Occupy Wall Street: The Real American Revolution. (NOT Koch funded) - Page 12

Originally Posted by trumptman

An outlier graphed on some arbitrary spot tells us nothing. Why doesn't it go to 1980 if Reagan was the cause? Why not go back to the 60's and show the graph if the proper policies were yielding the proper result?

Of all the chants and slogans to come out of Occupy Wall Street, none stinks more than “We are doing this for you.”

“We're doing this for you...love us back,” protesters in New York chanted at the NYPD last month. “We’re doing this for you! Po-lice are the nine-ty nine percent!”

“We’re doing it for your generation,” Occupy Portland protesters told a little girl as she wandered through the crowd interviewing people on Nov. 1.

“I can't believe they are being that aggressive over a paycheck, over your own people fighting for you," an Oakland Occupier said when a truck-driver refused to stop at the blockaded entrance to the Port of Oakland.

“My boyfriend and I try telling so many people also that, ‘We are doing this for you,’ but so many don’t understand. It is a shame,” a commenter wrote on an article titled, “Why I Joined Occupy: A Letter to My Hometown.”

The phrase, “We’re doing this for you,” and its variations, have been trotted out countless times since the Occupy movement began in September. And countless times, protesters have expressed their frustration that other people don’t seem to get that this is all for them. But it begs the question to say that people who aren’t on board with Occupy Wall Street don’t understand what the movement is trying to accomplish. What if those people simply don’t want what Occupy is offering? Will the revolutionaries give it to them regardless?

Bernard Shaw’s "The Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion," which the socialist playwright published in conjunction with his play, Man and Superman, contains a section called “Maxims for Revolutionists.” The most well-known of those maxims is a rebuttal to the Golden Rule, which states, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Shaw’s version of the rule goes like this: “Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.”

It now appears that an increasing number of Americans do, in fact, have different tastes than the Occupy protesters. When Public Policy Polling took the temperature of Occupy Wall Street in October, “voters were split, with 35% supporting the movement’s goals and 36% opposing them.” As of today, the “split is 33-45, 11 points worse.” And it’s worse among everybody. The percentage of Democrats opposed to the movement “has risen from 16% to 24%. Meanwhile, both Republicans (from 13-59 to 11-71) and independents (from 39-34 to 34-42) have moved 13 or 14 points against O.W.S.”

With political support waning and cities feeling less and less charitable towards the protests, now is the time for Occupy to revise its assumptions. The first idea it should abandon is that critics of the movement are afflicted with False Consciousness, which is the rather boring Marxist concept that anybody who disagrees with the need for revolution is ignorant of the actual state of things. A condescending attitude is no way to win allies, and it is certainly no match for a police officer's pepper spray. Nor is the promise of an Occupy soup kitchen a substitute for a steady paycheck—which most cops have, even if it’s not as big as the ones going to the their municipal bureaucrat overlords.

While they still have a modicum of momentum, Occupiers should make their rhetoric match their behavior. Taking over a public park is not an act of generosity, no matter how many times a camper coos, “we’re doing this for you” to harried passersby. Likewise, it's not altruistic for unemployed college graduates to demand student loan forgiveness for themselves, especially not when they’re demanding costly general strikes, encouraging businesses to shut down, or asking police officers to defect from their jobs. Nor is it altruistic to demand higher taxes on workers in the financial services industry if you want those taxes redistributed in your own direction.

“People tend to know much more about what will enhance their own lives, or they at least are in the best position to find out, than do their fellows,” writes libertarian philosopher Tibor Machan. “So helping people comes down too often to meddling in their affairs, even creating messes for them with all that butting in.”

The Occupy movement seems to know what it wants for itself. It should stop pretending that it knows what’s best for everybody else.

Originally Posted by jazzguru

Occupy Wall Street Is Not an Altruistic Movement

Originally Posted by tonton

If that were true, it would be a perfect fit for the Lobertarians! Let's get them on board!

People tend to know much more about what will enhance their own lives, or they at least are in the best position to find out, than do their fellows, writes libertarian philosopher Tibor Machan. So helping people comes down too often to meddling in their affairs, even creating messes for them with all that butting in.

The Occupy movement seems to know what it wants for itself. It should stop pretending that it knows whats best for everybody else.

Originally Posted by NoahJ

Did you not read this part?



It seems that the Libertarians disagree with you....

Originally Posted by tonton

Um... You do know what 'altruism' means, right? It's about intention. Not result. I wish semi-literate people would stop using words they don't understand.

Originally Posted by BR

It's hard to find any example of pure altruism in the history of the world, but the amazing folks at all the #occupytogether locations are as close as they can fucking get.

They are putting their lives on hold for the benefit of the entire nation.

They endure the elements of mother nature and the beatings from corporate owned governments.

They endure the ad hominem attacks from ignorant, partisan assholes gushing pure hatred from their vocal orifices.

And yet...

They stand with resolve. They stand with courage. They stand for the rights and welfare of everyone...

...including the police who brutalize them.

...including the assholes who slander them.

...including you. And you. And you. And you. Even you. Especially you.

But with this White House shooter, 21-year-old Oscar Ramiro Ortega of Idaho, we find that he was in Washington D.C. attending the Occupy protests there. But in every story I’ve seen that fact is only resides in the last paragraphs if it is mentioned at all.

Now imagine if this guy was a Tea Partier! If this guy was a conservative of a member or even just a participant at a single Tea Party event, that fact would have led the news. But in contradistinction to how the media reported the Giffords’ shooting, that Ortega was at Occupy D.C. is a fact pushed to the bottom of every story.

Certainly I am not saying that this guy is a full-on Occupy Wall Street participant. For all I know this goof was just hanging out and really didn’t have any solid sympathies or connection to Occupy. I am not tarring the Occupiers with this shooter. In fact, they are far worse than a guy that just fired a few shots ineffectively at the White House. The Occupiers are druggies, rapists, and thieves, for Lord’s sake!

Originally Posted by BR

It's hard to find any example of pure altruism in the history of the world, but the amazing folks at all the #occupytogether locations are as close as they can fucking get. They are putting their lives on hold for the benefit of the entire nation. They endure the elements of mother nature and the beatings from corporate owned governments. They endure the ad hominem attacks from ignorant, partisan assholes gushing pure hatred from their vocal orifices.

And yet...

They stand with resolve. They stand with courage. They stand for the rights and welfare of everyone...

...including the police who brutalize them.

...including the assholes who slander them.

...including you. And you. And you. And you. Even you. Especially you.

Originally Posted by jazzguru

In a few days, youre going to see what a Molotov cocktail can do to Macys.

Originally Posted by BR

Black bloc tactics are NOT approved by the General Assembly. The General Assembly rejects any violence or vandalism.

Originally Posted by trumptman

It doesn't matter what the leadership endorses. It only matters what the fringe does or even what the rhetoric drives the fringe to do.

People are shooting at the president and it is because of the Occupy movement.

Originally Posted by BR

Wow, trumpet actually posted that? Do we need to dig up posts at the height of the tea party? How unfair it was to judge them by the perceived fringe? HYPOCRISY!!!

Originally Posted by trumptman

It doesn't matter what the leadership endorses. It only matters what the fringe does or even what the rhetoric drives the fringe to do.

People are shooting at the president and it is because of the Occupy movement.

Originally Posted by tonton

Apple ][. There goes humanity.

Originally Posted by tonton

LOL Westboro. There goes your religion. KKK. There goes conservativism. Apple ][. There goes humanity.

Originally Posted by jazzguru

To our mind, that sentence more than anything we've read encapsulates the spirit of Obamaville. It originally appeared in a San Francisco Chronicle story about an incident in which "dozens of college students" invaded a Bank of America Branch, "pitching a tent and chanting 'shame, shame' until they were arrested."

On the way to B of A, they paused at Citi to scream at the walls. These are college students, acting like 2-year-olds throwing a tantrum. What does that tell you about their critical thinking skills--and about the standards of American higher education? The likes of the New York Times expect us to take such incoherent spasms of rage seriously as a political "movement." What does that tell us about the standards of the liberal media?

"Banks got bailed out, we got sold out!" several chanted. One activist urinated in a corner of the bank office.

Originally Posted by trumptman

Wrong. This is a bunch of losers begging for loan forgiveness so they can continue their loser ways.



They didn't have a life to put on hold. They bought the wrong solution and they didn't get a gold star and now they are crying about it. They were told to go to school and major is soft liberal arts fields and they would get jobs being perma-activists and bureaucrats.



The endure nothing but what they continue to bring down upon themselves with their self-created squalor and results from a terrible worldview. They suffer from theft, rapes, murders and disease wrought from what they have created.



Declaring they speak for all when not elected by anyone, not consulting the majority, not acting on any clear notion or agenda beyond gimme, gimme, gimme is delusional and shows a narcissism complex that is terrifying. It is what creates dictators and authoritarian regimes that murder without regard for anyone.



And still.....



No they don't because if they did, they would look from the front of their leadership and see the people whom they claim to be leading, following them. Instead what they see is people filming them defecating. They see people applauding when their encampments are torn down and thrown in the trash. They see people glad that they are gone for they stood for nothing but themselves and made life worse for all they claimed to "martyr" themselves for.



The police treated them a thousand times better than occupiers ever treated anyone. They make almost daily threats now related to burning down, murdering or harming others. Their racism and anti-Semitic views are becoming more and more widely known.



Slander is the first word out of their mouth when they claim to speak for the 99%.



No they don't speak for me. They don't speak for the 99%. The 99% has not heeded their calls or organized behind their ideas. Their claims are a slander to dis-empower real people and co-opt their power. They are no different than any other narcissistic and delusional dictator who will oppress the masses in their own name while grabbing the goodies for themselves.

These assholes are just like Michael Moore. They hope by exploiting the 99% they can become the 1% without ever producing anything of value but criticism and good intentions. Then they can go back to their lake house and feed their fat faces and lie to the world to pad their bank accounts more.

Originally Posted by Hands Sandon

Today I visited Occupy Edinburgh.

I was out photographing and as I came upon the protest snapped a pic.

I spent half an hour in a tent. Things were apparently at a high pitch, but they were strong.

I plan on donating all the profits from the picture to their cause.

Originally Posted by SDW2001

I find it hard to believe that you actually support these people.

Originally Posted by tonton

If the Democrats dumped Obama and ran Hillary instead they would coast through the election.

Originally Posted by Hands Sandon

I think about that too sdw.

I don't know is the answer, but the way I see it is that there's a lot to make better.

I hope i'm not letting you down here by my indecision on these matters, but I'm holding out for fairness, fundamentally. That means we find better ways to live, to me.

Originally Posted by jimmac

Pretty much yeah. As it is though I don't think they'll have too much trouble anyway.

Originally Posted by BR

There is a singular overriding focused message that those who oppose the movement refuse to pay attention to but is CLEARLY THERE AND HAS BEEN FROM THE START:

Get
money
out
of
politics!

Stop spreading the bullshit right-wing narrative propaganda that there is no unifying message. There is. That's what it is. Ask anyone involved in the movement.