Occupy TFF

[Alpha]

What does everyone think of the Occupy movement?

What do you think it stands for, and do you agree with it?

Have you gone to see or participate in a local one?


Broadly, I agree with the Occupy movement in the sense that I think economic inequality is worth protesting about. More importantly, corporate influence in government should be an absolute no-no. From what I read, however, that is exactly what fuels the American political system. They rely on giant donations from corporations in order to campaign. Those corporations in turn expect giant kick-backs and to hold levers of power.

That isn't democracy; that's corporatism. It can never be tolerated. One person, one vote. NOT one dollar, one vote.

I have been to my local one, Occupy Wellington. Problem is, it's overrun with hippies. I don't mean to be judgemental; I'm sure I agree with these people on a lot, and I'm sure they're intelligent and nice people. But they don't give that impression. Half of them had dreads, were playing bongos, and protesting about fluoridated water. I really struggle to associate myself with something that presents itself in such a silly way. It diminishes the credibility of their message, and makes me worried about how people will see me for expressing my views.

By no means do I think that the only opinions worth listening to are those that come from people in suits and with degrees. But it helps to have a broader spectrum of people than the Wellington branch of the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party if you are claiming to be the 99%.

[Pete]

I'm largely torn about the movement, leaning towards being against it.

On one hand, I do agree that there should be more economic equality and less of a corporately based political system. The current financial system is largely unforgiving, with the economy being what it is. Debt is increasingly difficult to get out of and jobs have to cut positions in order to keep themselves afloat. This is economics.

On the other hand, these protesters are pretty much the same as the teabaggers, but instead of being spearheaded by old white people, it's faced by a bunch of jobless college kids who went to $40K a year schools, to wind up with a degree in Creative Writing. It's really a poor face for a massive protest, and because of this, I can't take them seriously.

I have to wonder a few things about these protesters though.

How many of them are collecting some form of unemployment or welfare, going out in the streets and NOT looking for a job or trying to better themselves?

Do they actually know what they want? From various news sites and organizations, the lists of demands range from ridiculous to moderately acceptable. You can check the "manifesto" on the occupy Wall St. site, which points out 13 demands, which range from removing all borders in the Americas to reducing any and all debt globally.

The impression that I get, and this will sound pretty shitty, but it's that a good majority of these people have some sort of college degree, but do not have the job that they feel that they're entitled to, so they're gonna bitch and moan because they haven't been hired by the rich and their corporations.

Sometimes in life, your degree will not equate to the job you have, or your ideal life plan or journey or whatever hippie shit people think of. Sometimes you have to take a shitty job, or a few shitty jobs that will pay some bills because that's what's required.

[Sasquatch]

They're all morons.

First is the movement. While the guise of "financial equality" is something many people would think is a good thing, there are very good reasons for financial inequality. And as has been demonstrated many, many times before, attempts to force financial equality simply don't work, and would end either in the downfall of an economy, and thus a government, or in forced slave labor. The entire movement revolves around statism and hatred for the successful.

Second is, of course, the people. The majority of them are children whining about how they don't have a free ride to life and jealous because others have earned more than they have. There have been rapes, muggings, blatant public drug use ... basically everything that can be done to ruin these people's credibility. Like Alpha said, they'll never be taken seriously if this is the image they put off. Not like they should be taken seriously anyway, but still.

The odd thing is that these are the same type of people that would jump on the "teabagger" bandwagon and accuse TEA Party demonstrators of racism, sexism, bigotry, etc. Yet, they continue to compare their plight to the plight of TEA Party members because of the demonstrations and gatherings meant to change opinions of those in control. Of course, they would be forgetting the fact that TEA Party demonstrations have costed less in damage and had less crime, even though they have had more demonstrators.

[Rowan]

Occupy Idiots. Causing a public spectacle and half of them dont even know why. People started doing it in Melbourne, Ignorant me though it was just something happening in the united states. I cant believe they were camping out in front of starbucks buying coffees and smoking cigerettes supporting the very thing they are supposedly against. I feel sorry for the police who are just doing their job trying to keep the peace, yet are harassed for doing their jobs. Its digusting and I dont see how these riots masqurading as protests are helping their 'cause'. It pisses me off seeing 16 year olds on the news with no clue what they are protesting. Fueled by the ignorance of immaturity , their message will never be heard because those that are trying to speak have their voices drowned out by the beating of bongo drums.

[Joe]

I actually fully support OccupyX demonstrations. It's folks exercising their right to assemble and express their displeasure with the train-wreck this country has become.

There will always be economic inequalty, however I think that it is perfectly justifiable to be angered with a corporatist political system. Some people will always be richer than others, but the concept of upward mobility has been all but wiped out. I also think that there's also a perfectly valid point in being upset with the lack of finding gainful employment, even with a college degree.

There are a lot of people who have had college shoveled down their throats, being told that a degree, ANY degree will virtually guarantee a job. Now thousands of people are graduating saddled with student loans and the only places hiring are retail and food service.

I fully anticipate the protests growing and getting more intense as the economy isn't improving, and the eventual eroding of social safety nets will only drive more into the streets.

I would likely look into getting involved, however i don't actually have the spare cash in any given month to make extra trips to the area.

I apologize for any non clear points, I'm exceedingly tired and may not be thinking clearly.

[Pete]

Joe, my issue with that is that instead of taking that shit job and making some money, these kids are just bitching and moaning that they can't get that mystical 100K/year job that was once seemingly guaranteed to anyone with a degree. It's a lot less about doing the responsible thing and trying to do something to help yourself now, but just bitching and moaning about entitlement.

[Sasquatch]

Lately, the Occupy movement has rallied around a young male by the name of Scott Olsen, an ex-Marine who has been into political activism for nearly a decade. Scott Olsen was at the Occupy Oakland demonstration when he received a head injury, complete with broken nose and concussion, putting him into a mild temporary coma. The other activists of the Occupy movement are using Scott Olsen's situation as an example of rampant police brutality and the use of "military" tactics on peaceful civilian demonstrators, claiming that he was struck by a tear gas canister fired by riot police, one that targeted his face. They have even created "We Are All Scott Olsen", a campaign designed to, apparently, illustrate that the oppression and systematic violence against one peaceful demonstrator is only an example of what's happening to the rest of the peaceful demonstrators.

Now let me first say that it's a shame that anybody was hurt. They should not have been, and I hope he fully recovers soon.

Also, let me say that the use of military service to support a cause is a farce, and I will lose respect for anybody who uses their military or veteran status to attempt to lend credibility to any cause. Olsen had no business being their with his digicams on. (Either way, I'm wondering when liberals started respecting military service -- ninety-nine times out of a hundred, military service is disrespected and badmouthed, until somebody wearing camouflage actually supports the same thing they do.)

But the story, like the person, is fabricated. Olsen is an ex-Marine with a non-combat job and a seven-month tour to a garrison post in Iraq under his belt. While that alone would be respectful enough, he has since done everything he can to earn a loss of the respect that he deserved at one point. The kid was kicked out of the Marine Corps. for a cocaine problem. Not that it would have mattered much anyway, because he was an incompetent and inadequate Marine and would have been recommended for a bar on reenlistment, so he wasn't going to stay a Marine for long (and he didn't want to). He set up a website called "ihatethemarinecorps.com", which he used to slander and badmouth his superiors, the Corps., and the military in general. Since his Less Than Honorable discharge from the military, he has posted, through his many social networking accounts, pictures of himself among illicit drugs and paraphenalia, along with many remarks against the military and the Corps., and anti-semitic rants. Of course, those are right alongside the BS he posts about how evil capitalism is, etc. etc.

That's the person. Now the story: Occupy Oakland wasn't a demonstration, it was a riot. They shut down one of the largest ports in the country (after stating that that was their goal), they caused at least hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to public and private property, and they did enough to warrant riot police in full gear to show up. Riot police formed a line that got pelted with bottles, rocks, and bricks. They started using tear gas, shooting canisters into the crowd of violent rioters in the hopes of getting them to disperse. The claims are that Scott Olsen was struck in the head by one of these tear gas canisters. Unfortunately for those claiming this, the facts simply don't add up. For one, police are trained to avoid those situations, because of the subsequent lawsuits and inevitable increased violence. But sure, sometimes mistakes happen. It's even more unlikely because the trajectory of a tear gas canister would not have gone anywhere near the face of a rioter, but would have cleared over his head by many feet. It's even more unlikely because there are videos of the injury (conveniently, not him being struck, but very shortly before and after), and you can see a gas trail from the most recently fired tear gas canister, and it's obvious that the canister doesn't go anywhere near him. And it's even more unlikely because immediately before the injury, Scott Olsen was facing away from the riot police -- so when he was struck in the face, it's much, much more likely that he was hit by one of the many bottles, rocks, or bricks thrown by rioters, not by a tear gas canister fired by riot police.

So he's a disgraceful, incompetent, cowardly, anti-semitic, dishonest druggie. And that's the type of person that the Occupy movement wants to base their public image on?

I actually fully support OccupyX demonstrations. It's folks exercising their right to assemble and express their displeasure with the train-wreck this country has become.

Do you support TEA Party rallies for the same reasons?

I support their right to demonstrate and use their First Amendment rights. But those don't include the violence, the rapes, the open drug use, and the vandalism that often accompanies Occupy rallies. They are their own worst enemies -- nobody will start taking their causes seriously until their demonstrators can be taken seriously. (Of course, it will help when they have established, reasonable causes, and when everybody who supports the movement knows what causes to support. Quite a few of the demonstrators, maybe a majority depending on the demonstration, don't even know what their own demands are.) Say what one will about the TEA Party, at least their demonstrations don't have a reputation of child negligence, drug use, rape, violence, vandalism, and complete idiocy.

[Joe]

Do you support TEA Party rallies for the same reasons?

I support their right to demonstrate and use their First Amendment rights. But those don't include the violence, the rapes, the open drug use, and the vandalism that often accompanies Occupy rallies. They are their own worst enemies -- nobody will start taking their causes seriously until their demonstrators can be taken seriously. (Of course, it will help when they have established, reasonable causes, and when everybody who supports the movement knows what causes to support. Quite a few of the demonstrators, maybe a majority depending on the demonstration, don't even know what their own demands are.) Say what one will about the TEA Party, at least their demonstrations don't have a reputation of child negligence, drug use, rape, violence, vandalism, and complete idiocy.

I actually do support the TEA party's right to assemble and protest. It would be kind of hippocritic for me to only support one side's right to free speech, now wouldn't it?

I think that part of the reason OWS's causes are all over the place are because of the VAST differences in potential backgrounds of the people that compose it. There are ex vets of both honorable and questionable backgrounds, college students, middle aged adults, unemployed, underemployed, etc, etc, all who may have different goals as part of the combined cause.

The TEA party, however, and don't take this the wrong way, but they mostly comprise older, poor, white libertarians and republicans (I will lump them together for this purpose since the TEA party has been mostly co-opted by the republican party, however I know a number of libertarians who identify with the TEA party. This is a much, MUCH smaller pool of diversity overall, and thus the goals are much more likely to be aligned.

The TEA party also had better overall organization, which made it easier to define their goal.

Again, more than willing to clarify any points needed.

[SOLDIER #819]

There's a legitimate message and legitimate complaints buried deep in there somewhere. You just need to dig, and dig (and dig and dig and dig) until you can find them. Most people aren't going to take the effort to do so and instead opt to criticize the movement, which is becoming increasingly easy to do.

The rallies themselves are now just BIG NEWS for people to talk about around the water cooler. You can only cry out for so long before people begin turning a deaf ear. The movement will fade away without having incited anything useful if it continues on its current path. But honestly I'm not sure that there's much else people can do but rant and rave at this point. Sensationalistic headlines are the only way to grab the attention of the world anymore. It's just too bad that they can't just stick to their message rather than go off on tangents about police brutality.

[che]

Voting isn't enough anymore.

People are tolerant. They can (and do more than they should, in the US) tolerate shit being "wrong" for a while. When it gets worse and worse and they feel like they are losing their voice, people will rise up. Wall Street can't look the population in the face with innocent eyes, the people know this, and the people outnumber them.

Some people think it's silly, others aren't ready to speak out yet. They haven't been pushed that far yet. But everyone has a breaking point, and the people at Occupy Wall Street have had enough.

Occupy Wall Street is a people-powered movement that began on September 17, 2011 in Liberty Square in Manhattan’s Financial District, and has spread to over 100 cities in the United States and actions in over 1,500 cities globally. #ows is fighting back against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations. The movement is inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, and aims to expose how the richest 1% of people are writing the rules of an unfair global economy that is foreclosing on our future.

The power of our government should come from the consent of the governed, not the lobbyists (read: corporations) that can offer the most money, that is disgusting. When that stops being the case and the government becomes destructive to the governed, it is their RIGHT to change it! This doesn't mean we should just change stuff willy-nilly--as a matter of fact, people put up with unfair situations all the time, and they are more likely to just put up with stuff and sit on their butts than do anything because they are used to it. But, when things get so bad that the governed don't seem to be actually giving their consent anymore--e.g. oligarchy, aristocracy or despotism, it is their DUTY as patriots to make a fuss, get mad and enact real change!

"The thing" is that people have different tipping points. So, understandably, some people have reached it and others think they are silly. Things might have to get worse before enough people move to the side of change rather than complacency. I'm just reaching the end of my tolerance for dirty politics.

I want my voice to be heard and checking a box every couple years is not enough for me anymore. We live in a great nation where we can say what we want, let our opinions and voices be heard. I am not going to let anyone pressure me into not exercising this right because they think I'm being silly. I don't want to just stand by anymore--what else is there to do besides gather with other like-minded people?

-Taken from OccupyWallStreet.org

I really identify myself with that quote. I think it's exactly right, and I'm happy to see people in the US fight for what they believe in, rather than sit on their couches watching as people on the screen do exactly what they want, and all they want to do is complain at the television even though they disagree.


Also, I want to make it clear that I do not think the argument that "while protesting, they aren't looking for jobs" is not a good argument.

[dustinpro]

I support the movement,but not the people in it(they have no idea what they're doing).
The movement has a chance to change into something great if they find a coherent message,but that isn't likely to happen.
It will fizzle out under municipal pressure(brought on by the protestor'e obsolute lack of respect for permit/zoning laws and a few nuts throwing rocks at the police)soon enough and we can get back under our warm Super-Out-Of-Control-Capitalism blanket while ignoring the billions of people around the world who live on 1/1000th of what the poorist American makes.
So those hippies should just shut the hell up,look for a damn job,and thank whatever god they believe in that thery're part of the top 4-5% of the world.

[Arron'the Egg']

I love the fact that people are standing up for what the believe in even if some disagree with the reason
if you want to know more read this book The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone | The Equality Trust

i did for my studies awesome book

[Sasquatch]

Not only are the people trash, the entire movement is as well. Look at some of their demands -- they're basically "take everything from the successful and distribute it to everybody else, so there is absolutely no reason to produce anything." These people want absolutely no consequences for anything, and they won't be happy until we're all equally poor.

And that's the movement -- the people that make it up are even worse than their message. There have been rapes, illicit drug use, prostitution, public masturbation, assaults, rampant vandalism, and everything else. And that's not even counting the noise violations, code violations, and violence directed at law enforcement. Hell, these are the types of people that harass children on their way to elementary school.

And some people are ignorant enough to compare it to the TEA Party. None of that crap happened at TP protests.

How this movement, or the people involved in it, get any respect at all is beyond me.

[Rowan]

How about they occupy a job.

Seriously. The more I hear about it, the more pissed off I become. All we see is people shouting and chanting, what do they hope to prove? Of course they have the right to do it, but excercising your right to do something isnt going to get you anywhere. If you really believed in something, you would have a plan.

"I fu**ing hate capitalism and this pathetic consumerist society!" - Posted on Twitter via iPad while wearing Nikes and sipping Starbucks

[Shine Dalgarno]

The Occupy Movement means different things to different people. And everyone wants it to be a political movement except for the people who are living in tents in Zucotti park.

Conservative pundits want it to be political so they can convince some paranoid rednecks from some backwater town in Kentucky that the evil liberals are organizing to take their guns, money, and god knows what else. And liberal pundits like to say that this is the counter to the Tea Party movement, as if to say "look we have a grassroots movement too!". And of course politicians want it to be political for the same reasons.

And because the movement is so amorphous there will be people, in the movement, trying to use it to their political advantage. But look at what che posted. That describes the ideology of neither party. Many would say its Democrats (probably based on the fact alone that OWS has so many hippies. ) But Obama has Tim Geitner and used to have Larry Summers and Rob Rubin as his advisors, not to mention all the campaign contributions from those in the financial services industry. Obama is no enemy to banks, except maybe small banks (ie the ones without any money)

I cant say I agree with the movement. But I can say for certain that this OWS protester is pretty cool, and he perfectly summarizes it:

[Order]

I'm gonna go ahead and state that I think Occupy has gone the way of most giant protests.
At first it seems like people are exersizing their freedom of speech and assembly, then the crowd becomes massive and combersome.
Just like the rest of the world, 90% of all people are d****bags. 10% of those D-bags are criminal D-bags. The other 10% have good intentions and are honest, hardworking people.
The 10% crimial D-bags make the most noise, have the biggest posters and leave their McDonalds trash right there in the street.
The rest of the D-bags get all excided by the rule-breaking and the bad stuff starts gaining momentum.
The 10% honest, hardworking people are impossible to pick out and their whole cause becomes less and less legitamate. The whole thing begins to look like an excuse for people to act like a**holes.

That's where Occupy is.
Is it even still going on?


Other than that,
I don't agree with Occupy fundamentally. It is about a symptom, not the disease.
There needs to be true leadership in the Fed.
Fewer programs, less spending, less influence on the individual's day to day.
Above all, responsability, accountability, integrity and a sense of duty.

We have them all in the military, why is it not present in the rest of the fed?

[Phoenix Rising]

I think they're just a bunch of kids who are begging for a handout and have no unifying goal or purpose. They all pretty much died a month or two after starting their mobs. It really amuses me to no-end though back when those actors flew to Occupy Wall Street in their hundred million dollar jets and told the kids how much they hated capitalism, it just cracked me up.