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Update On Wall Street Protests
WWII Vet to Wall Street Protesters: “I Am So Proud Of All You People” WWII and Other Military Vets Support Wall Street Protest
A reader posted the following comment regarding the Occupy Wall Street protests:
I am so proud of all you people who are showing your back bones, to stand up and put a stop to the Banking cartel, who is defining History, by insisting that We The People, use their Fiat Money system. Our Constitution states, that Only Gold and Silver shall be used as lawful Money. The So Called Federal Government, is really only to have Ten Square Miles, in which to conduct their so called wisdom to Protect the Sovereign States. But look at how much territory they call, Federal lands etc. We Have a rouge Government, which is completely out of control. Your movements of collective peaceful protests, are the beginning of the end for the crooked Fiat Money people. I am a WWII Vet, South Pacific Campaign. 94 years young, handy capped, from War Injuries. I want you to know from my Heart, I am so proud of each and every one of you. So Hang in there, your movement is just what this Country needs.
I’m not certain whether the reader is one of these gentlemen attending the Occupy Wall Street protests:
In fact, military men of all ages support the protests:
Conservatives Support Protests Conservative Groups Support Protests
Last month, I called on conservative groups to endorse the Occupy Wall Street protests:
It is time for some big conservative endorsements, to rally around the non-partisan issues important to all Americans.
The Tea Party should endorse the protests, but so should the Oath Keepers, taxpayer rights groups, conservative Christians, limited government groups, and all other conservative groups.
Karl Denninger – one of the founders of the Tea Party – certainly supports the protests, even if he doesn’t agree with some of the positions taken by some of the protesters.
And yesterday, the Oath Keepers and a founding member of the Tea Party announced that they are supporting the protests:
Common Ground Between Conservatives and LiberalsOath Keepers sees good reason to stand in the streets with these awakening souls and protect their right to free speech, to peacefully assemble, and to redress their grievances to their government, as the Constitution prescribes for all Americans. That is one thing. Another facet of our initiative is to use these public gatherings to reach and teach many who now hunger for the truth – we can show them how the Constitution will protect them better than an oversized, bloated Federal behemoth hell-bent on controlling every aspect of each citizen’s life.
To point this out to the masses, Oath Keepers is organizing a joint effort along with Alex Jones of Infowars dot com (who himself called for an Occupy the Fed movement); Steven Vincent of End The Fed; Danny Panzella’s Truth Squad TV; Brandon Smith of Alt-Mkt.com; Gary Franch of Restore The Republic; and others as quickly as we can contact them. Remember Bob Dwyer, the guy who started the first Tea Party to launch the Ron Paul revolution? He’s in. The forces of Constitutional rule of law must muster now to deflect the bile being belched forth by the socialist/statist extremists …. Oath Keepers has the message American youth need. If we do not go out into the street and give them the truth, can we really say we’re still honoring our Oath?
As I’ve previously noted, both liberals and conservatives hate corporate socialism (where the federal government favors giant corporations at the expense of the little guy) . The Oathkeepers announcement zeroes in on this issue in a way that both conservatives and liberals can agree on:
When a corporation becomes larger than is useful, and seeks to concentrate financial power into the political and governmental spheres, its likeness is no longer the King Snake, but instead is more like a Rattlesnake. At a point we call such corps “Monopoly Capitalists”. By the time a grouping of such Monopoly Capitalist corps are setting U.S. foreign policy, which the arms industry certainly does nowadays, the problem becomes unbearably apparent. Bechtel comes to mind, along with Halliburton, the Carlyle Group, Monsanto, General Electric, et al.
That part of Wall Street is certainly to blame. But that is not “Capitalism”. Instead, it is “Monopoly Capitalism”, and it is now observably moving America into a new world order with intent to place America under the alleged authority of a one-world government. As such, Monopoly Capitalism is un-Constitutional and must be opposed.
While Michael Moore says that capitalism itself is the problem, Mr. Moore is wrong. As I’ve previously noted:
Corrupt Politicians As Enablers of CorruptionWhen Mahatma Gandhi was asked what he thought about Western civilization, he answered:
I think it would be a good idea.
I feel the same way about free market capitalism.
It would be a good idea, but it is not what we have now. Instead, we have either socialism, fascism or a type of looting.
If people want to criticize capitalism and propose an alternative, that is fine . . . but only if they understand what free market capitalism is and acknowledge that America has not practiced free market capitalism for some time.
***
People pointing to the Western economies and saying that capitalism doesn’t work is as incorrect as pointing to Stalin’s murder of millions of innocent people and blaming it on socialism. Without the government’s creation of the too big to fail banks, Fed’s intervention in interest rates and the markets, government-created moral hazard emboldening casino-style speculation, corruption of government officials, creation of a system of government-sponsored rating agencies which had at its core a model of bribery, and other government-induced distortions of the free market, things wouldn’t have gotten nearly as bad.
As Justice Louis Brandeis said:
In a government of laws, the existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipotent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. If government becomes a lawbreaker it breeds contempt for law: it invites every man to become a law unto himself. It invites anarchy.
If there has been lawlessness and corruption among Wall Street players, it was partially simply modeling the lawlessness and corruption of the Executive Branch and Congress members. I’ve written elsewhere about how the government lied by saying Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and was behind 9/11 (when he didn’t and wasn’t), that we don’t torture (when we did), that we don’t spy on Americans (when we did), etc. Just like kids model what their parents do as well as what they say, Wall Street modeled the unlawful and corrupt actions of our government employees.
Being against capitalism because of the mess we’ve gotten in would be like Gandhi saying that he is against Western civilization because of the way the British behaved towards India.
The Oathkeepers and conservative alternative media powerhouse Alex Jones also zero in on the Federal Reserve system as a core problem. As Oath Keepers notes in its announcement:
Oath Keepers is planning to “Occupy The Fed Now!” and publicize this to remind the Occupy Wall Street people that the Fed is the source problem, without which the Wall Street criminals would be set back a hundred years. I will be posting our press release and a longer list of groups and orgs who will be joining Oath Keepers in this initiative.
We are currently drawing up our press release regarding our own response to the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon, which will be Oath Keepers’ official statement. We are now planning an official Oath Keepers project which we’ve named “Occupy The Fed Now!”.
Yes, Oath Keepers has seen the need to block the attempted takeover of the populist movement generally referred to as Occupy Wall Street.
In an extensive phone conference on the evening of October 04, 2011, we heard from Oath Keepers who have attended Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Boston, Occupy Los Angeles, and Occupy Seattle. The overall consensus from our people at these rallies is that most people attending the rallies are very open-minded to the Oath Keepers mission/message, and that they are hungry for answers. Indeed, our reports indicate that many Americans right now are awakening, in droves it seems, and they are full of questions for which we have the answer – the Constitution for the united States of America.
While progressives might assume that the Fed has helped the economy from getting worse, or that the importance of ending the Fed is being overhyped, top economists and financial experts disagree. See this, this and this.
As I pointed out Monday, whatever people think the government should do, the D.C. politicos have actually been a large part of the problem:
Because government policy is ensuring high unemployment, it is not surprising that the American protesters are angry at the Federal Reserve and other government institutions, and not just the big Wall Street banks.
Remember, Bush and Obama’s economic policies are virtually indistinguishable. Indeed, Obama actually likes high unemployment.
And as I noted in 2009, the government created the giant banks:
As MIT economics professor and former IMF chief economist Simon Johnson points out today, the official White House position is that:
(1) The government created the mega-giants, and they are not the product of free market competition
(2) The White House needs to “regulate and oversee them”, even though it is clear that the government has no real plans to regulate or oversee the banking behemoths
(3) Giant banks are good for the economy
Of course, the government has also made it policy to cover up fraud and protect the fraudsters, and so the free market has no chance to punish fraud or cleanse wrongdoing from the system.
Without government-created moral hazard emboldening casino-style speculation, corruption of government officials, creation of a system of government-sponsored rating agencies which had at its core a model of bribery, and other government-induced distortions of the free market, things wouldn’t have gotten nearly so bad.
Indeed, the government is so corrupt that the head of the economics department at George Mason University says that D.C. politicians are worse than prostitutes … they are “pimps”, since they are pimping out the American people to the financial giants.
And while co-option of government by the big banks is a huge problem, it is also true that corruption in government leads to corruption in the private sector. See this and this. The U.S. has truly become a banana republic, just like the worst Latin American countries.
So anyone who thinks that government would solve all of our problems if it were only freed from obstructionists is only seeing half the problem, and is falling for the oldest trick in the book … the ole’ divide and conquer strategy.
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The USA also needs to bring in a Death penalty for the crime of a Regulator(s) colluding with bank or other to courrupt or defraud a market. The enforcement of laws and honest regulators are the last line of defense. Their position is absolutely critical. And we now seen when these offices become corrupt. This is why there needs to be a death penalty for corruption in these positions.
Yes, let's ask the government to kill more people. That's the one thing it's good at, after all.
Excellent, and let's extend it to any serious official corruption. We've been paying them to loot and rape us, we shouldn't pay them to play cards and watch TV. Give them a choice between 10 hrs/day hard labor for life, or death.
i get so annoyed at leftists when they auto-sneer at me when i tell them i am an avid supporter of the death penalty ,
but i get even more pleased than annoyed, when they react positively shocked and in agreement to whom i support applying this penalty to.
it's amazing how conservatives and leftists can sometimes see eye to eye on things. :)
Hell yes.
Thats a crowd I will support.
Replace the regulators in all offices across the country then, rigorously enforce all the laws and regulations as they already are.
The result would be thousands of corrupt banksters, politicians and regulators going to prison.
One of the massive failings of the USA over the past three years is the systemic corrupt avoidance of applying laws and prosecuting wrong doers. There is a sense and belief that the banksters and all their people are able to do anything they desire, steal, cheat, fraud and defradu, lie in any way they want, and be totally impervious to the law as a group and as individuals. And instead they spit in the face of all people by doing all these things openely and paying themsleves bonuses to boot.
And that is because the people in charge of enforcement are corrupt and owned by the law breakers. They MUST all be replaced. All laws and reglulations must be enforced. In short the USA needs a massive truth commission centred on the activities of banks, banksters, regulators...
fuckwad, you still don't get it. These are not some assorted "banksters" or "politicians"...they are servants of the 1%. they are the direct agents of the owners of this motherfuking country. this is the "republic" so many here admire. let's go way back now to 1780 when ngroes, women and non-asset owning whites could not vote and senators were appointed. You got Putin all teared eyed.
Exactly correct. So many deniers, but you are correct.
Who in their right mind would believe the crap that only the dumbest of the graduates from the best schools in the country decided to all take roles in government / banks / fed / international organizations / higher education and somehow, miracle of miracles, they're all fucking up royally... it's impossible odds and it's plain impossible. There is no way in hell that what we're experiencing is failed policies... this is clearly a plan. You may not be willing to admit you're much dumber than you realized, so you project and falsely believe the other guys are the imbeciles. Wrong... they are very clever dicks, and you are not stupid, just duped. They lied, cheated, tricked us, but they did all of this on purpose.
So please, stop imagining that you are smarter or they are dumber, just look at the facts and set aside the ego just for the duration of the analysis. What makes sense is that the oligarchs have decided to decimate the citizenry of the world, globally. I don't know why, and I don't really care... but this is not an accident and rules / regulators will not fix a fucking thing.
"Sometimes the lights all shinin' on me,
other times I can barely see."
U.S. Army class of '72
Like the motherfucking 'do-da man'; the cards ain't worth a dime if you dont lay them down.
Headless wonder. They need a common theme besides protesting. What exactly are they trying to accomplish, and how will they get there?
Do they not understand that most Americans are deeply intertwined and even reliant upon these same corporations they protest? Kill all the corporations to your own demise. Yes, they need to be better regulated. Fine, oust the CEO, demad less pay for executives and more pay for employees, put an end to corporate campaign donations, demand a stop of outsourcing, and on an on...
But think it through, lets say you end financial services/Wall St, crash the markets, then watch all the 401Ks, money markets, pensions, and credit disappear. Then next they will shut off the lights and gas. What them? Run back to the govt to protect you and make your life better again? No thanks, I'd rather have heat and food than sleep in a cardboard box.
Unless they uniformily state demands they are wasting their time and just making noise.
Read my post. That is what we're fighting for.
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/update-wall-street-protests#comment...
not kill corporations. reform the system. shed light onto the injustices and corruption. talk about the reality, because the politicians refuse to acknowledge it, and someone has to be the adult in the room. you boomers are such fuckin dissapointments, a fuken waste
From their site: The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%.
I can understand that. Seems pretty straightforward.
Not everyone in the top 1% is greedy or corrupt and not everyone in the 99% lives a life of penitance and charity.
Odd how they are totally silent about the most corrupt adfministration in history that is looting the Treasury. This is still a Soros/Ayres distraction. John Kerry had a lot of phony vets (not real) giving testimony during the "winter soldier investigation." It was all BS. I hate the Fed and Obama's buddies on Wall Street but this is smoke and mirrors to distract us on how bad Obama is.
The Winter Soldiers were real and Kerry was real when he testified on their experiences. Then he became a politician and we all know what happens after that.
For real looting see Bush II regime.
At least its a start....
Be careful what you wish for, you may just get it and it probably won't be pleasant given who is behind all this.
You got it PE. It all stinks of Soros. Still, anything that breeds chaos and polarizes is at this time useful. Only way we are going to get rid of the Hollywood/DC/NY/Jerusalem Axis is Civil War.
'...all the 401Ks, money markets, pensions, and credit...' are going down...I've been watching. Wait til the Annuities hit, after the insurance companies...After the Soverign Contagion.
We don't have to do anything to the corporations, nor the Banksters, nor the Governments...Just watch...it will be dramatic, for everyone...100%!
I hope you're wrong, but think it will get a bit worse before it gets better. The fundamentals have not chaged. They threw trillions at this and we're no better today than Oct 2008. Same bankers, same politicians, same way of doing business, same risks, but a lot more debt and middle class much poorer.
In one comment you create the problem, and in the second you propose the answer. They are pissed. There's your theme.
Is anger all you've got? I can't think of a single time in my life when anger alone motivated me to do something productive. Fuming is not thinking and unthinking action rarely works to anyone's benefit.
WRONG! Just take a look at this 2:57 video and tell me otherwise:
http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/sunday-morning-bobblehead-thread-140
October 09, 2011 05:00 AM
Sunday Morning Bobblehead ThreadWhat leads you to believe it will get better?
Because there is a day after every night.
Because humans will continue to advance, and strive for freedom, unless we destroy ourselves utterly.
Tho there have been some historical episodes os striving for freedom, it also appears that the former democracies are now in the dustbin. The striving continues, however, it always seems to be the smae 3%. Long odds and do not discount cosmic intervention in the whole new day concept.
It's very encouraging to see some Americans with some balls, etc. Wish I could make it up there from here in Texas. Guess I'll just have to spread the word about Dr. Ron Paul down here & vote for him.
Hey Texas,
Retired Generals are saying take it local. They're going to be going state to state with this. Go to the Fed in Dallas. You can participate!
Nobody occupies Fort Knox yet?
Why would you wish to occupy a tungsten depot?
I bet those tungsten bars are...beautiful! I bet some people would even think that they look like GOLD!
Thats because there nothing of value in Fort Knox.
D-Fens
Tungsten's not exactly cheap. Especially if it's been kept untarnished by nice thick gold plating.
That's true enough- but I still wouldn't care to pay gold prices for it.
The Tungsten Load!
Haha - that was my first thought. Seriously, I am not an American citizen, but I've heard and read many stories of the people who attend these rallies and I think we share a lot of the problems. I would love to see America to be reborn. The America I loved as a kid. And don't start with all that - occupied brainwashed and stuff.
You know what they call America in German? Das Land der unbegrenzten Möglichkeiten. Land of opportunity is the translation, but actually it is more like a land with unlimited opportunities.
I hope you don't get divided. As I said earlier, there is enough common ground for both sides.
And when it starts here, I'll be the first to go the ECB building. (*And don't think I am a nationalist - I am not. I actually never was. I love my country, I like the European idea - but the Euro is a failed project, the EU must be reformed or abandoned. And while I am at it - Germany needs to be much more democratic - although it was praised here on ZH by a commentator as a good democratic model.)
My German ancestors were experienced glass workers who were brought to America in the 1880s by a fellow named Captain Ford, a founder of PPG. My ancestors wrote back to their friends in Germany and told them, "Our dog eats more meat in a day than you do in a week."
Captain Ford was a rich man but I can't fault him for it. I owe my existence in part to my ancestors' skill in industry and an entrepreneur's desire to grow his business and his profits by hiring the best workers available.
Do you still live in Pittsburgh? My father went there once in the 70s. He was an engineer (constructional steelwork). I love the Penguins.
But you're right. They made a good choice. A part of my family also went to America from Danzig in the 1860-70s. To be in Germany around that time wasn't easy and many people went over to America - to pursue that American dream. I am sure it was better choice. Germany lost a lot of good people after that failed revolution of 1848.( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_revolution_of_1848 )
It's hard to describe that German Sehnsucht (longing) for America. It's still here. You don't hear it as often as in the 90s or 80s. I think the image of America changed during the Bush era. Where I live many people still like America - I know some German-American couples here (as often: GI marries German girl - ha, almost a cliché!). They are more critical of it in East Germany and also in Berlin.
Yep, we're still nestled here along the Allegheny River north of Pittsburgh. This area was called the Workshop of the World in the late 19th century. Most of that industrial capacity is gone but we do all right. There are new waves of immigration today, no longer do we see Europeans flocking in for factory work but there does seem to be an influx of Indians working in medicine. There's a real patchwork of nationalities each of which preserves their unique customs but they all rapidly become Pittsburghers. Good, easy going people.
My German ancestors came from Stolberg. They were Gentgens and Schneiders.
PY - I think the political class in both the Germany and the USA is way behind the curve. There are fundamental changes happening in the societes, and they keep fighting the same political wars as 30 years ago.
At least Germans have the Pirate party. Here even the Tea Party (which I support so far) got into moronic mode, trying to discredit the OWS movement.
But is it?
Let's see.
Do the majority of German working adults want bailouts for the PIIGS?
Emphatically no!
But what did they get, regardless?
Ever growing bailouts, higher taxes, smaller German investement, and the still coming entrenched German austerity, that is imposed from their democratically-elected caste, who totally ignored the desire of the people here ... in their best-interests ... of course ... it had nothing to do with the micro-minority of uber-rich banksterz buying power ... that is just a vicious baseless lie! ... Angela is not like that!
--
Nope. A "good democratic model" is where the elected leaders and reps serve the interests and needs of the majority of the people first and always.
German leaders are not doing this.
"As I said earlier, there is enough common ground for both sides."
I don't see that happening. Either much bigger and more powerful government wins (likely) or smaller, constitutional government wins (unlikely). Unlimited government where politicians have the power to make things better and limited government that will prevent politicians from making things worse are not ideas with much common ground. Yet they are the fundamental ideas motivating the two different sides here--posing dramatically different worldviews about human nature and the relationship of man to the state. The revolutionaries will gravitate to one or the other because the common ground is what we have now--a growing, all-powerful progressive state, the growth of which is somewhat restrained by political opposition.
In the more likely event, the tea partiers are not going to be persuaded it was a good result. They will then become the Kulaks of the second American revolution. Kulaks with guns will make for a very messy (but ultimately successful) repression of the counterrevolutionaries.
So you mean, actual CHANGE in the HOW, isn't on the table, only "more" or "less" of the same? In that case, i hope BOTH go down.
be a bit more clear. you don't mean, 'one or the other', you mean the revolutionaries, leftists in particular, will gravitate towards the vision of a HUGE all powerful state.
they perhaps will promise the tea partiers that the banks will be sold, by auction , to private state interests after they are nationalized.
perhaps they then agree together to nationalize the banks and the fed itself (which just beocmes the u.s. central bank--essentially a nationalized fed )
and then, after this, the federalists try and break their promise about auctioning the banks back to the private citizens and owners. and the tea partiers then get pissed.
i mean you need a coherent narrative here. but i do like the kulak idea, it just needs to be fleshed out a bit more.
Hi. great to see a german citizen around..
Sure you could give me some light about the fact, at least I beleive is a fact, that most germans are against the crazyness of bail outs and so on..., but in local elections they seem to support parties (SPD, Greens) that want more and more redistribution and more and more bailouts, eurobonds.... punishing the few ones that are against them.
Thanks in advance for your help
Hello Alvaro,
Although many Germans indeed disapprove further bailouts, there is no party against it that would stand a chance in the upcoming election. Sure, some German readers will remind me that the party Die Linke (Extreme Left) is against that. But many of their members were part of the SED, the ruling party in the GDR (DDR). See, I can agree to most things that Sahra Wagenknecht [PIC]one of the leading members of the Linke, says against the undemocratic behaviour and the stupidness of all the bailouts. But she has also declared some sympathy for Stalin, is a commited Communist. So I won't vote for her.
There is a German word - Denkzettel. There is no good translation for it - just to give someone a warning. I think that some of these elections were such a Denkzettel, but it also depends on the region. Like blue/red states, there is also a voting history over here, where some regions favour labour parties like the SPD - Nordrhein-Westfalen or Saarland; both are former coal & mining regions.
The recent success of the Piratenpartei is also a form of protest vote. Younger voters don't find themselves represented by the established parties. But the Piratenpartei has literally no clue about economic topics; they are in favour of more internet liberties - a topic where the established parties don't have a clue.
To make it short: It is very difficult for a German voter to oppose further bailouts, because there is no party so far, which could stand a chance in the coming election. So some people will just vote for the opposite party to put some pressure on the CDU, which is the conservative party in Germany. CSU is the Bavarian version of the CDU and Bavaria is our Texas - just without the guns and with more beer. :) So, the problem is obvious - normally the CDU would be the party that should be opposed against bailouts. And that causes trouble for the party.
Over the past years, Merkel has eliminated all of her opponents to become chancellor. Now she has created the worst nightmare - a party of sycophants, where everybody agrees to what she thinks is good. I am normally a conservative voter, but I simply don't know what I could elect the next time.
There is no True Finn party here - some will say Die Freiheit - but so far they had no chance in local elections and that makes it impossible for them to have any chance. I don't have a choice. By the way - a lot people don't vote here anymore - in some regions not even 50 % vote anymore - they don't see any difference. That's sad.