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The basic premise of OWS is this: Our government, and society, is now ruled by the 1%, and self-serving corporations have bought our entire American system to benefit themselves. Do you agree of disagree? Everything else flows from that...so if you believe everything is great, Wall St is a victim, as are Corporations, and the government works only for the people, then you are right, they are not advocating for you.
My point was that, just like the tea party, the OWS movement has a black and white view of the world. i.e. Corporations/Wall Street/Government are against us all and if you defend them, you are against us as well, which is exactly what you just said.
My world isn't that simple, it may just be too complicated for you to understand.
People generally don't like complex, nuanced or layred understandings. The population as a whole want things binary. Things seems more certain that way.
I don't think they have a black and white view, I think they want to pull back the curtain and show what is really happening behind the scenes, and assign blame and culpability to those who are exploiting the government and system. Which has ultimately caused the global collapse we are seeing today. In case you didn't notice the past 30 years, it has been us vs them, except we have been quiet while they have hijacked our economy, exported jobs, and control government.
Why is it when a young man steals a bike, he goes to jail, but when companies purposefully defraud billions and destroys the global economy they pay a fine? Think about that..and then maybe things will be clearer for you.
What a surprise...a Fox/NY Post opinions column asking for the Mayor to clear the "bums" out of the park. And you are complaining that the OWS are making it about us vs them?
I don't think most people are protesting to abolish banks and corporations. No one is saying that profits shouldn't generated or that we shouldn't have responsible money houses. What is at stake is BALANCE.
In 2010, 37 of the biggest US corporations have not paid a single cent of taxes, and have, in fact, had a negative tax rate while they generated trillions of dollars of profit. The American people have paid more taxes last year than corporations. And yet, unemployment is super high and most of the jobs created right now are super low paying. The congress, I don't think anyone is denying that, is bought and paid for by corporations. Every law passed in congress is essentially written by lobbyists and not the people you elect and who are supposed to represent you. The fed is holding the economy hostage. When JP Morgan Chase donates 4.6 million dollars to the NYPD during the OWS protests and then there is police brutality against a protest that has overwhelmingly been peaceful, you don't see anything fishy in that?
That are the main issues. There is something like civic duty and just plain responsibility that is totally lost in the spheres of high power politics and the corporate world. We need to recover that. That is, in my opinion, not a black/white view of the world, nor does it have anything to do with socialism, communism, hippydom or any other condescending denominations people might find for OWS.
One of the reasons why Republicans are so scared by this movement is because a lot of the OWS "ideology" is actually similar to the original Tea Party "ideology" before it was co-opted by the far right and Sarah Palin who ignored the issues and just used it as a platform to get more air time.
Guaranteed some are skimming off of the the top. It's human nature.
While I agree with the main sentiment of OWS, I don't think they realize one thing. If many of them were put in positions of power or wealth, they'd act the same as the 1%.
Extremely few individuals (as a percentage) in this world put aside self interest even when they stand to lose big.
I wouldn't trust 99% of these bozos with any power or wealth. Just like I don't trust 99% of the current 1%.
Yes. This is the purpose of government - to be sure the wars fought between business titans do not harm the public, to be sure there are no advantages given so there is a level playing field. Instead, our government is getting payed off by mega corporations to bend laws to suit and allowing oligopolies to crowd out possible competitors.
There should NEVER be a business that is 'too big to fail'. It is unhealthy, for this country and for the world.
They're not doing **** but are claiming to.
It takes hard work to get **** done and all I see is a whole lot of sitting around.
I want to see initiative. I want to see work done. Boycotts organized. Strikes organized. Corruption exposed piece by piece.
Sitting around isn't going to accomplish ****.
As much as everybody likes to bash the Wall St , their employees do one thing very well. Bust their ass to get things done. No matter what it takes.
All I see from OWS is them asking for others to initiate the change. It doesn't work that way.
People can say that all they want. In the end, only a very small percentage of people will wish to live that way. Our minds and souls are not hardwired to be some peace-loving, sharing society. And you can actually look to the different warring tribes of the natives to see it.
You can call me some miserable pessimist all you like, friend. I call myself a realist.
Agree to disagree on most of your points, and I don't call you a miserable pessimist but sometimes being a realist means accepting the status quo.
You choose to accept the brutality and insensitivity in man as its driving force.
I choose to believe that regular people united against a common oppressor can unite and build a better world for themselves. Without a reason to unite the cycle would continue feeding itself. This individualistic capitalist society is of course all about obtaining more things than the next person. Thats the only DNA I see greed written into. (No I'm not a socialist)
So then for people who are against "sitting around in parks not doing anything"....what are your opinions of the Arab Spring?
There's no logical comparison between what is required to overthrow a dictatorial government, and what is required to change a system that has been in place, and has been changed radically in a peaceful manner, many times in the past. A lot of people overlook the fact that we basically go through "revolutions" every few years. Our issue is recent times is that a more informed public is starting to realize there might not be as much of a difference between the two parties as they previously thought.
If I was living in a country where I knew I might end up in jail for speaking my mind, at any time, anywhere (among other serious human rights issues to deal with), because we were ruled under a dictator who had been in power for 40+ years, I'd probably be looking to squat in a park also (I have guns to lend to the cause though). But considering many Americans know that we are not in a situation like that here, the comparison is extremely weak, at best.
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