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We all know the famous slogan of the occupy movement. The argument is that the movement represents the 99%. There was a lot of buzz in the media. Finally the 99% had their own "tea party movement".
So why the OWS began after the tea party and ended earlier?
Because the Tea Partiers haven't faced a concerted effort by the police and FBI to shut down their movement. Cops didn't assault old Tea Party women in their 80s, but they did out here in Seattle during the Occupy movement.
The Tea Party isn't a threat to the powers that be. Occupy was. It called out all the corporate malfeasance that's destroying our economy and our nation, and the corporate fat cats didn't like that. They own the politicians, so all they had to do was pull a few strings to make the whole thing go away.
2) Get married before you have children, and stay married.
3) Work at any kind of job, even one that starts out paying the minimum wage.
4) Avoid engaging in criminal behavior.
5) If you graduate from high school today with a B or C average, take a low-cost or financially assisted post-high-school education program available to increase your skills.
6) Avoid living in expensive cities like New York.
7) Focus on your job, your spouse, your children and your friends, and don't pay attention to people like this poster who dream about a second American Revolution and the restoration of the guillotine.
Ah, the magical world of the boostrapper. Works great if you have no one showing favoritism in hiring practices, or if no jobs are being offshored, or if so many people weren't actively fighting against a living wage, or if companies weren't ending pensions and other benefits their employees worked hard to earn. Unfortunately, all those things do exist, the rich-poor gap is wider than it's ever been, and you have people with master's degrees pouring coffee at Starbucks because the jobs just aren't there anymore.
That's what Occupy was fighting against. Economic and social injustice.
We all know the famous slogan of the occupy movement. The argument is that the movement represents the 99%. There was a lot of buzz in the media. Finally the 99% had their own "tea party movement".
So why the OWS began after the tea party and ended earlier? Why didn't the American public pour more support to OWS? Where did the 99% go?
The sixties didn't accomplish very much, either. They got the voting age lowered via constitutional amendment -- well done. (No snark at all -- well done.)
But they didn't end the war any sooner. People died in Vietnam under Eisenhower. They were still dying in Vietnam under Ford. The Summer of Love was a flash in the pan. PJ O'Rourke said it best when he accused his generation of hopping from flower-power to acid tests to disco to 401(k)s to AARP faster than you can say "Inca Scratch and Sniff."
But if you look at my status up there in the top left corner of this post (under my username), you will know everything you need to know about me.
Your answer: When all is said and done, a lot more gets said than done.
OWS failed because lily white liberals have no attention span, and the Democrat party doesn't want to tick off their ultra rich backers. Liberals are pro-business to the businesses they want to pick and choose. They also know they have their built in voting blocks who they buy off with EBT cards. As long as they can keep the poor poor, they will continue playing their games and pretending like they are the party of inclusion. Liberals will invite you to the party, to serve them and clean up the mess.
This.
What also made them the laughing stock is when interviewed, they didn't have a clue what they were talking about. And then you had the little snobs who wanted no one to have any private property, except for them. It was okay for them to have private property, but others needed to share. Hypocrites don't typically get taken seriously.
Here's a great example of why they failed, and why so many were laughing at them:
In fact, MUCH practical change was, and continues to be, instigated by the OWS movement. You just don't hear much about it from the mainstream media, since grassroots change isn't sexy and doesn't make them any cash. You aren't going to see the leaders of these movements on Meet the Press, let alone the Tonight Show, any time soon.
Each one of these links contains an article about a DIFFERENT offshoot organization engaged in real action:
There has been little OWS news in MSM & not even in the dozens of daily news articles in so many internet news stories. The 99% are politically represented by the Green Party (4th largest party), their leader being Presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein. You can sign up to get their free Green Shadow Cabinet newsletter if interested.
Maybe the Libertarian Party (3rd largest & fastest growing) is better as for the 100% equally & its leader Presidential candidate Gary Johnson is amazing, no hate for anyone, abnormally honest, smart, creative, listens to all. A self-made millionaire who lives frugally, so IMO might be best to unite people. Libertarians want all Constitutional freedoms back, & they can't be bought. lp dot org/ has partial list of candidates, the rest later. Gary Johnson has his own site with store & site for Our America Initiative.
Ralph Nader has a new book Unstoppable, highly rated.
So, OWS sitting in a tree-house or tents on sidewalks or city parks aren't the only way to get power.
I would offer more thoughts on protests vs voting differently, but such things usually get deleted or moved if not in Politics & Other Controversies. Best wishes, all!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Costaexpress
We all know the famous slogan of the occupy movement. The argument is that the movement represents the 99%. There was a lot of buzz in the media. Finally the 99% had their own "tea party movement".
So why the OWS began after the tea party and ended earlier? Why didn't the American public pour more support to OWS? Where did the 99% go?
Simply put, the occupy movement wasn't much more than a mostly college kid uproar over what they saw as their dreams of earning big salaries going up in the smoke of the bloodbath on wall street in 2008 that crashed the credit markets and the chance for these kids to get work. Most of the blue collar meatheads were working at the "plant" and saw these guys as the enemy. I do understand it all regardless of the fact of too much media hype. The cameras and reporters focused on the most bizarre OWS characters they could find, so what else is new, the media is THE front for the one percent and even most idiots know this.
Revolutions have always had their roots in the strength of youth. That the future could hold some real danger with regard to the continuing robbery of our treasury is no longer disputed among those who think, but most don't know the full extent of the problem because they insist on the mainstream media for their information. When the full effect of the upset in energy production becomes clear, and when the full effect of a depleted currency becomes known I'm guessing the American people will have to take note for no other reason than that of their vastly changed economic circumstances forcing them to sit up and look around them.
Politicians are bellowing about their "solutions" to our collective problems, and the likes of Mark Rubio, Paul Ryan, and Obama himself, are going to great lengths to convince the American people that they aren't part of the problem, and moreover, that they really ARE part of a solution, if only we would vote for them, of course........
Go ahead and ignore the OWS movement at your own peril - because OWS was a warning shot across the bow.
The NEXT movement may very well turn violent, and if there must be a third one after that, I have no doubt it will organically become a revolution even if it wasn't intended to.
The cold, hard fact is that the middle class is shrinking and the American Dream has become just that, a dream, to many, many people. Our particular brand of capitalism simply doesn't work. Period.
It isn't that everyone is against capitalism, it's how capitalism is handled - namely that what is going on today is just a modern version of the classic medieval raping and pillaging of the nation. It's all about short-term profits, laying people off to increase stock values, and big "e-peen" profit wars to see who beats whom on the Forbes' list. Thus wages are kept low, products are made just well enough to keep people buying them but not well enough to be considered a durable good, customer service sucks, service providers fee you half to death, and all businesses privatize profits while passing debt on to the public.
And as more and more people slip into poverty while fat cats get fatter, prices and profits continue to soar, and the wealth gap reaches critical mass - I can almost guarantee you that there WILL be a reckoning that will make the storming of the Bastille look like a Sunday school picnic.
The problem is that it won't be a revolution as much as it will be a civil war - only because there are just enough ignorant, brainwashed people who've been suckling at the teet of Limbaugh and Beck and Fox News for the last 20 years - who, despite their own poverty, will blindly fight on the side of the rich man.
Well said and agreed!
OWS was successful because it brought income inequality to the forefront of the national consciousness. The #1 bestseller on Amazon right now is a 700 page book on inequality titled "Capital in the Twenty-First Century".
Both the Tea Party and OWS were misrepresented in the corporately owned media but actually had very similar gripes. Once the majority in our country come to the realization that the power in our Government and our financial system is not owned by the people, but by Multi-National Corporations and Banks that have no allegiance to any single nation, we will see more uprisings. The mantra of the system is to divide and distract but it won't last forever.
...OWS was successful because it brought income inequality to the forefront of the national consciousness. The #1 bestseller on Amazon right now is a 700 page book on inequality titled Capital in the Twenty-First Century.
Both the Tea Party and OWS were misrepresented in the corporately owned media but actually had very similar gripes. Once the majority in our country come to the realization that the power in our Government and our financial system is not owned by the people, but by Multi-National Corporations and Banks that have no allegiance to any single nation, we will see more uprisings. The mantra of the system is to divide and distract but it won't last forever.
Thanks for mentioning the book Capital in the Twenty-First Century. I meant to reference it in one of my earlier posts. Given the reaction people have had to it, worldwide, it's an important message to contemplate.
It's author is Thomas Piketty, a French economist. His premise is that world events in the first part of the 20th century (two World Wars, the Great Depression, debt-fueled recessions that destroyed much wealth) prompted governments to undertake steps towards redistributing income. This reduced the importance of inherited wealth in societies all over the world. Piketty argues that the world is now returning to what he calls the "patrimonial capitalism" of earlier days. Economies are being dominated again by inherited wealth — increasing the power of a small segment of elite, super-wealthy people and returning many counties to oligarchical governments. He predicts a worldwide future of low economic growth if changes aren't made.
The book is not, however, merely a complaint. Piketty proposes solutions. He dismisses the idea that technological advances will bring growth back to the levels of the 20th century. As a solution to extreme inequality, Piketty proposes an annual global wealth tax of up to 2%, combined with a progressive income tax that could reach as high as 80%.
Even economists who disagree strongly with Piketty's solutions praise the book as brilliant and groundbreaking. The book has already sold close to half a million copies in French and English, which is extraordinary for an economic text not yet taught in schools.
As a solution to extreme inequality, Piketty proposes an annual global wealth tax of up to 2%, combined with a progressive income tax that could reach as high as 80%.
Would that 80% rate apply to rich leftists like Steven Spielberg, Harvey Weinstein, Tom Hanks, and the other Hollywood phonies luxuriating in their mansions while they spout off about global warming, or would they be exempt?
If they are not exempt it will never come to fruition in the US because the Democrats rely on these rich Hollywood phonies to fund their treasury and give them free publicity.
The real issue is that nobody (except maybe a humanitarian like yourself), would bust their butts working if 80% were taken by the federal government (and in New York City, 8.5% by the state and 4% by the city, giving you a 92.5% tax rate).
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