I can't find any coverage of the "Occupy Wall Street" protests here at the NG site—not in "featured" articles, editorials, national news coverage....nuthin'! I find it odd that 700+ peaceful protesters can be arrested over the course of a week and a half while none of the real Wall Street criminals have been hauled in. As I sit here awaiting my bailout, I'll hope the NG gets with the program and brings this story to light—though it's almost certain the News Gazette will be on the wrong side of this story anyway.
Anybody interested in what
Anybody interested in what the local Occupy group stands for might want to look over these links to local flyers from the local site, rather than look at some not-adopted proposal from somewhere else. (Of course, a rather disorganized collection of people also includes a broad range of other views.)
http://occupycu.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=168 [4]
http://occupycu.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=178 [5]
The basic drift is to use public policy to get the country back to work on crucial projects (energy,...). Yes, that requires taxes and a move toward the sort of income distribution that we had from 1945-1980.
The "Occupy" movement has it
The "Occupy" movement has it right – the most pressing issue facing our country and our communities is the total lack of fundamental fairness. That's why yesterday's vote in the House to extend massive tax breaks to CME Group, which runs the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade, as well as to Sears, will dramatically increase income inequality. The State Senate is expected to ratify the corporate tax giveaways this afternoon.
(See this op-ed on Progress Illinois: http://progressillinois.com/quick-hits/content/2011/12/12/op-ed-passage-cme-tax-break-fuels-growing-income-inequality-ignores-vo [8] )
It is dispiriting that state lawmakers bowed to pressure from wealthy corporations who cynically used the ongoing economic crisis to gain massive tax breaks worth hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Despite record profits, CME and Sears threatened to up and leave the state unless their demands for sweeping tax breaks were met. For example, CME posted a staggering $900 million in profits in 2010, and reported third-quarter earnings that soared a record 29 percent over the same period last year.
Ultimately, the state of Illinois needs to enact a comprehensive and equitable progressive tax system that empowers working families and asks that the richest 1% start to pay their fair share.
Working families continue to get a raw deal. It’s time that we enact a comprehensive economic plan centered on “fundamental fairness” if we want to recover and rebuild our communities.
As the Gestapo storm trooper
As the Gestapo storm trooper tactics continue against those who would dare to challenge the unprecedented growth of wealth among those whom our tax dollars saved from a catastrophic financial collapse they created.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1Q9dMNixYs [11]
Of course those durn Senile old Seniors just didn’t get the message that they should always do as their told by the ENFORCERS, besides they need to be home backing cookies anyway!
http://occupyamerica.ning.com/video/grannies-stepping-up-for-the-constitution-and-ows [12]
Yes as Dr.Savage says – they’re just vermin and should be shot! Beside they’re old and worthless anyway – Right? And you know what OxyLimbaugh and O’Realy say about them.
But then these men are nothing more than corporate hacks, using the power of OUR airwaves to stir up fear and resentment among ignorant citizens, whose listening generates advertizing dollars from corporate sponsorships that in turn generates more airtime.
In short, corporate control of the programmed masses and when some of them get out of line – are beat down by the corporate thugs that we pay for.
http://lonestarwatchdog.blogspot.com/2011/11/corporate-america-is-using-our-police.html [13]
Just another one of those
Just another one of those worthless occupiers who are as Dr. Savage said – vermin. O’Realy, Oxycodon Limbaugh and others have some nice descriptions also. You know they're just all a bunch of druggie bums who never held a job.
”I did not serve my country in Iraq; I served the 1%. It was on their behalf that I helped lay siege to Fallujah, helped kill thousands of civilians, helped displace hundreds of thousands of innocent people, and helped destroy an entire city. My "service" served Exxon-Mobil, Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater, and other multinational corporations in Iraq.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29663.htm [15]
But the real difference between ENFORCEMENT storm troopers of an imperial nation and the Police of a truly open society – is that the Police have a conscience and connection with the people.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10764842 [16]
Occupy Nashville, Louisville, Atlanta, Chicago, Olympia, and many points in between – ever hear of them. Of course not, as an American you’re on a need to know basis and you don’t need to know anything other than what you’re repeatedly told. Like Iran, Iran, Iran, Iran be bad and we will nuke them soon. Because you know how right we are about weapons of mass destruction that should only be available to qualified countries who know how to use them properly.
“The beginning of a
“The beginning of a revolution is in reality the end of a belief" Gustave LeBon
Is this the beginning of the Aquarian age of enlightenment? Are we seeing a growing conflict based upon Consciousness and Not Nation State or Religion? Could it be we are awakening to wisdoms already revealed yet just now being understood?
http://unicornpoo.wordpress.com/2011/11/03/the-slave-power-and-the-money... [18]
By the way, did you see the Oakland retake of the highway?
http://12160.info/xn/detail/2649739%3AVideo%3A699021 [19]
Of course not, because that’s a success story of the movement.
And goolllly gee, imagine our ENFORCEMENT folks doing things like this?
http://theintelhub.com/2011/11/01/police-infiltrators-and-agent-provocat... [20]
Guess we know on whose side they’re on.
Amazing what 1 percent can buy through the New World Order shopping guide.
But of course all of this will be taken care of with a little more Owellian technology.
http://12160.info/xn/detail/2649739%3AVideo%3A694977 [21]
Selecting those who need to be on the minority report.
In all of this are some real hero’s, individuals who were not part of the protest but hero’s none the less, in jeopardizing their jobs in support of the people’s voice.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/10/31/official-refuses-tennessee-governo... [22]
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/10/officials-increasingly-refusing-u... [23]
I could go on and on but you get the drift. So as the money men’s media continues to deny coverage, except when ENFORCEMENT is breaking heads, publications like the News Gazette are fed with 1 percent propaganda to be “officially” distributed to the ignorant public. Meanwhile, the real stories and images of the alleged criminals are leaked to us by people like us.
http://www.laststandla.com/people.html [24]
“I’ll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.” - Unknown
An article about increasing
An article about increasing income inequality in the United States:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/opinion/oligarchy-american-style.html?... [27]
That isn't so much an article
That isn't so much an article as it is an Op-ed peice. The whole thing lacks any links to any real information. Paul Krugman is a voice for the left, and nothing more.
"We [the United States] are
"We [the United States] are slowly — and painfully — being forced to realize that we are no longer the America of our imaginations. Our greatness was not enshrined. Being a world leader is less about destiny than focused determination, and it is there that we have faltered."
"We have not taken care of the least among us. We have allowed a revolting level of income inequality to develop. We have watched as millions of our fellow countrymen have fallen into poverty. And we have done a poor job of educating our children and now threaten to leave them a country that is a shell of its former self. We should be ashamed."
The above quotes are from:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/opinion/blow-americas-exploding-pipe-d... [32]
A table illustrating the U.S.'s poor scores on societal equity
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/10/29/opinion/29blow-ch.html?ref=... [33]
Ultimately, the Occupy Wall
Ultimately, the Occupy Wall Street movement strives for a more equitable income distribution. The following 16 minute video explains the dangers of the United States' relatively inequitable distribution:
http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html [35]
I disagree
I disagree wholeheartedly.
For me Occupy is about the Rule of Law applying equally to everybody, including bankers and politicians.
If the wealth is earned and fairly obtained, nobody has a problem with that. But great wealth gained illegitimately and at the expense of us all is just wrong.
Why aren't Paulson, Bernanke, Geithner, Blanfein, and the other robber baron banksters accountable under the law? Why do they remain in government running the Federal Reserve and Treasury?
And the criminal politicians, why are they not accountable for what they have done. Criminal politicians from both parties are corrupt and bereft of values.
It isn't about wealth redistribution, it is about ill gotten and stolen trillons, and the kleptocracy of corrupt politicians at the service of robber baron banksters.
Fair enough. How do they/do [39]
Fair enough.
How do they/do you/does one define "a more equitable income distribution?"
If we can define it, by what means shall we achieve this goal?
Meanwhile, while we all discuss it, we see more riots, more arrests, more property damage, more ridiculous behavior.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-20125711/tension-remains-after-occup... [40]
To bluegrass: The video,
To bluegrass: The video, which you should watch before commenting further, explains the measure used for income distribution. As also explained in the video, nations with more equitable distribution either have a combination of (a) less of an income spread between the highest and lowest paying jobs, and (b) have a tax system where those with higher incomes pay a higher percent of their income.
I did watch the video.
I did watch the video. Ehh.
Okay, so you're defining it as "less of an income spread between the highest and lowest paying jobs." How do we go about making that happen?
With regard to your second point, in our federal tax system, those with higher incomes do pay a higher percentage of their income. In 2011 if you make over $379,150, then you pay 35% income tax. If you make 30,000 you pay 15%. In addition, The top 1% pay 38% of all Federal Income Tax in this country, while the bottom 50% pay 3%.
So what is the solution offered by the Occupy movement to bridge the gap? What is your solution?
Mr. Wilkinson can draw correlations between income disparity and societal problems all day long, but he cannot directly attribute those problems to the disparity. If you look at the teenage birth rates worldwide, it would also fit into any one of his graphs that put the USA as the worst and Norway and Japan at the top (meaning least amount of teenage births) of the countries he looked at. Using his logic, can't we then draw the conclusion that stopping all teens from having children would solve all our problems? How about Mr. Wilkinson's trust-o-meter graph, that's a dandy. Perhaps if we all trusted each other more, then our incomes would all be closer together. Or the mental illness graph... Maybe the reason we have disparate incomes is because we have more mentally ill than other countries. The video is interesting, and I'm not saying he's altogether wrong, but again, what is the solution?
Finally, I would like to see the way in which he figured the income disparity. I find it difficult to compare the United States to say, Norway, whose GDP is similar that of the state of Virginia. In fact the U.S. GDP is just below that of the entire European Union combined, and about three times that of Japan.
Any Occupiers out there want to share any solutions?
"In 2011 if you make over
"In 2011 if you make over $379,150, then you pay 35% income tax. If you make 30,000 you pay 15%. " With exemptions and special rules this does not occur in practice. Warren Buffet can tell you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu5B-2LoC4s [44]
"The top 1% pay 38% of all Federal Income Tax in this country, while the bottom 50% pay 3%." From where does this assertion come?
"So what is the solution offered by the Occupy movement to bridge the gap? " Various members of the movement would offer different solutions.
"If you look at the teenage birth rates worldwide, it would also fit into any one of his graphs that put the USA as the worst and Norway and Japan at the top " Please provide the source for this assertion
" Using his logic, can't we then draw the conclusion that stopping all teens from having children would solve all our problems?" No.
"Perhaps if we all trusted each other more, then our incomes would all be closer together." No, you have mixed it up. Less disparity of income leads to more mutual trust.
"Maybe the reason we have disparate incomes is because we have more mentally ill than other countries." Sorry, yoiu are incorrect again.
"I find it difficult to compare the United States to say, Norway, whose GDP is similar that of the state of Virginia." A nations's aggregate GDP has no effect on its income disparity
"Any Occupiers out there want to share any solutions?" Occupiers do not read this forum.
If Warren Buffet wants to pay
If Warren Buffet wants to pay more taxes he's free do to so. In fact, Warren Buffet does NOT want to pay income taxes, which is why he's fighting billions in payments to the government from his various companies. He's playing you, by feeding the class warfare rhetoric. I'm talking about Federal Income Tax rates. They are what they are and there's no arguing about that. Much of Warren Buffet's income is from capitals gains, which is taxed at a different rate than ordinary income. It's still taxed, mind you, just at a lower rate than ordinary income for top earners.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/29/warren-buffett-taxes-berkshire-... [46]
Any Google search will give you the same graph with regard to how much income tax people pay.
http://ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html [47]
http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/top10-percent-income-earners [48]
"Various members of the movement would offer different solutions." Not very specific.
Here is the teenage birth rate link. Yes, it's Wikipedia, but of the different searches this was the easiest to read, and the other sites I found had the same or similar statistics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_teenage_pregnancy#cite_note... [49]
I don't have it mixed up at all. He's taken 15 graphs that show basically the same thing, the U.S. and the U.K. at the bottom, and the some other countries at the top, and picked ONE of them to make his point. One could just as easily pick any other and attribute all the other problems to that graph.
You and your ilk are protesting and/or defending protests for the sake of protesting. You have no solution to a perceived problems but to say that "various members offer different solutions." This whole thing started out as a joke, and is turning into something much more dangerous, with thousands of arrests. Protesters becoming mobs, and mobs turning into riots.
But keep on defending them. You Occupy Spacers haven't stopped to think what you want, how you want to get there, and what will happen if you achieve your goals. It's about attention, not solutions.
It all comes down to this. How do you, or anyone in the Occupy Space movement, suggest we fix this 'problem' of income disparity?
Don't listen to the extremes
Don't listen to the extremes Tom. I went to the general assembly and most people were reasonable. Yes there were a few lefty extremists and they dominated the conversation so I won't support the local occupy movement for now. Eventually the extremists will dominate less if independent minded reasonable people without partisan attitudes join. The extremists are just big bullies and I dislike them equally be they right or left wingers.
You don't have to pick a
You don't have to pick a "side" or a party. You don't have to pick an ideology or even a specific issue to know our system is terribly broken. These people marching across the country have a wide variety of issues and probably 90% are valid. We don't need a written list or manifesto to tell us our government is broken. We also don't need people dismissing these protests because a few media outlets tell us to ignore them.
I believe I can target the very root cause of all our current problems. Money, in the form of paid, anonymous political speech has made a train-wreck of our government. Not only can faceless corporate interests legally buy our politicians now, but so can other countries. A lot of people don't think about the influence of foreign governments—especially those with money to throw around (China) in writing our laws and influencing policy decisions. The sooner we (all of us, regardless of affiliation) rise up and complain loudly about the influence of moneyed interests on our government, the sooner we can get to the business of fixing what's broken.
In the mean time, things will get worse for us as more of our institutions are broken down by self-serving interests.
That's the Occupy Space
That's the Occupy Space Movement in a nutshell.
A group of folks at the local
A group of folks at the local CU IMC (Independent Media Center) have collaborated and are coordinating different outlets (websites, facebook, marches, etc):
http://www.ucimc.org/content/occupy217-website [55]
There ya go. Now we've got a
There ya go. Now we've got a manifesto of 13 demands and IMC on one extreme, and Rush Limbaugh on the other. Dogma and rant, by both ends, has overwhelmed common sense. The art of compromise (i.e. "politics" with a lowercase "p") is dead. Proof positive American politics is going down the toilet. Thanks a heap.
STM is absolutely correct.
STM is absolutely correct. This Occupy Wall Street movement needs more media attention, and I think we should bring it to light.
Attached is a link to Occupy Wall Street website, where a list of proposed demands are included in the Forum section of the site.
Please take some time to read about the direction these protesters would like to take the country in.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/proposed-list-of-demands-for-occupy-wall-s... [59]
Just in case you don't want to click.....
Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending "Freetrade" by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.
Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.
Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.
Demand four: Free college education.
Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.
Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.
Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America's nuclear power plants.
Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.
Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.
Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.
Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the "Books." World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the "Books." And I don't mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.
Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.
Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.
These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy.
I looked and looked and
I looked and looked and finally found a reprint of an AP story "Wall Street protests continue after arrests".
Of course the NG isn't going to cover that protest extensively. As John Stewart puts it "it just doesn't fit with the Narrative".
But put 10 or 20 tea party folks on tax day out there protesting and they will be sure to get front page.