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Post by Deleted on Oct 1, 2011 14:54:03 GMT -5
For those who don't know, Occupy Wall Street is a protest in New York City that's been going on for a couple of weeks. It's about...a variety of things, but the main idea seems to be corporate corruption. So far, thousands of people have joined in the protest, and a number of people have been arrested. Other groups are aiming to Occupy Boston and Los Angelos, among other cities. Links: occupywallst.org/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_StreetWhat's your opinion on this? Do you agree or disagree with their platform?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 1, 2011 14:58:27 GMT -5
I don't exactly get what these people want, but...I don't think they should be arrested for nonviolent protest. That is unconstitutional.
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Post by Komori on Oct 1, 2011 16:13:42 GMT -5
I can't exactly support a group whose purpose is to wait there until their demands are met.... and they have yet to decide what those demands are. So until they've decided exactly what they stand for, I couldn't really say that I was behind them, now could I? I might very well disagree with what they settle on.
But I guess if you've got nothing better to do than to sit out on Wall Street for a few weeks, then more power to you.
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Post by Dju on Oct 1, 2011 17:07:25 GMT -5
THey don't know what they're protesting for?? XD
I mean, don't they have jobs or lives and responsabilities to cope with instead of just sitting there for no reason in particular? O_e
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Post by Deleted on Oct 1, 2011 17:27:12 GMT -5
THey don't know what they're protesting for?? XD I mean, don't they have jobs or lives and responsabilities to cope with instead of just sitting there for no reason in particular? O_e I don't think it's so much that they don't know why they're there is that each person has their own idea of why they joined the protest. They're united in a general idea as opposed to a specific goal. As for my own opinion, I believe they should have the right to protest, but as Komori said, it's hard to agree with a group that isn't entirely united with an idea in the first place.
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Post by Crystal on Oct 1, 2011 17:39:54 GMT -5
So to quote Wikipedia;
I suppose I don't really have a problem with that kind of goal. And goodness knows, there's enough of a problem in Wall Street about people bickering back and forth and getting nothing done, so I can see why there would be a protest against it.
I do think, though, that it's sort of silly to just sit there 'until Obama does something about what we want'. Put that way, along with their unclear agenda about what exactly they want, it sounds a little childish, doesn't it? It's like saying "I want this really complex thing done, now! But I don't really know how to get it done; you do the dirty work for me." While general, high-minded ideals are nice, they're also very difficult to practically implement.
So like all the other posters here, I'd like to see them present a structured and put-together plan of a) what they want and b) practical steps of how to go about it. Then maybe I could get behind their message.
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Post by Nimras on Oct 2, 2011 0:07:42 GMT -5
I agree with the general idea, but I can't agree with the method. If you want something done, you should actively try to help get it done. Not just sit and complain until someone else does it for you.
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Post by Breakingchains on Oct 2, 2011 1:42:25 GMT -5
This whole thing reminds me of one of those old e-mail chain letters. The type that go, "Here's a sob-story about a little girl and her alcoholic daddy. Send this to 10 people if you hate child abuse!" It's a nice gesture and all, and makes you feel better for 30 seconds, but what's it supposed to do to help? Raise awareness? Everyone's aware of child abuse. What are you doing that's tangible? Practical? This is pretty much like that.
And if I were in a particularly cynical mood, I'd say the fact that this campaign requires nothing more than "Sit in the street, annoy people and gripe about problems!" might be the reason it's got so many people involved. Most people are already accustomed to sitting around to kvetch, after all - and by specifying no real course of action to fix this alleged greed and corruption, or even specifying what you mean by greed and corruption, you minimize the number of people who are going to disagree with you on it.
My point, I guess, is that if you are worried about an issue, then at least have some idea what you're standing for and why. Have concepts that are concrete and logical and rock-solid. Don't just drop a bunch of buzzwords about oppression and wave a sign around and conveniently leave out anything that could be argued with. There's protests and then there's meaningless noise.
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Post by Omni on Oct 7, 2011 14:39:57 GMT -5
This image I saw on Facebook sums up what a lot of what I think about the protest: Another thing I'll note is that the corporations that become the richest and most well heard of are generally a lot more generous than people give them credit for. In a sense, they kind of have to Think about it: The types of company owners are greedy and don't consider others much at all are more likely to use cheeper, lower-quality materials, abuse their employees, not put a lot of effort into making the types of products people want, and spend excessive money on themselves instead of investing to improve their products. Such behavior tends to result in bad reviews, employees quitting, and financial troubles, meaning that either the company fares okay at best, or doesn't stay rich very long and tends to crash. If they actually put effort into making products that people would want (which yes, does often start with something that they themselves might want and think other people would use) and are nice to employees, they'll attract more potential buyers and people will want to work for them. Also, if they do well between buyers wanting more (demand) and often not having enough materials or workers to put things together (supply), they'll have to expand and hire more people, thus creating more jobs. The cycle repeats from there. And yes, sometimes people invent machines to do jobs for people faster and more efficiently, but those machines still need workers to feed and maintain them, sometimes more workers than it would normally take to do the job themselves. In the cases where the machines don't take that much, the workers just end up working in a different field related to the same company. Or maybe they'll get more time off and have the same people work in smaller shifts, which may improve health, morale, and overall productivity. One book I'd recommend that talks about this sort of thing (ideas on how money works, how to make it, and how rich people do things) in simple terms, is 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' - either the regular edition or the teens version. Basically it talks about the difference in mindsets between the upper class and the middle-or-lower class and why each side is in the state they're in, how they get there, how they stay there. I'm not sure if it was this book or another one that said 'Yes, the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer while those in the middle keep marching in place. However, we shouldn't focus on keeping the poor from getting poorer so much as find out why the rich keep getting richer and emulate it.' One thing that was said shortly before I started writing this is 'What, do you want to go back to making everything yourself?' Another thing that was pointed out to me as I was writing this is that Wall Street doesn't have to do with anything other than trading stocks. 'What do they want Wall Street to do? Give them free stocks? From the corporations?'
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Post by Nimras on Oct 7, 2011 15:37:10 GMT -5
This is a quasi crosspost from my facebook, but yesterday after my Latin study group I had to walk though the Portland protest to get back home. The local news webpage informes me that this protest did not bother to get a protest permit, and had promised the police to stay on the sidewalk since they lacked a permit. SourceSee them on the sidewalk. And the road. Blocking the road so well, in fact, that traffic of any sort had to be roadblocked. Couple things I noted: 1) From the haze of smoke above the crowd I am forced to conclude that many of the protesters have more money than I do -- cigarettes and marijuana are expensive. Many of them were also equipped with some nice video equipment that I could not afford. This 99% seems to be a bit above my pay-grade. 2) Clearly the best way to "show up" to the rich is to block mass transit. Because that's totally what the rich use. As someone with a whopping 25 hour work week, at $10.10 an hour (about 13K a year, 2K over the poverty line), I am clearly in need of being punished for my vast wealth and can not be allowed to get to my work in a timely manner. Though the cops were awesome. One of them even gave me a high-five for ploughing though a group of people to get across the street.
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Post by Yoyti on Oct 7, 2011 15:41:03 GMT -5
I'm kind of worked up about this. Not because of the protest. I'm fine with the protest. They're not harming anyone. What I'm worked up about is the police brutality. Here are some quotes from an article my friend (who is part of the protest) had published in my school's newspaper.
"After 10 minutes of pleading with the police to let me go, saying we were innocent, asking why I was being held, and alerting them of the fact that I was a minor, I was finally arrested." "We were never read our rights, and we were never told what we were being charged with." "Six hours later, I was sitting with a man who was taken down so severely, he had a gash on his leg, just because he was trying to videotape an instance of police brutality." "The entire scene soon soured as the white-shirted police officers pepper-sprayed innocent bystanders for simply asking the officers why they were arresting people... and, in one instance, punched a teenage girl in the face for the mere crime of standing amid the ruckus."
I don't care what the protest is about (although I agree with the aims). It was completely non-violent, and the police use force? Doesn't it say somewhere that the police should only use force when no other options are necessary?
I will conclude with one last quote from the article.
"I saw a man I had met in jail just a few hours before. He was going back to the occupation. We threw up a peace sign to each other in complete understanding as we passed with a smile: they will not stop us, no matter how many they arrest, now matter what they do."
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Post by Dju on Oct 7, 2011 15:43:44 GMT -5
This image I saw on Facebook sums up what a lot of what I think about the protest: Another thing I'll note is that the corporations that become the richest and most well heard of are generally a lot more generous than people give them credit for. In a sense, they kind of have to Think about it: The types of company owners are greedy and don't consider others much at all are more likely to use cheeper, lower-quality materials, abuse their employees, not put a lot of effort into making the types of products people want, and spend excessive money on themselves instead of investing to improve their products. Such behavior tends to result in bad reviews, employees quitting, and financial troubles, meaning that either the company fares okay at best, or doesn't stay rich very long and tends to crash. If they actually put effort into making products that people would want (which yes, does often start with something that they themselves might want and think other people would use) and are nice to employees, they'll attract more potential buyers and people will want to work for them. Also, if they do well between buyers wanting more (demand) and often not having enough materials or workers to put things together (supply), they'll have to expand and hire more people, thus creating more jobs. The cycle repeats from there. And yes, sometimes people invent machines to do jobs for people faster and more efficiently, but those machines still need workers to feed and maintain them, sometimes more workers than it would normally take to do the job themselves. In the cases where the machines don't take that much, the workers just end up working in a different field related to the same company. Or maybe they'll get more time off and have the same people work in smaller shifts, which may improve health, morale, and overall productivity. One book I'd recommend that talks about this sort of thing (ideas on how money works, how to make it, and how rich people do things) in simple terms, is 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' - either the regular edition or the teens version. Basically it talks about the difference in mindsets between the upper class and the middle-or-lower class and why each side is in the state they're in, how they get there, how they stay there. I'm not sure if it was this book or another one that said 'Yes, the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer while those in the middle keep marching in place. However, we shouldn't focus on keeping the poor from getting poorer so much as find out why the rich keep getting richer and emulate it.' One thing that was said shortly before I started writing this is 'What, do you want to go back to making everything yourself?' Another thing that was pointed out to me as I was writing this is that Wall Street doesn't have to do with anything other than trading stocks. 'What do they want Wall Street to do? Give them free stocks? From the corporations?' Agree.so.much. XD
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Post by Nimras on Oct 7, 2011 15:52:04 GMT -5
I'm kind of worked up about this. Not because of the protest. I'm fine with the protest. They're not harming anyone. What I'm worked up about is the police brutality. Here are some quotes from an article my friend (who is part of the protest) had published in my school's newspaper. "After 10 minutes of pleading with the police to let me go, saying we were innocent, asking why I was being held, and alerting them of the fact that I was a minor, I was finally arrested." "We were never read our rights, and we were never told what we were being charged with." "Six hours later, I was sitting with a man who was taken down so severely, he had a gash on his leg, just because he was trying to videotape an instance of police brutality." "The entire scene soon soured as the white-shirted police officers pepper-sprayed innocent bystanders for simply asking the officers why they were arresting people... and, in one instance, punched a teenage girl in the face for the mere crime of standing amid the ruckus." I don't care what the protest is about (although I agree with the aims). It was completely non-violent, and the police use force? Doesn't it say somewhere that the police should only use force when no other options are necessary? I will conclude with one last quote from the article. "I saw a man I had met in jail just a few hours before. He was going back to the occupation. We threw up a peace sign to each other in complete understanding as we passed with a smile: they will not stop us, no matter how many they arrest, now matter what they do." I don't suppose you have an online source or link? Or at least say where it happened? Though she wouldn't have gotten her Maranda Rights read to her -- Maranda Rights are only for before an interrogation. It's one of the biggest mistakes they do in TV shows, you never have your rights read to you when you're arrested.
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Post by Yoyti on Oct 7, 2011 16:05:59 GMT -5
I don't suppose you have an online source or link? Or at least say where it happened? Though she wouldn't have gotten her Maranda Rights read to her -- Maranda Rights are only for before an interrogation. It's one of the biggest mistakes they do in TV shows, you never have your rights read to you when you're arrested. The issue came out today, so it's not online yet. I'll post the link when it comes out. Still, I'm mostly upset about the cases of police brutality. Especially the part about the teenage girl getting punched in the face for just being there. Was that really necessary? I really feel that I'm not being so rational right now. I'll come back when I've calmed down.
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Post by Sq on Oct 7, 2011 20:52:51 GMT -5
I dunno, at least they're, like, doing something instead of being lazy blobs. They're getting out of their houses, staying up all night, talking to each other, sharing ideas. No one really knows what to do, but they're helping each other figure it out. everyone participating feels like something is wrong, and a lot of them are out there for different reasons. They're not quite sure what to do about it, but they know they've got to do something, and they're helping each other out and taking steps toward bigger ideas.
The 'evil' corporations receive human rights. They will outlive all. of. us. And our grandchildren. I find that pretty scary. Personally.
My friend was once talking about something like this with another guy, who commented that my friend was wearing a brand-new pair of Nike's and therefore his point was moot. The other guy kind of had a point, but who the heck is going to listen to anyone's ideas if they're running around wearing rags? Come on now. We are a part of this system, and there's no way out unless one is made.
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