit well with me because i never expected or wanted to be a sole dad and even since i became that i have always been mostly sustained on my wage. on other threads i have highlighted how easy the pension system is etc as i have a mate in centrelink and when you become a sole parent you realise how lucrative it is for the very people who unfortunately make a life of it. and i write this after just getting home from a 5 hour saturday shift. if that makes me a bludger well than so be it but unlike a lot of blokes when the mothers care wasnt an option i didnt opt for granny or the foster care system, i took responsibility and left my very respectful career so i could take care of a human being............i didnt ask for centrelink, im not a bludger...............and i think that was a bit mis-representing. i dont even know why i wrote that, thats very personal to me so i will delete it later as i dont want the world reading that but i trust our members temporarilly with that info.

just wanted to clear the air, sorry to side track the thread a bit. still though i want to go see one of these occupy wall streets in person, as said i have never protested before. maybe i should go colhawk and do some covert utubing if i get the chance and plonk it into the thread.

lotsa love

[Torsten]

i was inferring that the protestors were probably just motivated by petty jealousies as i could describe within myself, the shannon noll song comes to mind what about me, it isnt fair......blah blah blah now i want my share. i have friends i went to school with who copied off me and now they friggin run corporations themselves. am i jealous....no way, but i can see how a person motivated by greed and an over inflated sense of self worth could feel ripped off by the system.......cos when it comes down to blaming something it always seems to be the system.

There are probably many reasons why people participate. It is true that there are not many rich marxists, so any hard left protestors could probably be accused of being jealous, but they are actually in a minute minority [in the USA protests]. To the average US citizen the concept of a social net and medicare the way we have in australia and western europe is already socialism bordering on communism. So be careful when you hear the right wing media carrying on about the anti-free market socialist that run the occupy movement there, cos what they are pointing at would be the equivalent of a centrist liberal party member here.

When you mention the system being the usual target of protests, again it is important to mention that the majority of OWS protestors don't want to do away with capitalism or the while political system. They simply want to restore proper democracy the way it was intended and they want the bastards who ruined the economy with their greed prosecuted and regulated. you don't have to be a leftie to appreciate that sentiment, which is why over 55% of american approve of OWS and only about 25% disapprove. That is not a partyline split, so it is silly to assume the movement is only a left movement.

At no point since the evolution of democracy has anyone ever said that corporatocracy should be a healthy part of it. When people vote in a democractic system they have a right for their vote to be counted equally to other individuals - and only other individuals. In other countries when corporations influence election results we call that corruption, yet we can't see this in our own country for some reason.

i dont know what you mean by bludging though, i work just like most people

I apologise unreservedly about that statement. For some reason I had it in my mind that you were not working and living off benefit. I thought that is what you said in a different thread not long ago. But if I have that wrong or misunderstood somehow then I am sorry.

However, that raises a new question if you are hardworking and tax paying, then why doesn't all this bother you? These greedy bankers are what caused the GFC and which made the australian stimulus package necessary. You will be paying the interest on that stimulus for several years and further public assets like those wonderful infrastructure projects you mentioned earlier will be a little delayed because our government has no money. The greed and fraud of a few people who earn phenomenal amounts of money for shuffling numbers on their computers has directly caused this financial burden on you and every tax payer. And the corporate influence on our politicians has directly caused the mining tax to be downsized instead of letting it pay off that corporate debt.

There are only 2.3 million tax payers in australia, so for a 42 billion stimulus that means about $18,000 per tax payer [not taking interest into account]. That means YOU. Don't know about you, but 18K hurts my pocket pretty badly. But at least we got something for that. We got some cash, we got lots of school renovations, we got roads and bridges, etc etc. We had to do all that on expensive credit, but at least it wasn't just thrown away. Now imagine if that sort of money was simply given to the banks that caused the GFC so that they can survive. Imagine how pissed off some people would get about that. Well, that's what occupy wall street is about, because that's what happened there. In australia we didn't need to bail out the banks to any substantial degree because we already had the regulations that the OWS movement wants for US banks.

This is not about bringing down the system, it's about fixing it.

[qualia]

NEW YORK—As the Occupy Wall Street protest expands and grows into a nationwide movement, Americans are eagerly awaiting a list of demands from the group so they can then systematically disregard them and continue going about their business, polls showed this week. "The protesters need to unify around a shared agenda with precise policy goals so I can begin paying no attention to them whatsoever," said Tulsa, OK poll respondent Kaye Petrachonis, echoing the thoughts of millions across the country. "If they don’t have a clear power structure organized around specific demands first, then I'll never be able to completely tune them out due to a political conflict of interest or an inability to comprehend complex, detailed economic concepts. These people really need to get their act together." Once Occupy Wall Street has a concrete set of objectives in place, the majority of Americans said they would go back to waiting for the sluggish economy to recover while blindly accepting things the way they are.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/nation-waiting-for-protesters-to-clearly-articulat,26353/

[Mycot]

In London Police told to move along as anti-bank protesters camp out at St Paul's

[Torsten]

http://www.theonion.com/articles/nation-waiting-for-protesters-to-clearly-articulat,26353/

 

LOL, gotta love the onion. It's so much easier to say things in satire.

[ErraneousHerbalist]

For those that are in Brisbane:

Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/TheOccupyBrisbane?sk=wall

Livestream:

http://www.livestream.com/occupybrisbanelive

 

I realise this may be slightly off topic but nevertheless, the people down there are very interested in answering any questions you may have.