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EvC Forum Side Orders Coffee House Occupy Wall Street

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Author Topic:   Occupy Wall Street
Rahvin
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(1)
Message 14 of 602 (636013)
10-03-2011 5:33 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by hooah212002
10-03-2011 3:02 PM


Protest needs to happen to affect change, but I'm skeptical of the effect this particular chain of protests will have. Interviews with protesters (I've only heard a couple, mind) have shown that the only guiding principle to the protest is "we're pissed off," with no concise message or political goal. Without a clear message, I'm not sure what sort of effect this can have. While the "right" has been unified enough to deal with the half-formed "message" of the Tea Party (lower taxes; less government regulation; few specifics), the "left" is pretty spread-out. They need a more unified, clear-message grass-roots movement to provide the same "oomph" to stay true to the base that the Teabaggers have given the Republicans.
Granted, there's an awful lot to be pissed off about at the moment. I can probably think of five or six individual topics to protest about right off the top of my head.

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Rahvin
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Posts: 4069
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 10.0


Message 46 of 602 (636169)
10-04-2011 12:48 PM
Reply to: Message 43 by Coyote
10-04-2011 11:53 AM


Re: What George Said
That's really not true, Coyote.
"The left" has been fractured for decades. Even when Democrats had a majority in both houses on Congress and the Presidency, they still couldn't pass truly liberal healthcare reform, just as one example.
"The left" in the US is a fragmented mess. The Republicans will stand together and vote en mass; the Democrats can't even manage that much. That's why Democrats have needed to seek compromise and buy-in from Republicans, even when their numbers meant they shouldn't have had to.
Obama was the first real Democratic candidate I ever saw make use of a "grass roots" movement...and then he just let it all go as soon as he was inaugurated. The closest "the left" had to a Tea Party-esque movement to date has been small groups of "progressives" or the Green Party, none of which has managed to force their representatives to answer to their base in the way the Teabaggers have.

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Replies to this message:
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Rahvin
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Posts: 4069
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 10.0


(6)
Message 60 of 602 (636187)
10-04-2011 3:39 PM
Reply to: Message 48 by crashfrog
10-04-2011 1:30 PM


Re: What George Said
What was he supposed to do with it, exactly? Please be specific.
He could have used the massive popular support to put pressure on his fellow Democrats to actually be responsive to their base. Just off the top of my head. Obama won the 2008 election with a huge public mandate against Bush-era policies on a message of change, and then he squandered the political force he gained as a candidate and began capitulating from day one.
Could you identify the provision of the constitution that allows the executive to pass legislation purely on the basis of having a "grass roots" movement?
Strawman. I never claimed any such thing, or even implied it. I claimed that Obama "let go" of his popular support once he became President. Really crash, there's no need for this. If you want to debate whether or not a large grassroots movement is actually useful to a sitting President, we can do that, but there's no need to lower yourself to the equivalent of demanding I produce evidence of a crocoduck to support speciation.
The Tea Party extracts concessions because they have a proven track record of successful primary challenges. Not only do Democratic primaries not work like that, but Democratic voters haven't ever proven that they can deliver a candidate. In fact, what they've proven time and time again is that you absolutely cannot count on the Democratic base to deliver votes for anything but a Presidental election. Special election? Dems won't go. Mid-terms? Dems won't go.
I'd go further - you can't even guarantee that Dems will even show up for a Presidential election. Let's not forget 2000 and particularly 2004. I believe my previous post detailed my views on the "unity" or lack thereof in the American "left."
Republicans can nominate a conservative ham sandwich and be able to count on a massive plurality of energized Republican voters, because they turn out for their own.
Republicans have multiple advantages in energizing their base. Religious endorsements, while technically illegal (as in, clergy cannot endorse or otherwise support or decry a political candidate as a representative of his religious organization while that religious organization remains tax-exempt), tend to strongly favor the candidate furthest to the "right." This is essentially free publicity and strong social pressure on a weekly basis. Fox News\Clearchannel are a blatant mouthpiece for the Republican Party, rehashing their talking points on multiple programs.
The Democrats don't have a comparable media presence, partially because the voting base of the "left" tends to view such blatantly biased media to be undesireable on principle. And the "left" is traditionally on the "pro-choice," pro-equality side of the religious debate, meaning the large evangelical population would never support a "left" candidate for anything.
Democrats eat their own. Everybody portrays the election of Scott Brown as some major repudiation by the voters of Massachussets of a health care system they resoundingly support, but the truth - which makes a lot more sense - is that Republicans turn out for elections and Democrats only turn out for Presidents. Even with the Senate's supermajority - and therefore the future of health care reform - on the line, Democrats couldn't be bothered to turn up at the polls.
No argument. As I said, Obama is the only candidate on the "left" (and I really consider him more "center" myself) that I've ever seen whip up such an energized base of popular support, which promptly disappeared after the election itself. Just as a quick thought, I would wonder at the demographics of the "left" and how that contributes. My general speculation is that voters on the "left" are far more likely to be apathetic, younger, and view themselves as "independent" than voters on the "right," who tend to be older, and more closely tied to community groups like religious institutions that provide the fuel of social pressure.
Obama's just one guy, and he kind of already has a job - running the country. Demanding that Obama somehow magically energize an un-energizable base is nothing but "I want a pony" thinking. Obama didn't create the "grass roots" campaign that put him into office; the roots picked him. It was the root's responsibility to keep the momentum going, but as soon as they won the election Democrats did what they always do - folded like card tables and forgot about every single election until 2012.
Mild disagreement, crash. Obama did use effective marketing strategies in his campaign. Essentially we were looking at management of the "Obama brand," and it was done extremely well. The problem is that, after the election, the base expected to see some "hope and change," some "yes we can;" and instead of continuing to rally his support, instead of hosting massive events with tens of thousands of attendees like during his election campaign to sell his proposals and pressure Congress with his massive public mandate...Obama went and started asking the minority Republicans for permission and giving up on campaign promises as "impossible to push through Congress" right from the beginning.
Why do you think the base lost steam? Because Obama had two years to start giving hope and initiating change...and Guantanamo remained open, healthcare reform turned out to be the biggest disappointment in the history of the word, banks continued to get bailouts while people lost jobs...When you tell your base "this is what I'm going to do, this is why you're electing me, lets do this!" and then you proceed to bend over and take it from the opposition, your base becomes discouraged. Where he should have been continuing to energize the public and selling his proposals and using the public mandate to pressure them through Congress, he instead demoralized the base by showing that he wasn't really going to follow through on basically anything he had promised.

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Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4069
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 10.0


(1)
Message 64 of 602 (636193)
10-04-2011 3:57 PM
Reply to: Message 51 by Coyote
10-04-2011 2:34 PM


Re: What George Said
Perhaps, although organized, the far left is much smaller than they would have you believe?
No way to tell, honestly, partially because of the subjectivity in defining the "far left." It's actually harder than identifying the "far right."
Why?
No unifying message. The "far right" has religious reactionaries and mortal fear of taxation or funding anything government-related. The "far left" has...what?
Let's use me as an example. I'm anti-firearms (I'd like gun laws like Britain or Canada), pro-universal healthcare (single-payer government run, like Canada), anti-war, anti-Guantanamo, pro-civil rights for everyone including terrorists and non-Americans, pro-gay-marriage and general equality, I strongly favor prison reform, legalization\regulation\taxation of most drugs and prostitution and gambling...
...but I'm also extremely pro-nuclear (I view France as a model - nuclear fuel reprocessing and all), and consider myself to be fiscally conservative (I favor social programs as long as their working, and I abhor wasteful spending like the majority of the Defense budget). I'm pro-individual freedom, while also supporting a public safety net. I favor environmental protections, but think the Green Party are a bunch of idiots and that envisioning solar/wind/geothermal/hydro power as anything other than supplemental power generation is a pipe dream.
Where do I fit? Am I "far left?" Why? What really calibrates the spectrum?

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Replies to this message:
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Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4069
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 10.0


Message 69 of 602 (636205)
10-04-2011 5:09 PM
Reply to: Message 67 by Coyote
10-04-2011 4:22 PM


Re: What George Said
I agree with a lot of your points. I too am a fiscal conservative, but that certainly puts me in company with a lot of social conservatives, who I don't believe are conservatives at all.
Rather than being for individual liberty, they want all the rest of us to live under their rules.
In other words, they say "I support your freedom to make the same choices I would make!"
"Freedom of religion means the ability to worship Jesus however you want!"
"Freedom of speech means the freedom to say anything that I personally would approve of!"

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Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4069
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 10.0


(1)
Message 123 of 602 (636838)
10-11-2011 1:11 PM
Reply to: Message 119 by Buzsaw
10-11-2011 11:31 AM


Re: Demand What Of Their Congressman?
If you were a Fox News listener, you would be aware that Democrat congressmen, during the Bush Admin, and now the Obama Admin along with Democrat oversight congressmen were demanding the banks to dish out loans to people who couldn't afford them.
Barny Frank, et al, assured the banks that government would cover them if the loans failed.
You can, of course, support these assertions with evidence, right Buz?
After all, if I'm to believe the above, I have to believe what you say that Fox News said is true. Given the track record of both yourself and of Fox News for saying things that are factually incorrect, I just can't muster that amount of trust for either party, let alone both.
Do you have actual evidence that Democratic Congress-critters "demanded" that banks issue loans to people who could not possibly afford them? Do you have actual evidence that Congress could in any way make such demands of private banks? DO you have any evidence that Congress made any guarantees to private banks to "bail them out" in case of a mass default, ahead of the actual crisis?
See, the only "similar" (and I use the term loosely) Federally run initiatives I know of to what you're saying would be Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Fannie Mae was set up after the Great Depression as a way to use Federal funds to help local banks issue more loans and increase home ownership - which is not at all the same as encouraging banks to issue loans to people who cannot repay them.
But of course I could very easily imagine Glenn Beck converting any New Deal program into his imaginary fantasy-land history, where he would describe it exactly the way you just did.
So, Buz...any evidence to back what you say Fox News has claimed?

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Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4069
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 10.0


(1)
Message 249 of 602 (638296)
10-21-2011 11:50 AM
Reply to: Message 246 by Adminnemooseus
10-21-2011 12:34 AM


Re: Does this belong in this topic?
Could we get things back more in touch with the "Occupy Wall Street" theme?
I don't think we ever left it. After all, it's rather absurd to talk about Occupy Wall Street if talking about progressive taxation is off-topic, since the relative burden of the rich vs the poor and middle class is a significant part of the reason the Occupy Wall Street protests exist in the first place.

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Rahvin
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Posts: 4069
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 10.0


Message 259 of 602 (638763)
10-25-2011 4:37 PM
Reply to: Message 257 by IamJoseph
10-24-2011 4:03 AM


Re: OCCUPY ORLANDO - OR TAKE OUT HAMAS?
There is a common thread of Israel bashing throughout these assemblies, making it not limited to Orlando or Wall Street.
And you say this based on what, exactly? At how many of these assemblies, exactly, are there "Israel bashers?" What percentage of the protestors are "bashing Israel?"
What's your definition of "Israel bashing," anyway? If someone calls Israel on killing civilians in yet another retribution attack, or for breaking previous agreements by building yet more settlements, is that "bashing?"

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Rahvin
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Posts: 4069
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 10.0


(1)
Message 283 of 602 (638879)
10-26-2011 4:55 PM
Reply to: Message 282 by Modulous
10-26-2011 4:34 PM


Re: Oakland
According to Reddit, a Marine Corp veteran was shot in the face with a tear gas canister by Oakland PD.
They thought it was a rubber bullet at first. Apparently not. He's in critical condition.
Totally just cops petting kittens. Nothing to see here people, move along...

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Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4069
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 10.0


Message 311 of 602 (638991)
10-27-2011 11:31 AM
Reply to: Message 307 by Larni
10-27-2011 10:51 AM


Re: vacation nad time off
I get a few paid holidays (Christmas, Thanksgiving and the day after, New Years Day, etc), and I get 15 days worth of "paid time off," which is combination sick and vacation time. It accumulates biweekly (I get an additional few hours of PTO every payday, basically), and I can never have more than 15 days saved at any time.
This is the most PTO I've ever had. Previous employers gave 10 days, or I was a contractor and had nothing.
Contracting is particularly bad, because when the company you contract for gets a paid holiday (like Christmas or Thanksgiving), you don't get to work but you also don't get paid. "Holiday" becomes code for "stress out because your paycheck is short."

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Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4069
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 10.0


(1)
Message 319 of 602 (639005)
10-27-2011 12:08 PM
Reply to: Message 316 by Panda
10-27-2011 11:52 AM


Re: vacation and time off
You have a massive prison population to help prop up your economy with cheap labour!
...
You do realize that some states in the US are actually trying to do exactly that, yes?
The head of Alabama's agriculture department suggests using prison inmates to work the fields to make up for Hispanic workers who have fled the state to avoid a tough new immigration law, the Montgomery Advertiser reports.
The proposed law would pay the inmates minimum wage, but charge them for transportation, housing, food, etc. Basically, Alabama wants to re-institute slavery. And of course, just to add insult to injury, which race do you think is disproportionally represented in Alabama prisons?

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Rahvin
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Posts: 4069
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 10.0


(1)
Message 320 of 602 (639006)
10-27-2011 12:16 PM
Reply to: Message 300 by Dr Adequate
10-27-2011 5:58 AM


Re: Oakland
Just bringing it back to OWS...
The Marine veteran who was shot with a tear gas canister had apparently been standing right in front of the barricade, no more than about 10 feet from the cops. The canister struck him directly in the face with sufficient force that he has a skull fracture. It seems more likely to me that an officer must have been aiming directly for his face, because at that range an accident just doesn't sound probable.
If I had more vacation accrued, I'd be outside with the Occupy folks right now.

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Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4069
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 10.0


Message 324 of 602 (639010)
10-27-2011 12:31 PM
Reply to: Message 323 by PsychMJC
10-27-2011 12:26 PM


Re: Oakland
Ha! See, that's exactly my problem too. I need to save my PTO for the wedding!
And of course my employer has no say in who I marry, or where, or what we do for our honeymoon.

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Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4069
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 10.0


(2)
Message 326 of 602 (639012)
10-27-2011 12:42 PM
Reply to: Message 325 by Omnivorous
10-27-2011 12:32 PM


Re: Oakland
Gotta love cell phone cameras.
But for a moment, imagine that half of the population was not walking around with a video camera in their pocket.
I suddenly have even more respect for Civil Rights and Vietnam-era protestors, who wouldn't typically have been able to combat media spin with video evidence, or to circulate it on a global scale instantly like we can with the internet.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 325 by Omnivorous, posted 10-27-2011 12:32 PM Omnivorous has replied

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Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4069
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 10.0


Message 331 of 602 (639033)
10-27-2011 2:27 PM
Reply to: Message 329 by crashfrog
10-27-2011 2:09 PM


Re: Oakland
In this specific instance:
1) there is no possible justification whatsoever for shooting an unarmed man in the face with a tear gas canister. Nothing could possibly have happened "just before the video" that would have justified that.
2) there is no possible justification for throwing a flashbang grenade into a group of people attempting to assist a wounded person. Nothing could possibly have happened "just before the video" that would have ever made that an acceptable course of action.
Dispersing a crowd can be justified depending on the actions of the crowd. But those two actions cannot be justified in absolutely any case at all, ever. I want the officers responsible fired, immediately, and I want an investigation done by a 3rd party into who authorized the use of those weapons and how the officers are trained to use them.
Not that it'll happen.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 329 by crashfrog, posted 10-27-2011 2:09 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 336 by crashfrog, posted 10-27-2011 3:07 PM Rahvin has replied
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