Thoughts about Occupy Wall Street?

[DaisyDeadhead]

For some bizarre reason, when I try to delete ONE of those, they BOTH disappear.

Really.

[myotch]

Daisy,

Free speech, much to the disdain of any extreme partisan, is a two way street. My freedom of speech includes my freedom to be critical of OWS as much as it my freedom to make a public ass out of myself if I wanted. I love OWS and wish they would get more press coverage, because nothing galvanizes conservative voters more than this kind of threat to their political or economic strength.

Freedom of speech allows anyone to make political speech. Youtube and the news allows us all to see what's going on and to make a judgment about the movement.

Please, by all means, show up and protest. Go "Lady Godiva" if you must. Mic-check the speaker. For every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction.

If you disobey a lawful order from police, please remember as they haul you off to the pokey that as much as you want code enforcement to do something about that restaurant that has rats in the kitchen, someone else wants to walk the sidewalk you are blocking.

[DaisyDeadhead]

(11-23-2011 07:16 PM)myotch Wrote:  Daisy,

Free speech, much to the disdain of any extreme partisan, is a two way street. My freedom of speech includes my freedom to be critical of OWS as much as it my freedom to make a public ass out of myself if I wanted. I love OWS and wish they would get more press coverage, because nothing galvanizes conservative voters more than this kind of threat to their political or economic strength.

Freedom of speech allows anyone to make political speech. Youtube and the news allows us all to see what's going on and to make a judgment about the movement.

Please, by all means, show up and protest. Go "Lady Godiva" if you must. Mic-check the speaker. For every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction.

If you disobey a lawful order from police, please remember as they haul you off to the pokey that as much as you want code enforcement to do something about that restaurant that has rats in the kitchen, someone else wants to walk the sidewalk you are blocking.

I've obeyed AND disobeyed police orders from sea to shining sea, so I do know the risks. When I have bail money and a good lawyer, I will do it. If I don't, then I don't.

I just have to tell you, there are as many Tea Party people on the scene (really, like ON THE SCENE, not on the sidelines, as I think you are?) as any one else. They are very curious and ask great questions, starting some excellent group conversations. I am always pleased when they show up. Every time I have been out there, they have been there too, especially in a conservative area like Greenville.

You might be surprised if you actually talked to Occupiers, they/we are all over the lot.

Like the song said, Don't Believe The Hype.

[DaisyDeadhead]

(11-23-2011 07:29 PM)Donb123 Wrote:  Cities and states are well within their rights of establishing curfews, camp out laws, etc. None of those laws curtail your right to say whatever you want. Talk about the Constitution all you want but it's obvious you don't really understand how it works by the things you say. States can impose these kinds of things that don't literally curtail your speech and the Supreme Court will uphold it and has. Municipalities can create curfews and that still doesn't curtail your 1st ammendment rights.

I understand that they can, I simply don't recognize the authority as legitimate. When I decide to break a law, this is the measuring stick I use: do I think this is a legitimate law? If I have experienced five different versions of a law, in five different localities? That (usually) exposes the law as arbitrary nonsense.

I have camped overnight in Central Park, New York City, was not arrested. No permit. Why not?

I camped in what later became the Seabrook Nuclear Power plant in New Hampshire, no permit, in direct defiance of a police order. Not arrested. Why not?

Hint: What they did, was wait until Jackson Browne went away, and then arrested people.

This did not leave me with a lasting respect for (what Abbie Hoffman called) Lawn Order.

Maybe you didn't see that some Tea Partiers carried plenty of vicious, racist posters featuring (example) Obama with a ring through his nose or photo-shopped to look like a monkey, etc. That did not make them ALL bad people or racists. (Northern Tea Partiers often blamed the white supremacist stuff on Southern Tea Partiers.)

The conditions you describe are symptomatic of the Big Picture and what is wrong with our culture and society. And I am ready to go there, not pretend it doesn't exist or "just arrest them all". That solves nothing. I am about trying to educate the kids and transform hearts and minds.

If we are going to have massive change, we are going to have to deal with the fringe. It has been ever thus. I am ready, have done it before. I do not consign people to the outer darkness just for having ill manners, fleas, scabies and what-all, but I find it interesting that devout Christians do.

[myotch]

Daisy, Dubya was called "chimp" and there were plenty of monkey posters of Bush. It's only racist when Obama is mocked - every caricature drawn, every unflattering nickname, all must be dubiously racist, right?

That's how the left tries to shut up the right, and usually when the right takes plays out of the left's playbook.

And we have been inundated by the MSM of stories of the Tea Party being racist to its very core. I don't think theres a lot of MSM stories about the OVERT racism and anti-semitism of OWS.

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You describe selective enforcement. It happens and with good reason.

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What exactly does OWS want? Is there a cohesive, unified message? Or is a political machine directly benefitting from a general sense of unhappiness aimed at the system? I'm afraid that you have something else in common with the Tea Party - you are being willfully manipulated.

[DaisyDeadhead]

(11-23-2011 08:21 PM)myotch Wrote:  What exactly does OWS want? Is there a cohesive, unified message? Or is a political machine directly benefitting from a general sense of unhappiness aimed at the system? I'm afraid that you have something else in common with the Tea Party - you are being willfully manipulated.

Actually, *I* intend to be the one doing the manipulating.

I am pretty far to the left, so saying "crazy leftist Marxist!" is something I've heard most of my life. My response is usually something like, "you say that like its a bad thing," or "so what else is new?"

I am in agreement with Matt Taibbi, hoping to keep OWS as open and inclusive as possible. Since the right wing keeps harping that we must "have a cohesive message" (why?), that tells us that we clearly should NOT, and should make it as general as we can.

As Chairman Mao said, pay close attention to the criticisms of your enemies, they usually tell you what you are doing right, by what they criticize and what seems to frighten them. Always have, always do.

[DaisyDeadhead]

Don, why is Occupy the Fed okay with you but the other wings of the movement are not? (Its fine with me!) Hold their feet to the fire, always. No argument here, occupy it from now on.

Sorry Newt the Fool is eclipsing your candidate, the good doctor. I thought RP (in foreign policy debate) daring to say (bellow!) "torture is immoral!!"--put himself head and shoulder above the others in exactly that category, morality. None of the others seem to have any morality concerning nonAmericans AT ALL.

"Waterboarding, cool!"--Michelle Bachmann.

PS: If yall want funny, read the last comment on this thread. I think it covers everything, left and right, LOL:

http://daisysdeadair.blogspot.com/2011/1...sonal.html

[bean]

North Dakota has a central bank. It's an product of its days of progressive policies and the Non-Partisan League (it's a ND party that merged with the democrats some time ago.)
The bank is extremely successful, makes a fair profit for the state, and currently does a boatload of supplemental student loans at a fair price and without all the gimmicks and games. I know our family was glad they were here when we needed them when we went to school.

I'll take the BND over any big commercial bank any day of the week!

[myotch]

Well, I think America's great, and I have no interest in a clearinghouse movement of all the national ills. Everybody's got something to criticize, sure. But as for the movement centered on a vague notion of "America could be better"... it's a demagoguing, polluting movement that, if successful, will tend to take away our rights and freedoms, not give us more rights and freedoms.

You want real revolution - blame Congress and the government for creating the housing bubble; blame government intervention for giving companies bailout money which was used to line the pockets of failed corporate executives; and ensure that government stays out of the business of business; flatten the taxes AND get rid of the loopholes; create an atmosphere that not only keeps American corporations in America, but inspires corporations to move to America as well; end the unionized stranglehold on manufacturing in America - companies should be able to provide healthcare and benefits, rather than funding union healthcare for non-employees.

"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

If we must go totally left in this country, let's go ahead and do it and get the experiment over with. The end goals of the left are doomed to fail.

[bean]

They seem to be doing just fine in Sweden and Norway. Although, they dont look at it as hard left. They view it as a moderate, middle of the road position.

Why is it that the wealthy and the "job creators" were doing just fine in the 50s thru the 80s, with top marginal tax rates of 91 to 70 percent? They were doing amazing during the Clinton years when those rates were 36%. Somehow we are supposed to believe that cutting them more would create more jobs. And that doesn't mean they paid 91 percent. It means that every dollar over, say 1 million, the tax rate would be 50 percent (remember Ronald Reagan?) Nothing on the first 25k, 15% on the next 75k, 25% on 100k to 1M, and 50% on 1M plus. Gross 10 million--you'd still be clearing north of 6 million.

You're right. Corporations would have a major advantage doing business here if health care were off the table. Maybe if we ever got serious and decided to quit being the only industrialized western nation who doesn't provide health care for all as a basic human right they would consider it. Medicare for all would eliminate tons of waste, overhead, and fat profits on the part of insurance and health care corporations...and that money could be refocused in our economy as well.

These things would turn this nation around in five years. But they will never happen. The money interests have far too much control. They will never let this happen.