Occupying Wall Street

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/laurie-penny/2011/10/wall-street-york-police-bridge

by mun2mun • 15 years ago

103 137 15 years ago

jeffool5• 15 years ago

A wonderful article, though I think what's often unsaid in regards to the occupation is their commonality; they all feel that their voices, despite what it is that they're calling out for individually, are being ignored, despite being larger in number. Little is as frustrating as silence in the face of effort.

hugh32• 15 years ago

So they're frustrated that despite the fact that they've been whining for years that the world isn't perfect (where "perfect" means "precisely the way I want it to be), the world still isn't perfect?

The solution: more whining?

michaelchisari4• 15 years ago

Do you really think that people are expecting the world to be perfect, or is that the straw man you prefer in order to ignore their demands?

And, more esoterically, would the world ever progress if everyone accepted it as it was and never pushed for perfection?

tpatke• 15 years ago

For those of you who haven't heard about this, CNN has a bit more facts in it's coverage: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/06/politics/occupy-wall-stree...

The full impact of the greek default hasn't hit yet and it is not unreasonable to expect that Italy or Spain may default next. People have already started leaderless protests. Meanwhile - it's pretty easy to make money on the way down assuming you have it to begin with.

It is not hard to predict some pretty big changes in the next few years.

danmaz742• 15 years ago

Italy and Spain are in a completely different situation if compared to Greece. Expecting that they will default is unreasonable.

diolpah2• 15 years ago

Spot on. And in 2007, the subprime housing crisis was "contained". Totally unreasonable to suspect that debt default contagion actually happens. Carry on, nothing to see here.

bd_at_rivenhill• 15 years ago

Italy and Spain are dangerously over-leveraged in a low growth environment and thus vulnerable to a speculative attack that pushes interest rates up long enough for them to go into default. It is not clear yet whether the European establishment will toe the line on not letting a sovereign default on its obligations, but if they fail to do so, then such an attack becomes much more likely.

coreymaass• 15 years ago

The question I can't find an answer to is, what do they actually want? I feel like "change" isn't specific enough. They need a single, obtainable goal, and focus on getting the media to say that goal with every report.

Andrew_Quentin3• 15 years ago

People asked, well the media asked, what do the Egyptians want, or the Tunisians, when the protests first started there. Of course, we all found out what they wanted.

rimantas3• 15 years ago

Egyptians and Tunisians knew very well what they wanted. What do these people want is indeed unclear to me. Abolish the banks and give all the money to them? Hang all the rich people? Equality of the income? How would that look like? And how many of them are just too lazy to do something and would prefer not to do anything but will still be entitled to some benefits? A lot of those "99%" posters can be summarized by "I took a bunch of dumb decisions, then I took some credit for stuff I did not need, and now I am screwed". Who knew!

_delirium8• 15 years ago

It's a loose coalition of people rather than a protest led by a political party with good message discipline, so what they want tends to vary. Depending on which people you ask, a few common goals: a Tobin tax, return of Glass-Steagall, increased progressivity of the tax code, abolition of the Federal Reserve, ending favorable tax treatment for capital-gains versus earned income, breakup of too-big-to-fail banks, freeze on foreclosure proceedings, etc.

I see it as somewhat similar to the Tea Party in that sense, which was an amorphous sense of dislike for "big government" and a feeling that something should be done about it (tax cuts, spending cuts, etc.); this is an amorphous sense of dislike for "big finance", and a feeling that something should be done about it.

nhebb• 15 years ago

> what do they actually want?

This Jimmy Kimmel video answers that question: http://www.hulu.com/watch/285456/jimmy-kimmel-live-occupy-wa...

  Megaphone: What do we want?
  Crowd: We're not really sure!
  Megaphone: When do we want it?
  Crowd: Now!

Like most Americans, the economic collapse has left me with the sour taste of injustice. But the OWS protesters seem like a disparate bunch of interest groups with no unified purpose.

Hisoka• 15 years ago

They just want the world to be filled with a billion less people, first starting with people who are useless to society such as anyone associated with Wall Street. Of course, none of them will say this, and none of them know they want this, so you get all this incoherent blabber.

dhume• 15 years ago

From what I've heard from them, I think "better safeguards against regulatory capture" would cover a lot of it, though I have yet to hear that term specifically.

mortenjorck• 15 years ago

The best five words for Occupy Wall Street that I've heard.

I'd bet a vast majority of people there would get behind this.

nick_urban3• 15 years ago

Thank's for introducing "regulatory capture" to my vocabulary. It does seem to capture much of what people are angry about (bailouts, etc.). I'm guessing you haven't heard it used by the protesters, it's because it sounds so academic. If they read the definition, though, I expect many would agree.

For the lazy: "when a state regulatory agency created to act in the public interest instead advances the commercial or special interests that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating" (Wikipedia)

roc5• 15 years ago

Beyond the problem of "not everyone is there for the same exact reason", the problems facing our society and economy are far too complex to boil down to a specific list of bullet-points. [1] I'd frankly be more surprised, and suspicious, if they did have a cohesive list of solutions. [2]

Their current single obtainable goal, whether it's their intent or not, seems to be forcing the media to at least acknowledge that the economy really really sucks and the government has done basically nothing about it for the 99%, even if they dismiss the protestors as unserious hippies.

[1] Abstracting the arguments to an umbrella term or position makes it vague almost by definition. Would a cohesive chant against "regulatory capture" satisfy the morning news crowd? It's somewhat more precise, but I get this feeling that it wouldn't change the press perception.

[2] The common defense of the fractured nature of Tea Party groups was that a lack of cohesive voice was seen as a sign of authenticity amongst grass-roots movements. And that does honestly ring quite true to me.

CodeMage• 15 years ago

It's a funny world. I'm not from United States, so I don't know the details of the situation there, but I guess the protesters are feeling the same kind of rage and frustration a lot of people in the rest of the world feel on the daily basis. I guess "change" is the best most of us can do to formulate what we want.

Imagine being a user of a set of a suite of applications (Democracy 12.5, Free Market 6.7, etc) that have been sold to you as The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread and The Solution To All Your Problems. Yet the applications are performing increasingly worse, they keep crashing and not doing what you need them to do.

You try to do something about it, but the customer service channels are horrible and even when you manage to log a bug, a complaint or any other feedback, the best you can hope for is that it's ignored; the worst you can hope for it that a patch comes out that doesn't really fix your problems and creates several new ones.

At this point, you start complaining loudly and publicly about it. What's the most infuriating reaction you can imagine? I don't know about you, but I've got one that's pretty close to the top of my list is "Well, how would you solve the problem, then?" Remember, we're talking about an average user, not a programmer. By all rights, the answer to such a question should be "How the fuck am I supposed to know that?"

Of course, what's going on in the world is a lot worse than this hypothetical situation. If you're using apps that don't work, you can "vote with your wallet" and use something else. If you're forced to use them at work as part of company policy, you can ultimately decide to change jobs, if you want to. But this? You have no choice but to go out and protest and ask for "change".

michaelchisari4• 15 years ago

I'm not usually one for tech analogies in politics, and I'm not even sure I completely agree with it, but at the very least, this one made me smile. :)

r4vik3• 15 years ago

watch some of them squirm through their cognitive dissonance. If you are protesting wall street then how the hell do you support Obama when his presidential campaign was bankrolled by Goldman Sachs? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFVR9Nv43J4&feature=share

Andrew_Quentin3• 15 years ago

They are in fact also protesting against the merger of big business and politics. They are thus demanding an end to big money like the example you gave into politics.

I do not think this is necessarily a democrat's protest. This is a people's protest, the 99%.

Shivetya• 15 years ago

Yet now they are being co-opted by a larger group, which many of us watching this unfold fully expected to happen. What makes it more galling is that many of those from the unions are in no shape or form middle class with very high incomes and high retirement payouts.

The protesters we see now will have a difficult time not getting pushed aside by the machine. What the unions/DNC could not create they certainly can take.

r4vik3• 15 years ago

This reminds me of a quote:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville

tripzilch• 15 years ago

What? Pretty sure they don't support Obama :-/

And the ones that still do aren't disillusioned enough yet.

CWuestefeld4• 15 years ago

The article quotes protesters chanting "Banks got bailed out - we got sold out".

The odd thing is the labor unions are participating in this. But the unions themselves were beneficiaries of bailouts (see GM's bankruptcy).

I can't help feeling that at least some of these protesters are really only in it for handouts.

roc5• 15 years ago

Some unions were incidental beneficiaries, sure.

But consider that the GM/Chrysler bailouts almost included a gutting of the UAW. (They had to fight to retain their collective bargaining power in the deal) And you may have noticed the spate of anti-union legislation proposed, and in some cases passed, across the nation.

The unions have (rightly) seen any benefit they did get as incidental and temporary at best.

And perceiving a movement through possible positions of a minority is a pretty intellectually dishonest way to tar the group. It's as disappointing as dismissing the concerns of the Tea Party for their racists.

Roboprog2• 15 years ago

I don't recall the 2008 election being between Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich. We had two sucky choices, and people on either side voted for what they thought was the lessor evil, relative to their particular value weightings.

Part of the problem is that we do not have instant runoff elections, so big money need only promote 4 candidates for each position, and FUD all of the others. That way, one of their 4 is almost always chosen (2 "sides" in each D/R primary). Barring instant runoff, perhaps we would be better off with proportional representation in Congress: if Green or Libertarian parties received 10% of the vote each, at least they would have some members present.

CWuestefeld4• 15 years ago

I seem to remember voting for Ron Paul in the 2008 primaries. And for the general election, there were more choices than the two you mention.

Instant runoffs are only marginally better than the American "first-past-the-post" system. In particular, they suffer from the perverse effect where voting for your favorite candidate can actually cause him to lose.

There's a mathematical proof (Ken Arrows, maybe? I'm getting forgetful) showing that it's impossible for any voting system to have all the handful of qualities one wants in a democratic process. This is actually a pretty decent branch of mathematics. There exist better options, but none that are perfect.

mseebach5• 15 years ago

The utter euphoria over the election of Obama in 2008 hides very well the fact that 99% apparently voted for the lesser of two evils.

maximusprime4• 15 years ago

This whole 99% vs 1% BS is just getting ridiculous.

Maybe they should be happy they're not the 99% of the world who die of starvation and preventable diseases instead of whining that it's so unfair.

The protestors ARE in the 1%. It's depressing to see their open greed and belief they are entitled to more.

Maybe if they applied all that energy toward creating wealth instead of protesting, they would be in a better situation. Or better yet, try and help the 99% of the world that's worse off than them.

jeffool5• 15 years ago

I'm reminded of people who argue against high-paid athletes going on strike for being greedy, despite the institution owners pulling in far larger portions of the wealth. "They're paid millions to throw a ball around! They should be happy with a fraction of the wealth they generate!"

Which is, of course, the underlying point. Who is really "creating" the wealth? That's a matter of perspective. I'm sure the self-described "99 percenters" feel they're the ones who "created" much of the wealth the "1%" has.

maximusprime4• 15 years ago

I don't think that's the point at all personally.

Protesting that other people have more money than you is just the same as a 2 year old throwing a tantrum.

khafra• 15 years ago

"Some people have it worse than you" is a fully general counterargument which can be applied to any complaint.

mseebach5• 15 years ago

It's (sometimes) useful for providing perspective. The linked article thankfully avoids it, and kudos for that, but I've seen many mentions of protesters self-identifying with the Arab spring. In that perspective it seems reasonable to point out the vast difference in the scale of abuse rendered to the protesters.

mseebach5• 15 years ago

Another thing that's important to keep in mind is that some of the biggest crimes against humanity has happened when the perpetrators claimed to represent the interests of "the 99%" (or "the people" or similar). In reality, they represented what they thought the 99% should want (marxists call it "false consciousness"), and the same is the case here. I'm not saying these protesters have the means or the will to actually go perpetrate serious crimes, but some humility would suit them.

If the 99% (or even 50%) really sympathized, there is no point in camping in a park, just run some candidates for office and take over government. The large sums floating around in politics can possibly swing a margin across the middle, but there's no way it can shut up 99%.

eavc• 15 years ago

It's about having a functional system, not about absolute wealth or even comfort.

Laws that serve the common good. Economic policies that promote progress and well-being.

maximusprime4• 15 years ago

Can you give some concrete examples of why things are currently stacked in the favor of a 1% and against the 99%?

If such things exist, what would your solution be to make things "fairer"?

IMHO, things ARE pretty fair, and these protests are just basically "We don't know how to make money, we messed up buying crap we didn't need, but you lot are rich. therefore it's not fair and you must have some unfair advantage"

ckeck3• 15 years ago

I'd offer some of them a job...but then again I don't think they want one.

Nor are they willing to take any sort of personal responsibility for the "mess" they are in. You didn't necessarily get screwed, you probably screwed yourself. And if you are complaining about tuition costs go protest at the universities, not Wall Street. How dumb can some people be?

Certain financial institutions may certainly be at fault to a degree, but so is Washington and Congress and YOU. Take responsibility and do something positive for the country. This is a joke.

icandoitbetter• 15 years ago

You really believe that a vote has any power?

ckeck3• 15 years ago

Absolutely! But people need to vote at every single level from city council to the Presidency, not just once every 4 years for whoever your favorite news stations tells you to.

I personally don't feel bad for or listen to those who refuse to vote.

ubernostrum• 15 years ago

Erm. These are people who are going far out of their way to draw attention to what they believe are serious problems and try to build momentum for broad action to resolve those problems.

If you think that's a "joke", not really sure what I can say to you.

Similarly, if you think the appropriate response to this is to hand-wave into trying to blame the people who are protesting for the results of, let's face it, massive fraud perpetrated on the world by "certain financial institutions", I have a hard time even beginning to comprehend your worldview.

rnernento• 15 years ago

At least people are trying... The focus may not be clear and the participants may not be the most informed but don't underestimate the potential of this movement. Think of all of the recent injustices that no one has responded to. This is potentially the start of something big, I think we just need some intelligent leaders to provide some direction.

rick8887• 15 years ago

"We are getting kicked out of our homes."

..and why is that? I want to see how many of these people protesting actually got kicked out of their homes and why.

"We are forced to choose between groceries and rent."

Do you have a cell phone? Do you have cable? Where do you live?

"We are denied quality medical care."

Interesting how this is somehow wall street's problems. Can I blame them for tax increases too?

"We are suffering from environmental pollution."

lol?

"We are working long hours for little pay and no rights, if we are working at all. We are getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything."

If you can't find a job..you need to ask yourself why. I lost my job a little over a year ago and then started my own company. Since then, I've had tons of recruiters and other companies emailing me because they want me to work for them. There are still plenty of jobs out there. You just need to bust your ass to get them. Most people aren't willing to put in the work.

I saw the start of this entitlement mentality with music and software piracy. Many people from this generation feel it's their "right" to be able to download these things for free. Now they are entitled to a home, a college education, and a job.

They want equality, but the problem isn't we aren't all equal. I work 12 hours a day. As a result, I have more money in the bank than someone that works part-time. Why should I be limited or penalized for this?

"So far, it's pick-your-own cause, with grievances ranging from bank bail-outs to animal testing, and yet what most of the mainstream media seems to have missed is the fact that the occupation itself is its own demand"

This is why I find the entire "occupation" to be a joke. Every left-wing asshole with a grievance against big business is out there protesting.

hvs• 15 years ago

I'm not sure if it was the same way in the 60's and 70's, but every protest I saw in Chicago since 2003 always attracted a fair share of professional protestors. Your "Free Tibet"ers, environmentalists, and various others always seemed to show up for Iraq War protests and immigration protests. It's easy to ignore protesters when they are obviously doing it as lifestyle choice rather than out of honest indignation.

_delirium8• 15 years ago

There's not much you can do about such people showing up, though, unless you have a very organized, centrally run protest with a gatekeeper for who's allowed to show up. People who have their pet issues will show up and attempt to use the platform if participation is open. I guess you'd just need enough new people to swamp the 'regulars'.

(These kinds of things are, incidentally, why Lenin-style communists argue for agitation to be tightly organized by a vanguard party, which keeps things on message and makes sure protests and other actions maximize tactical and strategic effectiveness, rather than becoming an incoherent free-for-all. But Leninist organization isn't too in favor on the contemporary left.)

exit• 15 years ago

to whoever responded with:

"But anyways. Like most of us, I am also very fortunate to be in tech, and have a passion for programming. But I do not pretend that my good fortune some how means I work or harder or am smarter than other people in our society.",

but then deleted their comment:

you really should repost it. it captures my feelings too and i wanted to thank you for putting them into words.

again and again, i encounter people in my circles of well-employed colleagues who do not realize how lucky they are to have interests coinciding with aptitudes coinciding with particular economic demands in their productive years.

and it makes them sickeningly self congratulatory.

rick8887• 15 years ago

"But I do not pretend that my good fortune some how means I work or harder or am smarter than other people in our society"

What a defeatist attitude. I do work harder and smarter than other people in our society. My work and success reflects this.

"and it makes them sickeningly self congratulatory."

It's sickening that you would equate having a good job with mostly luck. Winning the lottery is pure luck.

I chose to get involved in the tech industry. If I would have been in any other time, I would have chosen a different industry and most likely been successful. Less than 1% of it has to do with luck. If I would have just sat here and done nothing, my career wouldn't have fallen into my lap and my skill set wouldn't have suddenly appeared.

Anybody can be successful.

tgrass• 15 years ago

I in part agree with the sentiment of good fortune. But only in part. I went into Engineering not out of passion, but out of economics. I knew it was safer than continuing with my first path in studying History.

And I know people who are at the protests. And I know many more who would be there if they could. And I try and ignore their pleas for economic help when they also demand that Walmart be shut down.

ArbitraryLimits• 15 years ago

> and it makes them sickeningly self congratulatory.

Now imagine how people in finance are.

abalashov3• 15 years ago

and it makes them sickeningly self congratulatory.

It's one of the things that delayed my entry into the technical profession. I grew up a passionate and involved hobbyist, but seeing this kind of self-aggrandising Randian narrative played out over and over in forums and bodies of knowledge that I considered proxies for the values of the profession (i.e. Slashdot) nauseated me. For a long time, I was determined not to go into tech out of loathing for the idea of working with such people.

Ultimately, I went anyway, and realised--as teenagers are wont to do once they grow up--that any world is more diverse than meets the eye. But I can definitely say that the mythos of the well-earning "self-made" IT man was a major blemish on the idea, not an asset.

srdev5• 15 years ago

I am fully aware that I'm "lucky" that I have an interest in computer programming -- a highly marketable skill. But when people harp on that fortune, it really comes across as trying to devalue the effort I put into developing those skills. Just as an idea has no value without execution, luck is worthless unless you put in the hard work to exercise it. People are emphasizing the former at the expense of the latter to make others feel guilty about their successes and obligated towards the "less fortunate," and that's why people push back.

zavulon• 15 years ago

I could not upvote you enough. It's sickening what is happening in this country. I was born in Soviet Union, and the resemblence grows more and more every day. All the protesters are lacking is a charismatic leader who will promise to punish the evil bourgeouis and distribute their wealth to the poor.

What happened to entrepreneurship. What happened to taking control of your life. What happened to working hard and making things happen. These protests make me very sad, and go against every principle this country was founded on.

_delirium8• 15 years ago

> These protests make me very sad, and go against every principle this country was founded on.

Given how enthusiastic the American founding fathers were for the French Revolution, which had a definite socialist and anti-elite flavor (not merely anti-monarchism), I'm not sure how true that is. Opinions varied, but many were of the view that a free society needs reasonable equality and can't coexist with large concentrations of economic resources.

Thomas Jefferson hoped (futilely) to achieve it by avoiding industrialization, remaining a nation of yeoman farmers and thereby avoiding what he saw as the ills of British industrial capitalism, with its predominance of wage labor, large factories, etc. (he didn't like either the industrialists or their trade-unionist counterparts). That, combined with robust public education.

Thomas Paine was a proto-socialist, traveling after the American Revolution to France to help with the revolution there, where his Rights Of Man: Part The Second was one of the first comprehensive proposals for what can now be seen as social democracy, with a progressive income tax and inheritance tax used to fund a social safety net.

The existence and independence of corporations was also a pretty active area of controversy until the 1850s or so. Before then, many of the founding generation were of the view that corporations were limited-time constructs under supervision of the state (which held visitation and dissolution rights), not fully independent entities, and were skeptical of corporations with a "life of their own", seen as a European pathology (the Dutch East India Company, etc.).

michaelchisari4• 15 years ago

To use a Marxist term, what we're seeing here is a Social Democratic consciousness, not a push for centralized Communism. If you asked the protestors whether they wanted Russia in 1917 or Sweden in 2011, what do you really think they'd pick?

In other words, I think you're overreacting.

scarmig6• 15 years ago

The American Dream is that everyone should be able to get a full-time job and that if you're willing to work a full-time job, you'll be able to pay your bills.

None of the bargain is that it will be interesting. None of the bargain is that it'll be glorified in media. But the bargain is that if you're looking for a job, there'll be one. And the job will be physically safe (unless extra-ordinarily compensated to make up for it), that you can get healthcare, and that you can go to sleep at night without wondering whether you'll be able to make rent the next month.

It's the dissolution of that bargain and that Dream that's driving OWS.

scarmig6• 15 years ago

All the damn protestors' fault, eh?

Here's a question: Why was unemployment so much lower five years ago than now? Did people just get really lazy?

Every right wing asshole with a grievance against attacks on privilege is out there mocking these protests. Somehow they simultaneously deny that environmental pollution, restricted access to healthcare, and involuntary unemployment exist. But systemic issues do exist.

hugh32• 15 years ago

I don't know anyone who is denying that the economy sucks. The reason we make fun of these people is that they're protesting against the fact that the economy sucks. This is much like protesting against the weather. Nobody has a magic "make the economy work again" switch that they just need to be persuaded to flip.

They're silly because their world view is flawed in many ways. It's not just their ideology which is wacko, but their ontology. One of the chief problems which afflicts the left is their tendency to believe that "good intentions lead to good outcomes", which has the flipside "bad outcomes are caused by bad intentions". They therefore assume that since we're currently having bad outcomes they must have been cauesd by somebody's bad intentions, so they choose a scapegoat [I wrote spacegoat the first time, which is a much better mental image] and blame it until they're blue in the face. I feel sorry for all the workers on Wall Street who have been chosen as the scapegoat this time.

uriel4• 15 years ago

> Why was unemployment so much lower five years ago than now? Did people just get really lazy?

Could the raise of the minimum wage have something to do with increased unemployment?

danssig2• 15 years ago

What we should do is gather up every single person in the protest and every single person who wishes they were but can't and send them over to Scandanavia/France/etc. Then they can participate in the kind of system they actually want and all that will be left in the US is people like you.

My mouth literally waters imagining what would happen when all the "hippies" and "losers" were gone and no one was left but self proclaimed "hard workers" and the mega rich. Listening to people like you try to rationalize the fact that, despite all your "hard work", your wealth was staying flat or decreasing (in relative terms if not literal) while the top 1% continued to capture more and more of all the created wealth would be pure bliss.

And I'm sure all the "99%", who would be enjoying systems with much healthier distributions of wealth would be enjoying the show as much as I was.

jstedfast7• 15 years ago

My feelings exactly.

Left-wingers got us into this mess in the first place by demanding that banks give out subprime loans to people who would never pay them back and Clinton promised these banks that the US Government would bail them out in return.

Now that same liberal left got bitten by their own ideology and who do they blame? The banks and Republicans, of course! Republicans bailed out the banks (because they were obligated to by Clinton) and the "greedy" banks loaned money to people who couldn't afford to pay them back!

If the liberal left used their brains for once they'd see that they caused these problems themselves. They have no one else to blame but themselves.

Instead, they blame everyone else for their problems.

It should be blatantly clear that the liberal left do not believe in taking personal responsibility nor do they believe in free will.

For if they believed in those things, then it's not the banks they'd be blaming at all. The banks didn't put guns to people's heads to take out loans that they couldn't afford to pay back. The banks didn't just wake up one day and decide to start giving out subprime loans. No, they were pressured into doing it by the liberal left's own greed.

They made their bed, now they can lay in it.

They better not come begging me for handouts. All they ever did for me was force my taxes to go up and try to drag me down with them. No thanks.

lhnz2• 15 years ago

They were sold security. Bow to authority, relinquish individual responsibility, receive a steady paycheck and a base standard of living. Here are your ethics: "Accept your place in life; don't fight for yourself: we'll fight for you. Turn on the TV and kick back. Be docile. We'll look after you."

Now they're still repeating their original mistake: they're asking others to fix their situation. But the game has changed while they had relinquished control: real economic damage has been caused (Tragedy of the Commons). Of course, as usual, now there is a call to arms and a protest at authority, but they still don't understand: instead of asking for handouts they should fix their situation by putting in effort, taking responsibility and standing up for themselves and each other.

nhaehnle4• 15 years ago

instead of asking for handouts they should fix their situation by putting in effort, taking responsibility and standing up for themselves and each other.

Isn't that exactly what they're doing?

Taking responsibility can take many different forms. No, those people are not taking an individualist entrepreneur route that most here on this particular forum are probably more comfortable with. However, the individualist approach cannot solve every problem. Sometimes, a different route is needed.

The Occupy Wall Street protests are exactly the kind of process by which people are taking responsibility. Ideas are fermenting there, people are activated, becoming involved at whichever level (political or otherwise). This is not a uniform process - certainly, many people will just be there out of rage, not really becoming activated, but at the same time, many people undergo transformations, gaining knowledge, forming goals, talking about and then attempting concrete steps to get what they want.

This is hard to believe if you've never actually been in touch with a movement like this, mostly because it is impossible to see such developments from the outside. I've been personally involved in similar things when I was younger (though at a smaller, local scale), and even I can't see what's going on as an outsider. But believe me, if you think those people are all shouting for somebody else to fix everything for them, you have absolutely no clue what you're talking about.

lhnz2• 15 years ago

> Isn't that exactly what they're doing?

Okay, yes. In a way. But they're taking responsibility to try to get other people to do something for them. You're right, I do have an individualistic perspective on this. I don't think it works well. The only control they will get over the situation will be the control they're given by the government/big industry.

> But believe me, if you think those people are all shouting for somebody else to fix everything for them, you have absolutely no clue what you're talking about.

I'll take the bait. What are they doing other than protesting for a government response/solution to their woes?

jstedfast7• 15 years ago

> Isn't that exactly what they're doing?

No. They are blaming everyone else for their problems and expecting everyone else to pick up their slack. That's not taking personal responsibility.

What they need to do is learn to spend responsibly - if they're in debt up to their eyeballs, who's fault is that other than their own for not planning ahead and spending responsibly? Learn the expression: "Save for a rainy day".

Learn how to shop around for jobs (sorry, but companys don't come knocking on the average recent college grad's doors begging him/her to work for them). I've been laid off twice in the past 4 years (once as recently as May) and I haven't had any problems finding a new job either time. Is that because I'm one of the "evil" 1% that is taking advantage of the poor helpless 99%? Fuck no, it's because I'm not a whiny little spoiled brat. It's because I take personal responsibility.

What these "99%" protestors really want is government handouts. But who pays for those handouts? People like me who take personal responsibility and save our money and work our asses off so we actually have jobs.

Money's gotta come from somewhere, folks, and that somewhere is the pockets of the people out there working at jobs they worked hard to get.

What these protestors fail to realize is that they are the very problem they are protesting against. They are the ones who voted for the politicians who forced the banks to provide subprime loans to home-buyers who were spending far beyond their means and gave promises to those banks that the government would bail them out if things ever went south (and duh, they did). They were the ones that put pressure on those politicians to put pressure on the banks to loan money to people who shouldn't be taking out loans they'd never be able to pay back. Then they voted for Obama who foolishly thought throwing money around would magically solve the situation. Duh, it didn't - it just made the middle class poorer.

Then to make matters worse, they pushed Obamacare on all of us. What's that going to cost middle-America? Last estimate I saw from the Democrats was 4 TRILLION which means it'll be more like 8 trillion all said and done (politicians are horrendously bad at simple math, ever notice that?). Nevermind the fact that if Democrats get their way, it'll mean more tax hikes (and not just for the wealthy for whom politicians always like to provide loopholes because they themselves dodge taxes like fiends - just take a look at Obama's cabinet - some of whom were caught not having paid taxes in decades).

So what has this extremely expensive Obamacare gotten for the average working-class American? Allow me to enumerate all that we got:

- trillions more debt to pay off

- higher taxes (gotta pay off that debt somehow and now we get to pay for healthcare for freeloaders as well, yippie!)

- longer lines at the clinics (did you really think providing people who didn't have healthcare before with free healthcare was going to make shorter lines? If so, I got a broken android phone to sell you).

- higher health insurance rates

- higher deductables (mine has gone up from $300 to $1000 and according to a news article I read the other day I'm not alone, something like 20% others got shafted the same, with the rest of the population sure to follow in the next year or two).

Oh, yea, let's all cheer for Obama care. [unenthusiastic cheer].

Seriously, people, use your brains and think for once. Instead of wasting everyone's time protesting, get off your asses and get a job so the rest of us can stop being forced to support you by paying higher taxes. You're only compounding the problem and dragging the rest of us down with you.

Occupying Wall Street

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