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Author | Topic: Occupy Wall Street | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
crashfrog Member (Idle past 1723 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Could this mark the beginning of an actual movement, or is it just some college kid protest that will amount to fuck-all? I hope it matters, but how many of these protesters, do you suppose, have ever written a letter to their Congressman?
We are at the point where, if nothing is done, then apocolyptic type conditions will reign free (complete income disparity, utter destruction of earth making it near uninhabitable, 2 income classes: the ultra rich who run everything and those who have nothing at all, etc.) I guess I'm feeling the cynic today, but I think you dramatically underestimate the degree to which income inequality is a sustainable situation. Across the entire planet Earth, there's only one country that doesn't have a lower median income than the United States (adjusted to dollars), and it's Luxembourg, which is populated solely by bankers. I point this out because it makes it obvious how much room at the bottom there is for us all to get so, so much poorer. Don't get me wrong. Income inequality to this degree really is bad. But the average American still has quite a bit to lose. There isn't going to be the will for massive societal change and taking to the streets. For the forseeable future, that's going to be limited to college students hoping to get laid. Real political change won't be possible until we reform the Federal constitution to be more majoritarian. That's probably going to mean the end of state divisions of the country, the end of the electoral college, and so on. But what progressives are talking about that? Besides blogger Matthew Yglesias, I don't think it's on anybody's radar.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1723 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
What is that supposed to mean? That mass protests have little to no effect, but mass communication with your congressman has been proven to have an effect. When a congressman's office gets deluged in letters expressing a viewpoint, it moves the needle. Just ask anybody who's interned for a congressperson. What doesn't move the needle is "raising awareness" or "freedom marching" or any of that stuff. Why do you think the interests of senior citizens are nearly untouchable in American politics, even though you've never seen a mass protest by senior citizens down at your Social Security office? Because they write letters and have a voter participation rate of 60% or more. In other words, they participate. These kids are demonstrating. Well, great. I hope they get some good press. I'm pleased by the news that unions are getting involved; maybe they can help take it to the next step. But the truth here is that even when the youth base has been the most energized anyone has ever seen, they can't get voter participation above 40%. It's not completely their fault; we still don't make Election day a holiday so some people have to work instead of voting. That's usually not a problem for seniors. The fact is, what really causes political change isn't very sexy. It's not a turn-on for sophomore girls, it won't piss off your parents, and you're not likely to meet anyone with the really good weed doing it. So, the vast majority of young adults simply won't bother. I know I sure as hell didn't. Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given. Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1723 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined:
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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. What was he supposed to do with it, exactly? Please be specific. 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? 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. 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. 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. 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.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1723 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined:
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He could have used the massive popular support to put pressure on his fellow Democrats to actually be responsive to their base. And what form does that "pressure" take, precisely?
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. Because he didn't have enough votes in Congress. Remember Congress? The body that actually makes the laws? How many Democrats were there in the Senate the day Obama took office? 57. How many votes does it take to break a Senate filibuster, a now-necessary condition for passing legislation? 60. I trust you can compare numbers, yes? 57 is smaller than 60.
I claimed that Obama "let go" of his popular support once he became President. And what form did this "letting go" take? It certainly didn't take the form of Obama not asking the grassroots to do things:
quote: http://www.theatlantic.com/...ts-for-health-care-fight/18444 That's from May 2009, only a few weeks into the health care fight. Or even earlier, on the stimulus fight:
quote: http://www.boston.com/...igence/2009/03/obama_seeks_gra.html Of course, because the Democratic base has no enthusiasm, these appeals had basically no effect on the actual body responsible for legislation:
quote: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/...er-obama-grassroots-drive.html The truth is that Obama exhorted his grassroots base to continue the work after the election, and like always, the Democratic base figured that they'd won the Presidency and could therefore all kick back. Obama did exactly what you're complaining he didn't, and it had no effect - not because Obama is a bad president or a fake liberal but because you're a bad voter. You, and me, and our Democratic peers.
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. You're right. But as I've demonstrated, it certainly wasn't for want of Obama asking his base to keep up their participation in politics. He asked, and throngs of Democrats answered back - the hills resounding with "uh, whatever" and "naw, feeling rather nappish."
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 Jesus Christ, Rahvin. The guy was running the largest Executive Branch in the western world. Do you honestly think it's appropriate for the President of the United States - the whole United States, not just the Democrats of the United States - to be spending all that time on enormous spectacles and rallies? Who was going to pay for those rallies? Was that just supposed to come out of tax dollars? Don't you think our Republican peers might have had legitimate objections to that? Wouldn't you have objected if Bush had spent 70-80% of his time at massive Republican rallies trying to gin up support for the war in Iraq or the privatization of health care? You don't seem to have any notion of what actually happened when Obama won the election. When he won the election, several things happened, for instance: 1) He became President of the United States of America.2) His campaign ceased to exist. 3) His campaign staff took jobs in the Federal government. Not only did Obama have a new full-time job whose obligations and responsibilities basically forestall a pre-election campaign schedule; not only did he suddenly gain legal obstacles to conducting such a campaign; his campaign staff all suddenly had exactly the same obstacles - they had a country to run.
Obama went and started asking the minority Republicans for permission Because he needed their fucking permission! There weren't enough Democrats and Independents in the Senate to pass legislation without Republican votes. Only as the result of the completely unforeseen defection of Arlen Specter was Obama able to assemble a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate, which of course was immediately undermined by the Blue Dogs and DINO's, since the defection of even a single legislator would scuttle any legislation, giving potential defectors enormous power to extort concessions and pork. You don't recall the "Cornhusker kickback"? Do you recall that its architect was a Democrat? Do you recall that the public option was taken out of the Senate's version of the health care bill because Senate Democrats didn't want it there? You've somehow mythologized the first two years of the Obama administration as his immediate capitulation to Republicans, but the actual truth - which I feel like I'm the only one who remembers - is quite different. We didn't get the public option or a larger stimulus because Democrats didn't want those things. It was the Democrats that Obama capitulated to, and why wouldn't he? Who else was possibly going to vote for his agenda?
Why do you think the base lost steam? Because his base was made out of Democrats!
using the public mandate to pressure them through Congress How does the "public mandate" pressure Congressmen? Please be specific.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1723 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
While this was hideous enough, what this signaled was that he was gonna allow ALL of Bush/Chaney's criminal actions to pass without consequence. You're aware that Articles of Impeachment are brought by Congress, yes?
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1723 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined:
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The "liberal" media is a myth, part million:
Conservatives are the country's largest recipients of affirmative action. In almost every arena announcing yourself as a "conservative" is enough to wind up starting at the finish line.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1723 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined:
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The teaparty, from the start, has looked totally off the wall lunatic fringe insane. No, I don't think that's true. Recall that the Tea Party was originally started by the media: Almost immediately, the media was not only covering the Tea Party protests as a perfectly legitimate and grassroots groundswell of opposition to Obama's stimulus and health care reform initiatives, they were actually inflating attendance of these minor demonstrations:
quote: http://www.forbes.com/...-opinions-columnists-ear-marks.html In fact, only about 90,000 people attended April 15 Tax Day Tea Party events across the country; even those in major metropolitan areas had attendance no higher than 4,000 people or so. You can read the rest of the Forbes article and see - this isn't by any means an article about loony Tea Partiers chanting "get your government hands off my Medicare". It was several months before the media was willing to portray the Tea Party as primarily conservative, instead of as a "bipartisan" movement that "cut across ideological lines"; it was a year and a half or so before the media stopped pretending that Tea Partiers were anything but the traditional Republican base, just with a new name. Here's another example; Sarah Palin's Tea Party rally was reported as being attended by more than ten thousand people: Glenn Beck's "9/12" rally was reported as two million in attendance, and the following picture was disseminated to illustrate that: One problem - the missing buildings!
quote: Right out of the gate, the Tea Party had media legitimacy and a pose that allowed Tea Party organizers to overinflate attendance and portray themselves as a groundswell of the common people (who just coincidentally happened to favor the exact conservative Republican policies that had lost in the last election). Occupy Wall Street has enjoyed no such advantage.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1723 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
The Tea Baggers have been around for years, the Occupy Wall Street idea wasn't conceived until July this year. It only makes sense that the Tea Baggers would start with a higher number. I don't follow. Maybe you misunderstood the graph? It's "nth day of protest", as in, from the respective beginning of each protest. Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1723 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Sorry for the digs. I've taken them out of my post.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1723 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Your opinion doesn't mean much to me to begin with. Ha-ha!
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1723 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
As Dronester so effectively points out, Obama loves those Wall Street peeps and it's safe to assume his administration will not support any legal actions toward them. What about the legal actions he's already supported? Or were you talking about criminal prosecutions? It turns out, in fact, that it's actually not against the law to destroy the American economy.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1723 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
More Wall Street protesters have been arrested so far in Wall Street than anyone else! By Obama?
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1723 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Touche!
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1723 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined:
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What are they going to demand of their congressman, being most of them have no idea what they are protesting about, relative to Wall Street? I've heard it floated that Congress should pass a sweeping measure to forgive a substantial portion of Federal student loan debt, which I think is a great idea. At such time as there's a proposal on the table to do that, OWS protesters should urge their congressman to vote for it. OWS protesters in other states should do the same.
Wall street is where millions of stock holding Americans who's stock dividends and earned income Let me just stop you right there. While it's true that someone working on Wall Street may be paid a substantial amount, why should I believe that they've earned it? What did they make? What did they do, besides move a large sum of money to and fro and charge both sides a percentage for doing so? That one is wealthy is not evidence that what one is going is something that benefits society as a whole, or is particularly valuable. One may be a very successful thief, for instance.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1723 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined:
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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. It's certainly true that, if you were a Fox News listener or viewer, you would have heard this lie. But it's certainly a lie. There was absolutely no requirement under the Community Reinvestment Act that banks make loans to people who could not meet the income and asset requirements for payment. And, in fact, loans made under the CRA program have had a higher repayment rate than the average loan in that income class. The sole requirement of the CRA program was that banks could not racially discriminate in financing by the practice of "redlining"; in other words, saying "we won't make loans under any circumstances to people who live in minority areas."
They borrowed billions and even trillions, the Federal Reserve printing the money, inflating the people's money Could you point out the "inflation of the people's money" on this graph, please?
Tea partiers OTO, would have their orderly (non trash/debris) rally, after which they would go back home and to work. LOL! Most Tea Partiers are retired folks on Social Security or on some form of disability - its estimated that as much as 75% of the Tea Party movement is comprised of people on the public dole. In one instance, a Tea Party rally was funded by taxpayers to the tune of $14,000; approximately $2000 for every participant. (As a taxpayer myself: you're welcome.)
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