This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Wall Street Protest Starting to Look Like Egypt
Alexander Higgins reports:
NYPD police scanners are estimating a crowd up to 5,000
are occupying liberty square in a scene that is now starting to look
more like Egypt’s Tahrir square.
The protests have become so large that Fox News has set up a live stream covering the protests. Here are some screen shots from their camera.
Thousands Turn Out To Occupy Wall Street Protests Sept 30
Thousands Turn Out To Occupy Wall Street Protests Sept 30 -2
Thousands Turn Out To Occupy Wall Street Protests Sept 30 -3
Here are some additional photographs from a helicopter.
Who Are the Protesters?
Wall Street is trying to write all of these people off as being
“hippies” who “need to get a job” (to which the protesters would
respond: That’s the point – There are no jobs, because Wall Street has destroyed the economy.)
.
The poor and the desperate, formerly-middle class people participating in the protests are not taking well to Wall Street’s “Let them eat cake” response.
But all types are marching, including grannies and pilots:
Marines and other military men and women.
Wealthy folks such as Russel Simmons and Alec Baldwin.
On the other side of the protest line, Mayor Bloomberg is whining that the protesters are targeting bankers who “are struggling to make ends meet”.
He has a point: if Wall Street is reined in so that the rest of the
country has a chance, the bankers might have to cut back on their mistresses, prostitutes and solid gold toilets.
Class Warfare?
Yes, this is class warfare. But it is class warfare by the 1% against the other 99% (and see this). Specifically, it is the looting of the country by the top .1% through fraud.
As Warren Buffet – one of America’s most successful capitalists and defenders of capitalism – points out:
There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war ….
Leading economists note that rampant inequality was one of the main causes of the Great Depression and of the current economic crisis.
Indeed, given that inequality in America is worse than Egypt (or Tunisia, or Yemen or most Latin American banana republics), and that social mobility is lower in America than in most European countries (and see this), we have been predicting these types of protests for years.
If Wall Street is starting to look like Tahir Square, it is because
America is starting to look more and more like Egypt – with a handful of
super-rich, and crumbs for everyone else.
»
- advertisements -
The only one who can meet with them in sincerity is Ron Paul.
They would not understand. Ron Paul would scare the crap out of them. He's old and would need to be honest. These people have been raised on lies and demand more of the same. Reality only makes them more confused.
You're wrong. There are Ron Paul signs at the protest, and there are signs about stopping divide and conquer there. They would understand Ron Paul. The liberals there would not agree with some of the things he had to say, but they would agree with him about other things.
Good points, Dolly.
Also, I think the important thing is that the protests are a great opportunity for dialogue. Many Ron Paul supporters are out there using this as an opportunity to argue their points.
I am all for this protest, I think anytime populations remind TPTB that they are not immortal, that angry populace can remove them, that is a good thing. However, I do worry because I think a good many of the people out there are chanting for "their share", and want the gov't to give it to them. I worry that this protest will take a turn for the worse and become an "increase the welfare state" movement.
I hope Ron Paul supporters and anyone who is a taxpayer and blames both the banks AND gov't will attend, and try to educate some of those with Marxist type views. I think Dolly is right, Ron Paul can get their attention and show them there is another way besides Fascism or Marxism. It is the way of the individual. As long as this protest remains a bunch of individuals, with diverse viewpoints, I think it is a great thing.
See Ron Paul and Ralph Nader together:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwIZ4syCFLc
Exactly. I wish he would.
"in sincerity" when applied to the political animal the space is not required.
none of the candidates has an especially populist appeal. Obama is the most proven disingenous so I would expect him to come first. If I had to guess who would make hay of this (and break bread with the protestors) I would put Sarah Palin on top, because she hasn't announced formally yet.
I wouldn't expect Cain to raise the decibel level, as black populists are pretty rare.
Romney looks like a guy who doesn't want to muss his hair.
Paul is a bit too nerdy to be a populist, or adopt the cause.
Perry, sure.
But somewhere in all this a politician will seize the "bullhorn" moment to lead America (see GW Bush, 9/11)and with ground zero being only a few blocks away, it's risky politically, but some of these guys and girls are running on the outside (Bachman for instance). they could pick up that bullhorn, and it might not get them the nomination, but they will gather some dissaffected voters and pledge to the winner, and that will make a difference at convention time.
Cain ran the Kansas City Fed. He is one of the borg and so is probably Romney and open-borders Perry.
The people you're suggesting are all programmed to protect the status quo.
You need a blue collar type, MALE, who speaks truth - plain and simple. Someone who has common sense left in him to tear up the circus and the fraud being perpetuated daily right before our very eyes. Someone who is NOT BOUGHT by any lobby, someone who has stemina and vigor and all that to INSPIRE like minded people to donate to his team. It's not even about how much money he can raise as long as he's in it for the right reasons.
Unfortunately that someone will have to consider being killed for his convictions.
well, it seems to me that Ron Paul meets your criteria. Are you insinuating by saying "someone who has stemina and vigor" that he is too old? He challenged the entire GOP field to a 20-mile bicycle race in 100 degree/100% humidity in Houston and no one accepted.
As usual, GREAT post George.
I just posted a link to your article on the NPR Ombudsman page, getting on their ass about their lack of coverage.
Gee Wally, you mean the government site isn't supporting this? Well Beav, life is a bit more complex than our masters/ parents told us. Fact is Eddie is running the show.
Why aren't we marching on 9/11?
Because we don't have time machines.
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation then by deflation, (of course, this is what the Fed has been doing for years) the banks and the corporations will grow up around them (can anyone one say "Crony Capitalism" and lobbyists), will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered (Does anybody know of someone that has had their home foreclosed upon?). The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." Thomas Jefferson
For some reason, we write these guys off as a bunch of old white men, but we forget the principals and logic that this country was established on. I think we will see a decline, due to the ignorance of a populace that is more concerned with an Ipad and American Idol, of an empire. It has been a nice ride.
While that quote has been widely distributed and used it has been shown here many times that it was NOT said by Thomas Jefferson. His sentiment certainly was there to make that comment but he did not.
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/jefferson/banks.asp
dupe.
Whether or not the quote is correct, Snopes is a shitty source for debunking anything.
Besides, the message is a good one even if the source is mis-identified.
Isn't Snopes and the other fact checking sites Soros funded shills?
He wrote this. "I sincerely believe… that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” ~Letter to John Taylor, 1816
+1 Just because I pointed out the misquote doesn't mean I don't believe the idea.
"Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin!
You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the Eternal God, I will rout you out... If people only understood the rank injustice of the money and banking system, there would be a revolution by morning." - Andrew Jackson
"The few who understand the system, will either be so interested from it's profits or so dependant on it's favors, that there will be no opposition from that class." -- Rothschild Brothers of London, 1863
"It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." -- Henry Ford
"Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effectual than that which deludes them with paper money." -Daniel Webster
"We are in danger of being overwhelmed with irredeemable paper, mere paper, representing not gold nor silver; no, Sir, representing nothing but broken promises, bad faith, bankrupt corporations, cheated creditors, and a ruined people." -Daniel Webster
"Paper money has had the effect in your State [Rhode Island] that it ever will have, to ruin commerce--oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice." -Gerorge Washington (not our GW the original)
"I have always been afraid of banks. " -Andrew Jackson
"I weep for the liberty of my country when I see at this early day of its successful experiment that corruption has been imputed to many members of the House of Representatives, and the rights of the people have been bartered for promises of office." -Andrew Jackson
"Money is power, and in that government which pays all the public officers of the states will all political power be substantially concentrated." - Andrew Jackson
Doesn't matter who wrote it or said it, the quote is well worth listening to.
I agree I was just pointing out that if one is going to quote someone the person they are quoting should have said the actual words.
but in those times most people were probably somewhat apathetic... the course of a given society is determined by relatively few leaders, always has been that way. I think the biggest problem we face today is that men and women of integrity and intelligence are not permitted to get anywhere in the current system unless they are amoral. somehow the best and brightest leaders are removed from the equation long before they can fulfill their traditional role... then throw in some 'bread and circuses' for the masses, and presto, modern western culture becomes the cesspool that it is.
Yes, this is why the cry for true democracy is being heard now.
KEEP IT PEACEFUL!
anyone amongst you that shows violence is a traitor!
TPTB will attempt a false flag op to make you protesters look bad.
We want an ever-growing PEACEFUL protest. No looting, fires, etc.
That behavior will work against us.
Know your rights!
http://www.nyclu.org/content/what-do-if-you%E2%80%99re-stopped-police
Get a clue Lee, you don't have any rights. None.
Not sure why people junked you. The truth is pretty much we are serfs. Thank idiots who watch TV and Hollywood's shit for enpowering the elites.
Most of the rights listed there went out when the Patriot Act came in.
The problem IS that Americans still run around saying how lucky they are to "live in a free country" because they really have no idea what kind of monster they have created.
Just wait for injustices served based on bullshit fortunetelling, also known as behavior models.
All one need look at with the patriot domestic spying act is access to data collected about you. There isn't any.
If it remains peaceful TPTB will just send in outside agitators to give them a reason to unleash the pepper spray, rubber bullets, and water cannons. The government and the police are the enforcers for the banksters.
I think the opposite is true. They are more likely to send out gallons of tea and tons of crumpets to keep them quelled. The last thing TPTB want are professional aggitators or rough engagements with the police to make this thing explode like a rocket on 4th of July. They absolutely don't want that. If enough people go there, mill around, get a little cold, then go home because nothing is happening it will make the TPTB very happy.
Do not underestimate the power of all those camera phones. Everything that happens is being documented up the wazoo.
Thinking that violence from phony demonstrators may not be enough now, but a small cell of Islamic terrorists uncovered by the combined efforts of the NYPD and the FBI would do the trick.
Indeed...you tube will get several versions of the same event as a function of the recorder and, in some cases, how staged certain exchanges are.
A modern version of The film, Rashomon
If Kurosawa directs it that's fine by me! Not Bloomberg TV!
Pardon me folks, I am pissed off that a bunch of blood sucking thieves in pinstripes are looting my country. If this demonstration is not the right place to collectively express our justifiable outrage and to send a message to the whores that run our country, what would the naysayers propose, an Elvis convention?
Elvis is a GREAT analogy for our government. I'm a bloated has been who favors the drug industry and sleeps with everyone.
He's also dead.
they couldn't do it without Washingtons support and Bernankes interventions. remember the stock market is being propped up for the benefit of the working man as well. Pension funds are (over) invested in wall streets paper, and without the paper profits, benefits will disappear. when Calpers suggests cutting growth projections just 1/4% wall street shudders.
the outcome of pension fund shortfalls would require the states to make up the difference. that sets off a chain reaction. and while Goldman has been accused correctly of frontrunning funds such as CalPers, we have to remember that workers are held hostage in this instance. (just as they were in the financial crisis when depositors in the big investment banks who had gambled and lost were also going to lose the money widows and orphans trusted them to keep safe)
they're a lot like the grocer who puts his thumb on the scale. (BOA $5 thumb on your debit card)
the solution is really in washington, where the President who tells us he is on our side raises money from Wall Street to save our money, which they hold hostage. how to extricate the parasitic practises of Wall Street from Americas savings? while the growth of derivative based paper is actually greater now than before the crisis.
so first thing is you arrest the whores, and then you wait for the pimps to come bail them out. standard police procedure.
usury is the problem as it manifests itself, over time,
as inflation in the private crooked system of debt based fiat money
lent into existence, at interest(here the usury)
through fractional reserve lending,
concomitantly financing debt based public expenditures that
propel political dynasties at the expense of the resulting
debt slave taxpayer bludgeoned into total confusion and helplessness
with a mind turned to mush from media deception and torment.
. so all pricing is done by the edict of smoke and mirrors
accomplished by backroom deals in opaque political "markets".
end the fed and their usury notes. all that money that the
"system" skims to the bankers is the peoples debt, by law,
and as the iterations of lending increase the debt curve goes
parabolic, increasing the demand for more debt at interest, so,
like a rocket it goes , and as the rocket goes into orbit
it leaves the earth beneath it scorched and dead, along with
the onlookers and former terrestrial inhabitants.
usury is actually financial terrorism and is ubiquitous due
to our psychopathic overlords from hell having their
way with the slave chains in our local cave in this
corner of the universe.
not to mention as debt saturation of fiat lending arrives
due to balance sheet or other bank book imbalances,
the credit markets dry up and collateral and assets then
become the property of the banks. how convenient for
the banks and a true burden they will argue, another
cost they will need be bailed out to survive.
it is not a sustainable or desirable system for the earth
bound. but, who would know or care to correct it?
and the correction would be simple and is obvious but
somehow....unthinkable. this is why we deserve our doom.
there is one issue that solves them all and we cannot discuss it.
and the solution eliminates all taxes and rewards work and
innovation, creativity, honesty and health. but the bankers don't get
to make all the decisions that they are not qualified to make.
fatal flaw i guess.
+1
I remember during the Carter era that the local department store had to ration credit on thier credit cards. Interest rates were 16+%. I think the dept store credit card was around 19% and they were not making enough spread. Today the criminal ***kers get away with 29% to 30% serfdom if people miss a payment.
You nailed it blindman! But I feel there is hope because the cat is out of the bag, so to speak. :-)
i hope this particular point is clear to everyone.
i think it is the key to many corrections in many
areas of the socio-economic reality.
.
Delusional Economics
http://verbewarp.blogspot.com/2011/08/delusional-economics.html
I propose that disobedience speaks more loudly than angry words. I fear this will turn into a giant woodstock and that eventually people will get bored and go home.
70 people arrested last Saturday. 700+ today. Does that mean 7000 will be arrested next Saturday? Weekend after, 70,000? That does not sound like Woodstock to me. I sincerely doubt people were very disappointed that Radiohead didn't show up. These protesters are my heroes, not a band.
Protests should be in the streets of Washington DC when the corrupticians are in town going about their usually business of screwing the general public. not in NYC messing with the tourism.
I have heard there are plans to start protests in DC on October 6th. There's plenty of things to protest about in DC and on Wall Street.
http://october2011.org/issues
Those aching for structure will find much more to love in this one, I'm sure.
I saw the head organizer--yes, they have a single spokesman--interviewed yesterday and the guy is extremely sharp. Extremely.
Things are gonna get even more interesting, me thinks.