Occupy Wall Street

[turbojet]

They honestly just need a clear and concise speaker who knows what the fuck they are protesting.

[Cynical]

Yeah, it basically is. Any grand message that might have been behind this movement was lost the instant the movement actually started.

Being outsourced and eliminated to cut costs.

The government doesn't even know that at this point.

Because despite the above point, the government hasn't stopped spending money.

Because they all got bailed out despite fucking up and causing this whole mess, and the end result after the bailout money is taken into account is, in some cases, a negative tax rate.

And this is something that one probably shouldn't say without figures to back it up.

[turbojet]

Words

Would you kindly interpret that in a way that isn't a bunch of cryptic messages?

[Cynical]

Would you kindly interpret that in a way that isn't a bunch of cryptic messages?

[Mick]

My friend and bassist for my band is involved with this.

He is in there, he is the very long haired fellow. He looks like a hippie, but he is definitely not one..

Go to the 0:34 mark, that is his him.

OK, my two cents on this situation. It is a not great... it will create civil unrest, like one of my friends said. It really needs to stop. What are they accomplishing? Nothing, nada, zip, zilch... I wish this would stop.

[Edward_Elric]

I admit I agree with part of SpikSprinter philosophy, even if he comes off as douchebag to voice his opinion. But only part of it.

[Nepenthe]

The amount of generalizations, falsities, and leaps of logic there is insurmountable. If those are your honest thoughts, then you exemplify everything wrong with American politics and are beyond reproach and discussion. Honestly, you just sound bitter and hateful, and it's fucking sad.

[Velotix von Skruviktorrius]

The gap between the rich and the poor is widening, and it's because we've been too left-wing for far too long.

Comedy genius.

If you met a real left-winger with real left-wing policies you'd shit yourself with fear, just as most people would be horrified by your extreme right-wing rhetoric. The US doesn't even have proper left-wing politics, which has been a source of considerable amusement over in Europe watching the US implode in a sea of paranoia over this issue for the last decade: "ohnoes people might be expressing actual left-wing poltical views, hide the kids!!". American mainstream politics has been skewed towards what-in-most-of-the-world-passes-for-Conservatives (the Democrats) and what-America-considers-Conservative (the Republicans) since the Cold War and it's not shifting anytime soon.

The very idea of considering Captain Centralist Never-Make-Up-Their-Minds liberalism a left-wing ideology is hilarious, was always hilarious, and unfortunately the US doesn't get the joke.

Actually, I might as well "come clean", teehee. Seems as good a time as any. Hello. I'm a man with scary and unusual political views.

I do not believe in the free market as a concept and don't believe in capitalism; I only put up with it because there's no plausible alternative at the time of writing and switching to other economic models is far from a trivial and risk-free undertaking. I could rant all day about how stupid money is as a concept but it's well outside the scope of this topic. I believe that a limited government is a useless and incompetent government, and thus believe in extremely strong government that is involved in every aspect of its society and represents that society as a whole, that the state is duty-bound to set the basic standards of welfare and social services and to fill in for any service not adequately provided for by a private company. I also believe the government is not above the law and should be held accountable by its citizens on all matters, because otherwise you're just going to have another far-left nutjob circlejerk again like the Soviet Union. I believe in democracy, but I do not believe that we have mastered the democratic model, and that there is a great deal of innovation to be made in that area to properly realise the concept.

I do not believe in a strict planned economy either, and support private enterprise provided it knows its damned place. A business provides a service or set of services (including providing goods) and nothing else, though they are obliged to be concerned with profit and market growth to endure which is unavoidable. They are however to follow legal regulations that prevent them from overstepping their bounds and pretending they're a miniature nation state that can do as they please so long as they profit at the end of the year, and if they do not follow these regulations and get caught, they get obliterated as state traitors. You do not allow a situation to come to pass where even in theory a rogue corporation could hold the world to ransom and win.

I believe in free speech as defined by the US' First Amendment, and believe that the government is subject to critique and improvement at any time; this prevents it becoming incompetent and dangerous. Criminal and civil punishment is based on a person's actions, not their thoughts nor opinions, which we gradually seem to be shying away from of late. Further, I strongly believe in a person's right to be themselves and pursue personal happiness, to the extent that if necessary I would be willing to oppress and/or ban religion and militant atheism to achieve that goal - the fact that oppressing religion would almost always obstruct that goal would mean in practice it would rarely, if ever, be attempted. Regarding criminal sentencing, I prefer rehabilitation but am prepared to punish and crush offenders depending on the severity of their crime and the realistic chances of being rehabilitated.

So in short, I prefer to treat people fairly, yet treat betrayal with massive prejudice. Authoritarians infuriate me (despite my authoritarian streak when certain beserk buttons are triggered), Libertarians I respect but find don't really understand the necessity of setting clear and respectable laws and being able to enforce them. I find Conservatives to be often well-meaning but unable to understand people as well as they do economics, and Liberals to be indecisive pussies. And yes, Socialists are almost invariably batshit insane and out-of-touch with reality; incapable of realising the importance and difficulty of stabilising an economy, and far too willing to make everyone miserable just to make themselves happy. This is why it took me a while to really realise who I am politically as Socialists hog the left side of the political axis, but hey. A paradox I am at the best of times.

Run away, you're talking to a real left-winger.

Strictly speaking, try as I might I can never find a poltical badge that matches my beliefs, but I'm nowhere near the centre of the poltical axes regardless and nowhere near the right; certainly not a bloody Liberal.

[Tornado]

If you met a real left-winger with real left-wing policies you'd shit yourself with fear, just as most people would be horrified by your extreme right-wing rhetoric.

Sometimes I have to wonder whether he would have the same reaction if he met a real right-winger rather than a Neo-Con dressed up as one.

[turbojet]

OK, my two cents on this situation. It is a not great... it will create civil unrest, like one of my friends said. It really needs to stop. What are they accomplishing? Nothing, nada, zip, zilch... I wish this would stop.

Civil unrest is not a bad thing and do you expect any movement to accomplish something when it just started?

I am neutral on this group, but damn if I'm happy that people are actually interested in politics and are participating.

[Nepenthe]

You know, I'm honestly surprised that the group has spread this much, although that's my fault for following them casually through cable networks. Hell, there's an Occupy demonstration going on rather close to my school, and I was interested in checking them out one day when I had the free time, (though I can't afford to sit in for any length of time). My politically cynical self is actually happy that the movement's gotten this far. But I have the usual big questions: Can they get themselves to focusing on a few specific problems to strengthen their message, gain some leaders, and actually stay grassroots unlike what happened to the Tea Party?

[turbojet]

Can they get themselves to focusing on a few specific problems to strengthen their message, gain some leaders, and actually stay grassroots unlike what happened to the Tea Party?

The hilarious thing is that the Tea Party had the same goals of this group initially. They were against the corporate bailouts until they were steered into the direction of being anti-healthcare.

Honestly, my little avatar would be somewhat elated that people finally care about their well-being enough to protest.

Huey is pleased. Might actually smile in Boondocks season 4.

[Edward_Elric]

Honestly, my little avatar would be somewhat elated that people finally care about their well-being enough to protest.

Huey is pleased. Might actually smile in Boondocks season 4.

Which is why I always imagine him voicing your posts.

For what it matters, something has to happen for anything to happen right?

My union's motto (which I don't want to be apart of) "Organize or die," this needs to happen if they wanna get shit all done.

[Nepenthe]

Because you're throwing around random insults of communism like this is the 50s, as if you have no idea what true communism even entails.

You also believe the social safety net does nothing but entrap people, when what's doing just as much if not more damage is the amount of wealthy disparity widening the gap between the rich and middle class, never mind the poor.

You also seem to think that the supply of jobs exceeds the demand, that everyone can just go get a job if they just try hard enough; that ol' bootstraps philosophy. Newsflash: In a capitalist society, that is impossible. Someone will always be out of work, and many times through no fault of their own. And you don't want these people to have some sort of safety net to protect them from any thing that could happen during difficult times because it's "socialist" or something. Following from that, I never see you talk about the rich abusing the system. Many corporations pop tax breaks like I pop Nerds candies. Paying their fair share my ass.

You're also once again going into a fit insulting liberals as more morally reprehensible than conservatives because of blind anecdotal evidence, as if every Tea Partier makes Jesus look like Charles Manson, and as if this bias lends intellectual credibility to their views and ideas. (Hint: You can be as morally clean as a whistle and dumb as a fucking brick when it comes to politics. I would wager most average joes are.)

Your political views couldn't be any farther away from reality and any more hateful that I wouldn't be surprised if you did kick homeless guys for having the audacity to be homeless.

[Nepenthe]

For the record, I don't think you're evil. Just heavily misguided.

[Nepenthe]

I won't call your views hateful anymore if you promise not to generalize liberals like me and plenty of others on this board as morally inferior to conservatives anymore.

[TheGerkuman]

The thing I don't understand is where people expect these jobs to come from. Redundancies in both the public and private sectors came from the lack of spending, thanks to monetary crises. If these monetary crises' are sorted, then more money is spent and jobs are created. Yet some people argue that the reason why jobs aren't around is because of taxation.

Taxation does mean having less money to spend, but each redundancy saves businesses at least £12k a month. I don't think that sum would add up.

[Nepenthe]

The thing I don't understand is where people expect these jobs to come from. Redundancies in both the public and private sectors came from the lack of spending, thanks to monetary crises. If these monetary crises' are sorted, then more money is spent and jobs are created. Yet some people argue that the reason why jobs aren't around is because of taxation.

Taxation does mean having less money to spend, but each redundancy saves businesses at least £12k a month. I don't think that sum would add up.

As far as I understand, the sticking point is that taxation hinders thriving businesses because that's more money out of their pocket, meaning less incentive to hire as they won't be able to afford to pay new people as well as less inclination to stay in a country with such oppressive taxation, ergo higher taxes = less jobs. I call bullshit on that, if only for the observable fact that we survived tax rates that are far higher than they are now without this amount of unemployment or mass migration of corporations to Europe and Asia or some other dichotomized doomsday nonsense like that, so obviously higher taxes aren't directly tied to high unemployment. I'm pretty sure there's some good reasoning to be against raising taxes in the current climate that someone else can explain better than me, but "Will someone think of the suffering rich folk?!" isn't a good reason.

[Nepenthe]

Well, I mean, part of it is that my side believes that many people on welfare would be able to get a job, but lack motivation or reason. In fact that aspect is unsubjective; even the most liberal of social services agents will tell you the they have seen many abusers of the system. But the degree of that aspect is perfectly debatable.

There's usually some kind of job open, even if they're extremely shitty and rotten. Manual labor is a huge category. I'm still teetering on whether there should be tariffs to help solve the problem of outsourcing.

Edit: it's a common misconception to assume that we want to help the suffering rich people. The point is that the people, especially the rich ones, are the creators and operators of businesses which create jobs, thus ultimately helping the poor.

Governmental fraud happens at all socioeconomic levels though. It's not just all poor people living off the system. Do you think there aren't middle/working class and even rich people who are tapping into what's essentially cheap and/or free resources, or not paying their fair share in taxes, by merely lying and finding loopholes? Treating this as just an issue of the lower class is dishonest, and it's going to require more thought than telling poor, usually-unskilled and child-burdened people to simply go out and get a job, especially in an environment with 9% unemployment, where even college degrees are losing their value and certain career fields are getting overburdened and over-competitive. It's just not that easy.

Also, without a population that's healthy and wealthy enough to support businesses and a government that allows the infrastructure, laws, and security to foster starting a business, and of course a country full of natural resources, the fat cats would be up the creek without a paddle as well. These four things are interconnected, and as such talking points like "the rich need egregious tax breaks to give the people jobs" are empty, easily-disproven rhetoric that do indeed benefit the rich at the end of the day. Think about it: if rich folks are paying less income taxes, that means they're keeping more income, ne? Do you believe every single rich person is investing that money back into jobs and businesses just to help lower class people? Another hint: Obtained wealth doesn't really move downward all that far. Not every CEO is Oprah Winfrey.

[Stacy]

And this is why politics suck!

[eXtaticus]

Relevant GIF is relevant!

[turbojet]

And this is why politics suck!

It is not politics. It is economics which in the end of the day, is an assumption.

[Tornado]

It is not politics. It is economics which in the end of the day, is an assumption.

All the greatness of advanced mathematics, human psychology and politics. 3 things most of the people with opinions about them only pretend to understand, all rolled together and smoked like a joint wrapped with a dollar bill.

[Cynical]

I'm looking more into this now.

(this is a bad thing.)

Well, today I had the chance to discuss the film: "Food Inc." Ugh, it's disgusting how Food Plants treat the animals and their own workers. The working conditions are horrible, and the environment is terrible.

I also saw "Zeitgeist", not the entire film, but at least thirty minutes of it.

Well, after seeing a few movies, I understand the the workers class' claim, but then again I don't seem to understand what goes on in LA anymore. Ill be waiting for someone to say that the protests are "useless."

I doubt they're useless. I know for a fact that I can't trust my government anymore because they've become pretty cynical (har har har) and so has the media. As well as the Corp.

so who's left to trust? The people?

[turbojet]

I also saw "Zeitgeist", not the entire film, but at least thirty minutes of it.