i ditn't know the wall street protests were...

[BudBro 183]

i drove past our city hall area on saturday or sunday or whatever day, and there were a bunch of white kids holding signs about wall street. i didn't think much of it really, maybe another tea party thing to let the govt know that we're tired of their sh**t.

 

turns out, that's not it. i guess it's a protest to keep things status quo, as in keep the union position established exactly where it is. it's a play on the tea party organized by a gay lookin dude who call himself a rabble rouser and community organizer (no, not obama.)

 

so, it's like protesting against women's suffrage. it sounds like a good thing, but isn't. those tricky little dumb libs.

 

all the big banks should be closed and their assets redistributed to local, community owned banks. that's what the protest should be about. (i know, don't end a sentence with a preposition.)

[Phurfur 70]

They are communists. HTH

[BudBro 183]

They are communists. HTH

YID, thanks. communists are so coool, i know right?

[drobeski 3,061]

YID, thanks. communists are so coool, i know right?

Most wear skinny jeans and suck cack

[Recliner Pilot 61]

Most wear skinny jeans and suck cack

Mobb hasn't been around for a while. He must be up there holding a sign.

[Vikings4ever 550]

I find it funny that these kind of wackos who are always b!tching about the greed of Wall Street also believe the government should be taking away other people's assets so it can be spent on them.

[BudBro 183]

so, i should make up a sign and hold it up like the communist infiltrators do to make it look like tea partiers hate black people. except, don't we already know that communists don't like black people? aren't communists using people like van jones and obama to widen the racial chasm? when there is racial progress in america with leaders like mlking jr., don't black reds like van jones call him uncle tom? so long as the white-red leaders like soros keep paying the black-red minions like van jones, nothing's gonna change.

 

Betrayal of black people may well come through Communist corruption of the black intellectual. This is not so difficult since the Communists, the “white liberals” and the “white progressives” do the thinking for most of them.

[Cdub100 3,909]

u mad, bro?

[BudBro 183]

u mad, bro?

nah. amused a tad by it. dumb white kids who don't make any money but think they have a point to make.

[MedStudent 56]

David Graeber

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 25 September 2011 13.43 EDT

Article history

 

People protest during the 'Occupy Wall Street' rally in New York, 17 September. Photograph: Steven Greaves/Demotix/Corbis

Why are people occupying Wall Street? Why has the occupation – despite the latest police crackdown – sent out sparks across America, within days, inspiring hundreds of people to send pizzas, money, equipment and, now, to start their own movements called OccupyChicago, OccupyFlorida, in OccupyDenver or OccupyLA?

 

There are obvious reasons. We are watching the beginnings of the defiant self-assertion of a new generation of Americans, a generation who are looking forward to finishing their education with no jobs, no future, but still saddled with enormous and unforgivable debt. Most, I found, were of working-class or otherwise modest backgrounds, kids who did exactly what they were told they should: studied, got into college, and are now not just being punished for it, but humiliated – faced with a life of being treated as deadbeats, moral reprobates.

 

Is it really surprising they would like to have a word with the financial magnates who stole their future?

 

Just as in Europe, we are seeing the results of colossal social failure. The occupiers are the very sort of people, brimming with ideas, whose energies a healthy society would be marshaling to improve life for everyone. Instead, they are using it to envision ways to bring the whole system down.

 

But the ultimate failure here is of imagination. What we are witnessing can also be seen as a demand to finally have a conversation we were all supposed to have back in 2008. There was a moment, after the near-collapse of the world's financial architecture, when anything seemed possible.

 

Everything we'd been told for the last decade turned out to be a lie. Markets did not run themselves; creators of financial instruments were not infallible geniuses; and debts did not really need to be repaid – in fact, money itself was revealed to be a political instrument, trillions of dollars of which could be whisked in or out of existence overnight if governments or central banks required it. Even the Economist was running headlines like "Capitalism: Was it a Good Idea?"

 

It seemed the time had come to rethink everything: the very nature of markets, money, debt; to ask what an "economy" is actually for. This lasted perhaps two weeks. Then, in one of the most colossal failures of nerve in history, we all collectively clapped our hands over our ears and tried to put things back as close as possible to the way they'd been before.

 

Perhaps, it's not surprising. It's becoming increasingly obvious that the real priority of those running the world for the last few decades has not been creating a viable form of capitalism, but rather, convincing us all that the current form of capitalism is the only conceivable economic system, so its flaws are irrelevant. As a result, we're all sitting around dumbfounded as the whole apparatus falls apart.

 

What we've learned now is that the economic crisis of the 1970s never really went away. It was fobbed off by cheap credit at home and massive plunder abroad – the latter, in the name of the "third world debt crisis". But the global south fought back. The "alter-globalisation movement", was in the end, successful: the IMF has been driven out of East Asia and Latin America, just as it is now being driven from the Middle East. As a result, the debt crisis has come home to Europe and North America, replete with the exact same approach: declare a financial crisis, appoint supposedly neutral technocrats to manage it, and then engage in an orgy of plunder in the name of "austerity".

 

The form of resistance that has emerged looks remarkably similar to the old global justice movement, too: we see the rejection of old-fashioned party politics, the same embrace of radical diversity, the same emphasis on inventing new forms of democracy from below. What's different is largely the target: where in 2000, it was directed at the power of unprecedented new planetary bureaucracies (the WTO, IMF, World Bank, Nafta), institutions with no democratic accountability, which existed only to serve the interests of transnational capital; now, it is at the entire political classes of countries like Greece, Spain and, now, the US – for exactly the same reason. This is why protesters are often hesitant even to issue formal demands, since that might imply recognising the legitimacy of the politicians against whom they are ranged.

 

When the history is finally written, though, it's likely all of this tumult – beginning with the Arab Spring – will be remembered as the opening salvo in a wave of negotiations over the dissolution of the American Empire. Thirty years of relentless prioritising of propaganda over substance, and snuffing out anything that might look like a political basis for opposition, might make the prospects for the young protesters look bleak; and it's clear that the rich are determined to seize as large a share of the spoils as remain, tossing a whole generation of young people to the wolves in order to do so. But history is not on their side.

 

We might do well to consider the collapse of the European colonial empires. It certainly did not lead to the rich successfully grabbing all the cookies, but to the creation of the modern welfare state. We don't know precisely what will come out of this round. But if the occupiers finally manage to break the 30-year stranglehold that has been placed on the human imagination, as in those first weeks after September 2008, everything will once again be on the table – and the occupiers of Wall Street and other cities around the US will have done us the greatest favour anyone possibly can.

[drobeski 3,061]

can someone tell the focktards that wall st is "only" in new york, and tell the smelly losers to take a shower.

[Recliner Pilot 61]

I'll tell you how to end this farce.

 

Don't turn the hoses on them........no mace....... Nothing along those lines.

 

Close every Starbucks within a 25 block area and these "Patriots" will fold up tent and run back to their flats Daddy is paying for faster tha Usain Bolt in the 220

[Voltaire 5,316]

Well, their future has been stolen from them and big banks are culpable for a significant share of that. But then Washington has focked over young people too.

[SUXBNME 1,503]

http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s09e02-die-hippie-die

[drobeski 3,061]

Every fayg bastard interviewed sounds like a flaming h0mo ......is this just another excuse for them fruity wack jobs to have a parade ?

[DankNuggs 305]

David Graeber

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 25 September 2011 13.43 EDT

Article history

 

People protest during the 'Occupy Wall Street' rally in New York, 17 September. Photograph: Steven Greaves/Demotix/Corbis

Why are people occupying Wall Street? Why has the occupation – despite the latest police crackdown – sent out sparks across America, within days, inspiring hundreds of people to send pizzas, money, equipment and, now, to start their own movements called OccupyChicago, OccupyFlorida, in OccupyDenver or OccupyLA?

 

There are obvious reasons. We are watching the beginnings of the defiant self-assertion of a new generation of Americans, a generation who are looking forward to finishing their education with no jobs, no future, but still saddled with enormous and unforgivable debt. Most, I found, were of working-class or otherwise modest backgrounds, kids who did exactly what they were told they should: studied, got into college, and are now not just being punished for it, but humiliated – faced with a life of being treated as deadbeats, moral reprobates.

 

Is it really surprising they would like to have a word with the financial magnates who stole their future?

 

Just as in Europe, we are seeing the results of colossal social failure. The occupiers are the very sort of people, brimming with ideas, whose energies a healthy society would be marshaling to improve life for everyone. Instead, they are using it to envision ways to bring the whole system down.

 

But the ultimate failure here is of imagination. What we are witnessing can also be seen as a demand to finally have a conversation we were all supposed to have back in 2008. There was a moment, after the near-collapse of the world's financial architecture, when anything seemed possible.

 

Everything we'd been told for the last decade turned out to be a lie. Markets did not run themselves; creators of financial instruments were not infallible geniuses; and debts did not really need to be repaid – in fact, money itself was revealed to be a political instrument, trillions of dollars of which could be whisked in or out of existence overnight if governments or central banks required it. Even the Economist was running headlines like "Capitalism: Was it a Good Idea?"

 

It seemed the time had come to rethink everything: the very nature of markets, money, debt; to ask what an "economy" is actually for. This lasted perhaps two weeks. Then, in one of the most colossal failures of nerve in history, we all collectively clapped our hands over our ears and tried to put things back as close as possible to the way they'd been before.

 

Perhaps, it's not surprising. It's becoming increasingly obvious that the real priority of those running the world for the last few decades has not been creating a viable form of capitalism, but rather, convincing us all that the current form of capitalism is the only conceivable economic system, so its flaws are irrelevant. As a result, we're all sitting around dumbfounded as the whole apparatus falls apart.

 

What we've learned now is that the economic crisis of the 1970s never really went away. It was fobbed off by cheap credit at home and massive plunder abroad – the latter, in the name of the "third world debt crisis". But the global south fought back. The "alter-globalisation movement", was in the end, successful: the IMF has been driven out of East Asia and Latin America, just as it is now being driven from the Middle East. As a result, the debt crisis has come home to Europe and North America, replete with the exact same approach: declare a financial crisis, appoint supposedly neutral technocrats to manage it, and then engage in an orgy of plunder in the name of "austerity".

 

The form of resistance that has emerged looks remarkably similar to the old global justice movement, too: we see the rejection of old-fashioned party politics, the same embrace of radical diversity, the same emphasis on inventing new forms of democracy from below. What's different is largely the target: where in 2000, it was directed at the power of unprecedented new planetary bureaucracies (the WTO, IMF, World Bank, Nafta), institutions with no democratic accountability, which existed only to serve the interests of transnational capital; now, it is at the entire political classes of countries like Greece, Spain and, now, the US – for exactly the same reason. This is why protesters are often hesitant even to issue formal demands, since that might imply recognising the legitimacy of the politicians against whom they are ranged.

 

When the history is finally written, though, it's likely all of this tumult – beginning with the Arab Spring – will be remembered as the opening salvo in a wave of negotiations over the dissolution of the American Empire. Thirty years of relentless prioritising of propaganda over substance, and snuffing out anything that might look like a political basis for opposition, might make the prospects for the young protesters look bleak; and it's clear that the rich are determined to seize as large a share of the spoils as remain, tossing a whole generation of young people to the wolves in order to do so. But history is not on their side.

 

We might do well to consider the collapse of the European colonial empires. It certainly did not lead to the rich successfully grabbing all the cookies, but to the creation of the modern welfare state. We don't know precisely what will come out of this round. But if the occupiers finally manage to break the 30-year stranglehold that has been placed on the human imagination, as in those first weeks after September 2008, everything will once again be on the table – and the occupiers of Wall Street and other cities around the US will have done us the greatest favour anyone possibly can.

Exactly the type of Euro-marxism that is infecting our country.

 

The protests are a bunch of stupid college kids who thought getting drunk for 4 years and racking up 150k in debt was a hell of an idea... They are sheep that follow the crowd... Sheep get slaughtered.

 

 

So they do what sophmoric people do. They condemn greed on one side, to support their own greed and power grabbing on the other... Lame class warfare.

[DankNuggs 305]

Every fayg bastard interviewed sounds like a flaming h0mo ......is this just another excuse for them fruity wack jobs to have a parade ?

Sitting in a tent on a public sqaure vs sitting in their parents basements. Dad telling dumbazz son that 'drunk, fat and stupid is no way to go through life'

[MDC 7,434]

Any difference between these protests and the tea parties?

[MedStudent 56]

 

"Our beautiful system of American checks and balances has been thoroughly trashed by the influence of banks and big finance that have made it impossible for the people to speak," said protester Marisa Engerstrom, of Somerville, Mass., a Harvard doctoral student.

 

 

 

I have not been too impressed by the pictures of the OccupyLA scene. If there were more people and better looking women then I may be tempted to drop by in my scrubs and try to get laid.

[drobeski 3,061]

Any difference between these protests and the tea parties?

Yes everything, tea party is respectful hard working Americans who want the goverment to follow the constitution. Organize and protest peacefully and clean up what little mess they make after the protests.

The other is a bunch of gay skinny jean wearing dirty smelly violent disrespectful lazy dirty communist fagguts who leave nasty trash strewn streets in theory wake and no idea why they are out there because they are too scared and stupid to think for themselves.

HTH

[MDC 7,434]

Yes everything, tea party is respectful hard working Americans who want the goverment to follow the constitution. Organize and protest peacefully and clean up what little mess they make after the protests.

The other is a bunch of gay skinny jean wearing dirty smelly violent disrespectful lazy dirty communist fagguts who leave nasty trash strewn streets in theory wake and no idea why they are out there because they are too scared and stupid to think for themselves.

HTH

 

They're both clowns, the only difference is the teabagger partiers are geriatric partisans pretending to be protesters.

[DankNuggs 305]

Any difference between these protests and the tea parties?

tea party was real grassroots, has a point, and is effecting real change..

 

These are a bunch of whiny degenerates without any position...Just a bunch of college kids with nothing to do.

[nikki2200 4]

So what exactly is being protested? I can't figure it out from this thread.

[drobeski 3,061]

So what exactly is being protested? I can't figure it out from this thread.

You think those tards know ?

[MDC 7,434]

tea party was real grassroots, has a point, and is effecting real change..

 

Teabaggers are a bunch of corporate sponsored old farts who rebranded themselves to get away from the fact that they spent 10 years sucking Bush's ass.

[BunnysBastatrds 2,442]

Any difference between these protests and the tea parties?

 

One side is praised in the national media and the other is villified.

[Recliner Pilot 61]

MDC doesn't have a clue what the tea party stands for, nor who comprises it. He is a lemming who repeatedly spouts off the Demwit talking points on the tea party.

[drobeski 3,061]

MDC doesn't have a clue what the tea party stands for, nor who comprises it. He is a lemming who repeatedly spouts off the Demwit talking points on the tea party.

This, you would think last November would have taught the tards a lesson.

[MedStudent 56]

So what exactly is being protested? I can't figure it out from this thread.

 

Wall Street fat cats having too much influence in washington. The Rich not paying their fair share. Young people pissed off that they will have to pay for the excesses of the previous generation. People kind of outraged that the rich bankers and influence peddlers in washington were bailed out after ruining the economyand feeling that they should be paying higher taxes now to help people in need because of the ruined economy.

[Mungwater 597]

We all know that wall street is about profits, so we shouldn't expect anything less from these guys.

 

Wouldn't the students efforts be better served if they protested Washington? That's where the real corruption lies, wall st guys are just doing what you expect any business to do.

[Voltaire 5,316]

So what exactly is being protested? I can't figure it out from this thread.

I don't know either. I thought I would support them because I envisioned a bunch of hippies running wild and raising havok and taking over the trade floor. The news footage would have been extremely entertaining. Then I read that they were holding up traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge and I wasn't cool with that.

[drobeski 3,061]

It's nothing more than an election campaign strategy for the buffoon currently residing in the house.

[MDC 7,434]

MDC doesn't have a clue what the tea party stands for, nor who comprises it.

 

They are Republicans like me - hth!

[BudBro 183]

They are Republicans like me - hth!

exactly, so why breaking of the balls all the time?

[Phurfur 70]

Wall Street fat cats having too much influence in washington. The Rich not paying their fair share.

 

•The top 5% of income earners pay over 50% of all personal income taxes.

•The bottom 50% of income earners pay no income taxes.

•The top 1% of income earners earn about 18% of all income but pay about 38% of all income taxes.

•People who earn over $1 million in any given year account for 0.2% of all taxpayers. They pay 21% of all income taxes collected by the federal government.

 

 

Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.

- John Lennon

[BudBro 183]

yes, it's actually the poor that are not paying their fair share. again, just a small cover charge would help.

[DankNuggs 305]

Teabaggers are a bunch of corporate sponsored old farts who rebranded themselves to get away from the fact that they spent 10 years sucking Bush's ass.

I thought they were racist southern rednecks? Now they are a corporate sponsored and rebranded political institution?

 

 

You need to get your liberal attack agenda pecking order sorted out... Are you superior because you are smarter than the dumb stupid racists? Or is it just everyone is greedy and you want your piece of the pie too (without working for it)????

[MDC 7,434]

I thought they were racist southern rednecks? Now they are a corporate sponsored and rebranded political institution?

 

 

You need to get your liberal attack agenda pecking order sorted out... Are you superior because you are smarter than the dumb stupid racists? Or is it just everyone is greedy and you want your piece of the pie too (without working for it)????

 

I work a lot harder than the whiny teabaggers and have better things to do than throw on a powdered wig and go cry about my tax burden. I'm at work while you're teabagging and getting teabagged, Bub.

[nikki2200 4]

I don't know either. I thought I would support them because I envisioned a bunch of hippies running wild and raising havok and taking over the trade floor. The news footage would have been extremely entertaining. Then I read that they were holding up traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge and I wasn't cool with that.

 

Now that would be some good shiit. You are so right.

 

Holy mother of god I would have killed someone if I was one of those cars on the bridge.

 

How do I not hear about stuff like this? I must live in a bubble.

[nikki2200 4]

 

•The top 5% of income earners pay over 50% of all personal income taxes.

•The bottom 50% of income earners pay no income taxes.

•The top 1% of income earners earn about 18% of all income but pay about 38% of all income taxes.

•People who earn over $1 million in any given year account for 0.2% of all taxpayers. They pay 21% of all income taxes collected by the federal government.

 

 

Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.

- John Lennon

 

We know which group you fall in.

 

 

 

The depth the hula groove

Move us to the nth hoop

We goin' through to Horten

Hears a who-ooh

- Deee-lite