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If and When the Protestors Unite, Watch Out!
The protest that started nearly a month ago in the Battery now has a name – Occupy Wall Street — and we’re sorry we didn’t think of it first, since the catchy title – “Occupy (fill-in-the-location)” — seems destined to go viral worldwide. We’re not sure whether the demonstrators’ demands will eventually skew right or left politically, or perhaps in neither direction, but Mr. Obama and Rep. Pelosi have not wasted any time getting the jump on the Tea Party and GOP frontrunner-by-default Mitt Romney by presenting the demonstrators with verbal fruit baskets and bouquets – everything but the key to the city, which as of this writing was still in the safekeeping of Mayor Bloomberg. To her credit, Ms. Pelosi zeroed in an actual reason for the demonstrations, even if the protestors themselves haven’t quite figured it out. It’s about jobs, she told ABC News in an interview — and that is undoubtedly on many of the protestors’ minds. But it seems predictable that the movement will come to be “about” many more things as the months roll by. What is not so predictable is who will assume leadership, or perhaps try to co-opt the movement from outside, as it spreads to every city, town and village in the Western world. But if protests should turn violent – a possibility that we’d rate an even-odds bet at this point, it’ll be interesting to see whether the Establishment that has rushed to embrace the demonstrators will start cracking heads.

Whatever happens, the protestors have nearly a year to build up steam ahead of the national political conventions. Charlotte, North Carolina, will play host to the Democrats in early September, and although the event, with 35,000 delegates reportedly planning to attend, is expected to generate $150 million in business for the city, Charlotte may come to regret having been selected over finalists Cleveland, Minneapolis and St. Louis. For, much as Arlo Guthrie, Country Joe McDonald, Santana and the Grateful Dead were big draws at Woodstock, Charlotte boasts a superstar protest-magnet of its own – Bank of America — that could conceivably attract more activists than the convention attracts delegates. You can bet the whole world will be watching – and one can only hope that the demonstrators by then have Woodstock in mind as a behavioral template rather than Chicago, circa August 1968. Republicans are set to convene in Tampa, Florida a week earlier, but we suspect that the extra miles between Northeast population centers and southwest Florida, not to mention the sweltering mid-summer heat, will inhibit the crowds. It’s possible, however, that if a huge throng shows up in Tampa nonetheless, that the city’s unique’y pleasurable waterfront scene will help keep demonstrators from growing surly.
Time for Honest Capitalism?
But even if the mobs are peaceful, they’re not going to be easily satisfied with hollow political promises to create more jobs. The best way to do that is of course to provide tax incentives for small businesses to expand. However, it’s hard to imagine that this will be on their agenda. Or will it? The possibility exists, but only if those who assume leadership of the “Occupy” movement understand that, unlike the big banks, not all businesses are parasitic and in bed with the ringleaders of our incurably corrupt political system. Perhaps those rooting for a revival of honest capitalism should take as a hopeful sign the moment of silence observed for Steve Jobs last week by Wall Street protestors.
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You may read, but not very well and you don't reason with a shit.
Quite a reach this claim, but never a long one for the best of conspiracy theorists. From the godlikeproduction link:
>>>Well we got the namesake...John E. Zuccotti he's on the board of BPO [Brookfiled Office Properties]...so who is he?...well Mr Zuccotti was on the Board of directors of WELL POINT HEALTH NETWORK...for years...remember them?...they were THE most Evil health insurance company just yanking the po sheeples benefits away that only Obamacare could save us! from...in fact Obama went for the throat in rhetoric on them...I find that highly ironic that the protestanistas are camped out in a park named after a board member of one of the most demonized and the largest and most evil health insurer in the country<<<
[poster continues with other blathering...including some a discussion of Bloomberg's live-in girlfriend who also sits on BOP Board.]
In the end the poster claims that Obama Care was a direct payoff to Zuccotti to allow the protestors to stay in the park???
FYI, they want to do this in a NYC owned park or other city owned space, but because of permit and police issues moved to the private park at Liberty Plaza.
All you've done is illustrate what a bunch of incestuous corporate motherfuckers these people are who sit on each other's boards, do little work and get paid at the shareholders' expense.
No conspiracy, just business as usual.
Given the connections, they picked the pefect place...eventhough they didn't realize it.
dup
Stop with negative hate please. Better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness
The GOP and Right in general have completely dropped the ball in failing to co-opt this movement. Instead of bad mouthing it from every talk show and news program and campaign stop they could have acted quick and made this a junior arm of the Tea Party. Instead they whine and cry about the favorable coverage OWS gets compared to less favorable Tea Party coverage. So myopic. They will regret not getting in and supporting this movement early on to try to shape the message.
They are the Tea party... just reaching a more desperate level now. Things will get worse.
OWS are not the junior Tea Party. The Tea Party is Constitutionalist, not anarchist. The Tea Party is for small government, while paradoxically the only way the anarchists at OWS would want the bankers brought to heal is by massive statist intervention - leading inevitably to more cronyism. OWS and TP are two fundamentally different philosophies being purposely muddled by the professional protest industry.
We are tin a civil war over these issues as the bloated crony welfare state collapses, both bankers and the bloated government will collapse because of the shear weight of bad debt they have both accumulated. http://www.futurnamics.com/civilwar.php
The TeaParty=GOP consists of people who twice voted for George W. Bush. And whose idea of small government is adding $5 trillion in guarantees from two private sector firms on to the backs of the taxpayer. And who actually beleive that government has no role in Medicare or Social Security.
That's so off base, why am I even bothering to address your comment?
TPTB have diverted trillions, if you think they won't have divested most of that in physical property by thetime everything blows up you're terribly naive ... do you really think they have no exit strategy?
That's why the tea party approach won't work, they are not just sitting on paper ... they are sitting on ownership deeds of arable land, power companies, water companies, gold etc etc. The collapse won't punish them, it will just end their current method of theft.
Focusing on the bankers is a bit stupid though, TPTB are the top creditors (which is why it's always bank share holders getting fucked, not bank bond holders). The banks will be allowed to go bankrupt in the end.
Well said. The end of this phase will prevent the serfs from challenging the top. It will upgrade the level of the average player in the world casino. The top 1% picking off their weaker adversaries from within soon. We're kind of like bait fish watching a cage match of sharks. It will be entertaining from a distance, but watch out when the gate opens.
You are saying that OWS is a group of anarchists who want massive statist intervention? I thnk you may be confused.
Both the Tea Party and OWS want an end of crony capitalism (or fascism as you could call it).
Both the Tea Party and OWS are against bank bail outs.
Both the Tea Party and OWS are against monied interests corrupting the government.
Both the Tea Party and OWS began with a "throw them all out" message. The Tea Party was co-opted by the Right so the message changed to "throw the democrats out" and likely OWS will be co-opted by the Left so their message will change to "throw the republicans out". And that is my original point. The Right sat back and sniggered or scoffed while the Left went down in the first days and weeks to listen and then promote. Had Herman Cain, Ron Paul or Glenn Beck gone to OWS before Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon and Roseanne Barr they could have shaped the early leadership and message instead of having the SEIU and Moveon.org do it.
It was a bad call by the Right. They couldn't get over their hurt feelings because the Tea Party wasn't universally embraced, least of all by the college and 20-something crowd. Instead of being smart and going to that crowd, they petulant sat back and maligned them... proving to this younger generation that their beliefs about the Right are correct.
Total Strategic Failure
I agree with much of your point, but I think you underestimate the inherent, reflexive belief in perfect regulation among many in this OWS crowd. You'll find plenty of comments about how deregulation of the banks caused the problem, with fewer addressing the more fundamental problem -- that Glass Steagel was merely papering over / allowing for a more controlled blood-letting of the host economy by the primary parasites of the economy -- the banking cartel.
You'll find many more sympathetic to the arguments of Paul Krugman's Utopia of Money Printing than you will of Ron Paul's End the Fed.
Not saying their aren't some who truly get it. And certainly not defending the mob idiocracy of the self-identified, knee-jerk defend-all-capitalism right, whose well-intended defense of capitalism leaves them unable to differentiate between corporatist big govt. parasite and genuine free market entrepreneurs.
Rocky, there are many in the Tea Party who want ALL entitlement programs ended - the idea being, since the government has proven itself incompetent to run retirement savings, medical care for veterans, medical care for the elderly and medical care for the indigent (as evidenced by their impending insolvency, on all these programs) you might as well end them, since they will end themselves eventually anyway. And yes, we have noticed the Post Office is headed for the dustbin of history as well.
Whether Fox, MSM or NO ONE publicizes the Tea Party does not affect the validity of their insights and ideas - and since the MSM is doing its' best to twist, distort and deny them, they may well be onto something.
The Republican Party only THINKS it has co-opted the Tea Party, to use them to their own advantage. Next primary season will show them the error of their beliefs.
Thank you! I believe you are correct. Now let's turn the same analysis to the OWS crowd. Total and absolute values cannot be attributed to them either. Just as MSM will distort the TP, so will Fox distort the OWS folk. Your view to being tolerant and understanding is a valued element that is missing in so much of the discussion here. Be there only one individual in the OWS movement, or even one faction which "supports" it, that is contrary to one's view, it will be demonized. Be there one person who carries a weapon at a TP get-together, the whole movement will be tarnished by those who would seek to detract.
I have to ask myself this one burning question: Where would the Tea Party be without the ringing endorsement and wall to wall coverage by Fox News? I mean really. The TP was certainly for smaller gov't as long as it didn't interfere with Medicare/Social Security being diminished. The OWS crowd is carping about student debt. What's the diff except the age differential?
Independent media release from onsite at #OWS -
http://getgrounded.tv/2011/10/09/occupy-wall-st-vs-tea-party-grounded-ne...
The simple fact that Fox news loves the TP and that the Koch brothers funds them discredits them completely. The wealthy uses the TP to bring forth their message of even less oversight and taxation of corporations - one may say they are the oligarchs' "useful idiots"
Geraldo and Fox News get owned by the Wall Street occupiers - love it!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxQHys4Tmf4
>>>Both the Tea Party and OWS began with a "throw them all out" message. The Tea Party was co-opted by the Right so the message changed to "throw the democrats out"<<<
Showing your bias here - ask former Sen Bob Bennett of Utah about how the TP only throws democrats out. You might ask Lisa Murkowski, now an Independent - oh well, can't win them all. My Email inbox has requests for help from various folks trying to get rid of Sen Lugar of Indiana, Sens Snowe and Collins of Maine, and various others. The TP still distrusts RINOs - I'm amazed no one's running against Sen Hatch of Utah - maybe they think the Grim Reaper will take him out first, of old age.
>>>It was a bad call by the Right. They couldn't get over their hurt feelings because the Tea Party wasn't universally embraced, least of all by the college and 20-something crowd.<<<
We already have tons of college and 20-somethings, and more join every day - that happens once you graduate, can't find a job and have to start paying on the $100,000+ college education debt. You figure out what's important when you have $150 left to make it to the end of next week, when the next unemployment check comes in.
The TP will NEVER be universally embraced, and that's OK; we don't expect the hard-core Left and professional parasites to join, they game the existing systems. Nor do we expect the Wall St. bankers, who are too rich to understand and also game the existing systems. That's OK; these are the folks who CREATED the problems we face today. We also expect name-calling from leftists like you.
Herman Cain's message was a little too blunt, perhaps - but if you're out of work, out of unemployment and STILL cannot find a job, you need change tactics, approaches, SOMETHING - what's not working for you STILL isn't working, so try something different. OWS is an improvement in that regard - but those people are just making it easy for Obama, Congress, Wall Street and all the other system players to ignore them as a bunch of crazy wackos. Really, body painting? Free kitchens, libraries, medical care? How long would YOU work for free?
OWS is great symbolism, pathetic realism. Start your own BANK and operate it ethically, then talk. Oh, you can't start your own bank because you have no permits, capital or prior experience to make success probable? You can't get a license from the banking regulators because they're all one cozy club that discourages competition?
Who should you REALLY be protesting, then?
Ron Paul suggests medical care will be free throug charity for those who can't afford it too if medicare is ended ... how does it make any more sense when he says it? :p
Agreed. Perfect opportunity to lead that is wasted.
Or is it?
Really, I don't think most republicans actually understand the difference between parasitic capitalism and genuine free market capitalism in the first place. Plenty that do who are in power understand that the parasitic form is dependent on the power they want and can barter, so they don't want to change it any more than a similarly power hungry democrat, the other side of the same power cartel coin that is D.C.
But to your point, it is the perfect opportunity to point out the difference between genuine markets and the current crap many mislabel the free market.
Liberty is the answer. Government, is in the end, nothing but collective force and coercion. Free the people to say no thanks to banksters, corporatists, etc., and you free up competition and labor from its current fossilization to benefit the politically powerful at everyone else's expense. The regulation many of these protesters hope is salvation, is really just a distraction from the real problem (at best) and typically the very same noose that's tightening around their own necks, albeit subtle and hard to follow -- by design of those in power.
Liberty. Freedom. You should try it.
Worldwide well educated young realize they will not get any job close to there qualif.. and definitely no help from their prefered politician... So the movement will unite the worlds youth with one only
claim: A decent future!
I thinkit's a great place to hook-up and meet chicks....
Cheap pussy is as detrimental to happiness as cheap money. Probably more so.
who said anything abt cheap pussy?
Did I misunderstand the possible definitions of the phrase "hook up?"
You're actually on to something:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2047168/Occupy-Wall-Street-prote...
The Daily Mail is known in the uk to be msm full of crap. no a vaild publication to quote on anything, other than possible soccer results.
I'd be chatting up the blue one..
Don't eat the brown acid!!
"To her credit..."
Nothing Pelosi has ever said or done is in any degree creditable. Indeed, it is her party's very legislation ( let us begin with "ObamaCare" ), forced through her Congress, which is responsible in large part to the deep pool of uncertainty in which American business presently wallows.
I hear she can drink vodka quite creditably.... Obamacare isn't an uncertainty, it's a weath transfer gift to the health care industry. It will certainly make the people invested in it plenty of money, it's just a question if you get beaten, or beaten and raped. Also, rape isn't covered.
Most of these kids have an attention span of 15 minutes. They may pull something together for the DNC, but many will abandon the cause when the temperature dips below 32 degrees.
Don't be too certain about that bigmike. The Vietnam War protests were erratic and spanned several years. Perhaps protesting an uncertain future is not as compelling as protesting the possibility of getting shot, but this time, the vast majority of Americans know they are getting screwed.
"Kids ?" Look again.
From Sunday's Boston Herald. Spot-on...
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1372025
Watch this
http://www.henrymakow.com
Wow, that is fascinating, chilling, and disturbing material on the Henry Makow site ... well-documented, a lot of fascinating links and back-up.
And damn, it seems even the same people, who worked for Nato and the CIA in the 1990s, on the streets in New York now ... Makow links to a YT vid of the Serbian Ivan Marovic of 'Otpor' leading a chant in NYC, Marovic seems to be a CIA contractor for the long haul ...
Article says the US CIA-manipulated street thing is designed to distract media from the real revolution against bankster oligarchs we have in Europe, centred in Greece.
Quote from the article:
« ... this is yet another orchestrated international 'controlled opposition' mouse trap. the 'Tea Party' is the controlled opposition trap for the convervative, this is the controlled opposition trap for the naive lefties. »
Here's the direct link to the Makow site article to which I think Caconhma above was trying to point out, piece by Richard Evans, 'Occupy Wall Street is COINTELPRO (Phony Opposition)'
http://www.henrymakow.com/occupy_wall_street_is_cointelp.html
...NWO global counter intelligence is a hell of an inversion. I'm Rick James ...Bitchez. Lol