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Post by voguy » 10-03-2011 08:40 PM

Diogenes wrote: Just to my ear- these protestors sound incoherent and completely uninformed.

I'm sorry I'm not in sympathy - but then I wasn't with it during the sixties either - too busy working - then and now.



Sometimes we can't always see eye to eye, or understand each others needs and feelings.

But there is one thing that is obvious. If we allow public discussion, and protest to be stifled, then when it's our turn to complain about affairs we have no reason to cry when our fellow countrymen do not come to our aid.

I don't agree with some of their wacky demands. But I do recognize that the fuse may be lit.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." - Thomas Jefferson

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Post by Diogenes » 10-03-2011 09:29 PM

I don't have a problem listening to differences of opinion nor with groups who feel they need to be heard, but I have yet to see and hear a coherent spokesperson for whatever one would call this particular group.

Perhaps I'm listening at the wrong times but still I haven't heard one smart person yet.

Do I think all is well on Wall Street - no but I also know Wall Street didn't get there all by themselves.
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Post by Fan » 10-04-2011 10:48 AM

I don't know if it is fair to judge this movement on what we hear from the MSM. I am not too strongly opinionated about it one way or another, but I do like seeing people caring about something to do with their world, and corporatism is one of the leading causes of our current terrible situation. Yes, they need a leader who is articulate, yes, they are a bunch of kids with Apple laptops... however, all protests are done by people. I could well be out there with a sign, and someone could well call me a douche for wearing a north face jacket or something. However, this is our world. Should they be dressed in rags and eating raw rat? Would that help their cause? I don't think so.

We have had a complacent populace for so long, it is not a bad thing to be exercising their rights to peaceful assembly and to petition the government with regard to their grievances. This is what the country is built upon.

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Post by HB3 » 10-04-2011 11:10 AM

Oh, to me, it's the content of their statements. The contradiction appears to be that they're criticizing government while still looking to government for salvation; they mostly seem to be enraged Obama supporters. If I had to choose between "corporations" and "the government" as the chief agency of oppression I'd pick "the government," though I understand there's a lot of bleed-over. It's not a total bleed-over, though, or we wouldn't have current phenomenon like the current unfolding bans on incandescent light bulbs and asthma inhalers. From the looks of it most of these protesters are "stuff white people like" liberal whites who feel that Obama simply hasn't been allowed to "do his job," which they still fundamentally believe in.

The neo-conservative right and progressive left are both partners in the ideal of "global democracy."

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Post by Fan » 10-04-2011 11:18 AM

HB3 wrote: Oh, to me, it's the content of their statements. The contradiction appears to be that they're criticizing government while still looking to government for salvation; they mostly seem to be enraged Obama supporters. If I had to choose between "corporations" and "the government" as the chief agency of oppression I'd pick "the government," though I understand there's a lot of bleed-over. It's not a total bleed-over, though, or we wouldn't have current phenomenon like the current unfolding bans on incandescent light bulbs and asthma inhalers. From the looks of it most of these protesters are "stuff white people like" liberal whites who feel that Obama simply hasn't been allowed to "do his job," which they still fundamentally believe in.

The neo-conservative right and progressive left are both partners in the ideal of "global democracy."


I understand how it looks (depending on who you listen to) but have you interviewed any of them? I know how these things get spun. I have seen it spun as a great movement of enlightened people and counter-spun as a sea of communist assholes with no sense in their minds at all. We don't actually know very much about the movement, if indeed it can be called such. I personally think it is very possibly engineered just like all the uprisings everywhere. There is discontent, and it only takes a little shove to get it rolling if you know what you are doing.

I think someone wants more control over the populace and are making things happen that will enable them to do this.

Corporations and the government are the same thing. The gov does what corps want them to do. The light bulbs thing is corporation pushing new products by using laws to make them mandatory.

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Post by HB3 » 10-04-2011 11:30 AM

Sure, I've read similar comments about the protesters, that you can't judge them by a few interviews. Btw, I don't like that interviewer in the clip I posted, either. On the other hand, that guy's clearly not the "MSM."

I'm mostly basing my judgment on what I know about psychology and history. I'm somewhat familiar with revolutionary movements. I'm relatively confident that this group is predominantly left-wing in orientation, with everything that entails.

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Post by HB3 » 10-04-2011 11:32 AM

Oh, and I probably would have BEEN one of them a few years ago, so an interview is probably unnecessary. ;)

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Post by Diogenes » 10-04-2011 12:46 PM

I am only commenting from those I have seen and heard speak - again pretty pathetic - and they do remind me of the lefties and flower people.

As an example the Tea Party resonated because their spokespersons were able to articulate the cause and mission and they have brought forth ideas for solutions.
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Post by HB3 » 10-05-2011 09:39 AM

Lol!


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Post by HB3 » 10-05-2011 09:46 AM

Dear protesters in New York City,

You are not 99 percent of America. I don't mean that in the obvious numerical sense. If 99 percent of Americans had actually joined your march, Manhattan would have flipped over by now.

What I mean is that if 99 percent of Americans actually sympathized with your cause, the entire nation's economy would have collapsed long ago -- apparently to the delight of the organizers of this current protest.

What I mean to say is, you have a marketing problem.

When you decided to sit in traffic and block the Brooklyn Bridge a few days ago, with that blazing pink "SMASH PATRIARCHY-SMASH CAPITALISM" sign in hand, you probably didn't see the regular people you stranded in traffic.

You know, the ones with real-world concerns, business to attend to, families to go home to, et cetera. You may have read about such people during college in a book called "The Petit Bourgeoisie," or something like that. Many of us grew up calling them "the middle class."

Whatever you call them, they are hurting badly in this economy, probably more than you are. (I'm just judging by that sweet digital video camera I see you holding out in front of the cops, in hopes of provoking them into a viral-video police brutality incident.)

Those people you left stuck in traffic have a hard time paying their bills and rents and health insurance and mortgages. They worry about things like finding decent schools for their children to attend and making sure they don't get fired at work, and fixing leaking roofs and chimneys.

You know what they don't worry about, ever? Smashing patriarchy and capitalism.

So when your organizers go on television and say things like, "It's revolution, not reform!" and they're not joking, those words might give some of these narrow-minded people an unpleasant, October 1917 kind of feeling.

I know you'll find this hard to believe, but these regular people probably weren't very happy to see you on that bridge, carrying your preprinted black and yellow protest sign that hundreds of you got straight from the communist Workers' World Party (or one of its less frighteningly named affiliates). So incensed was one Ground Zero construction worker that he called you "g-ddamned hippies" in the New York Post.

And that underscores the problem with the 100 million-plus people who work for a living in this country. They lack an enlightened perspective that would show them how your camping trip in lower Manhattan has already helped their lives.

See, regular people don't like banks any more than you do. But when they go to buy houses for their families to live in, they often find that they don't have half a million dollars stuffed in their mattresses. So they shortsightedly embrace financial imperialism, otherwise known as a mortgage.

They also worry about corporations, because they're big and powerful. But then, they'd love to own one of those sweet video cameras like yours, and they perceive that they can only buy one if an evil corporation can turn an obscene profit making and selling it.

So the point is, real-life things blind people to the great class struggle you're waging in lower Manhattan. You, and the rest of America's three-tenths of one percent.

You can take some consolation from that next year when you sacrifice your principles, abandon the Global People's Liberation Party (or whatever), and vote to re-elect President Obama.
"Smash patriarchy and capitalism"? Ugh.

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer. ... protestors

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Post by HB3 » 10-05-2011 07:26 PM

But here's a horrible statement from Herman Cain...

http://online.wsj.com/video/herman-cain ... 3D4F0.html
A pair of Republican presidential candidates had some harsh words for the protesters who've been hectoring Wall Street for the past three weeks: Cut out the "class warfare" and "blame yourself" for being poor and jobless.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain said the demonstrators are coming across as "anti-capitalism." The former CEO of Godfather's Pizza said the Occupy Wall Street protesters are trying to distract the country from President Obama's "failed policies."

"Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks, if you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself!" Cain said. "It is not a person's fault because they succeeded, it is a person's fault if they failed. And so this is why I don't understand these demonstrations and what is it that they're looking for."
Idiotic. Get this guy off the stage, QUICK.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/cain-tel ... d=14674829

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Post by voguy » 10-05-2011 07:37 PM

Keep in mind two things, many a civil discordance has been started for "silly things". To dismiss them on the surface is to dismiss Kent State, Egypt, Libya, and many others.

Also, the best way to discredit a faction is to implant people and stories to discredit them. And as you might expect, the more crazy, the more newsworthy. Thus you don't get a true view.

Sort of like reading the posts here and basing my whole opinion on people on what they write, rather than getting to know them and their lives.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." - Thomas Jefferson

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Post by HB3 » 10-05-2011 07:41 PM

Well, I don't know from Kent State, but regarding Egypt and Libya, yeah, I do "dismiss" them -- entirely.

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Post by voguy » 10-05-2011 07:59 PM

Then you can't ask for freedom, HB3. Your request is too silly to be considered.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." - Thomas Jefferson

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Post by Diogenes » 10-05-2011 08:07 PM

HB3 wrote: But here's a horrible statement from Herman Cain...

http://online.wsj.com/video/herman-cain ... 3D4F0.html



Idiotic. Get this guy off the stage, QUICK.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/cain-tel ... d=14674829


I didn't find his comments the least bit offensive - and rather enjoyed that he had the candor and guts to say it - instead of pandering and slobbering over all of these folks.

In his defense I've yet to hear from any one of them who sounded the least bit cogent. Also I think if you come from Herman Cain's background - his father had three jobs, janitor, barber and chauffeur, his mother a domestic - you came up the the very hard way - poor and black and so he knows what it is to dig in and push on.
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