# Occupy Wall Street – Idiots & Hypocrites



## XeVfTEUtaAqJHTqq

Good blog post . . . 

http://geroldblog.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/occupy-wall-street-–-idiots-hypocrites/



> *Occupy Wall Street – Idiots & Hypocrites*
> 
> Posted on October 5, 2011 by gerold
> Don’t get me wrong; I’m all in favor of protests and  demonstrations to let the powers-that-be know we’re on to them, or raise  a little consciousness, or spread the message about something  important, or even just for a bit of fun. I like to think my  demonstrating against the Vietnam War way back when had some sort of an  effect and America didn’t retreat just because they were losing a war  they couldn’t win or running out of cash.
> But Occupying Wall Street or anywhere else is rather pointless unless  you’re doing it  just for fun. For one thing, the enemy is not Wall  Street or Bay Street or any other bank street. Sure, the investment  banks are a bunch of heartless, obscenely greedy sociopaths, but that’s  their job and some of them, Goldman Sacs comes to mind, are extremely  effective at separating the suckers from their money.
> The real enemies are the faceless oligarchs behind the Federal  Reserve and the other central banks of the world. The real enemies are  the wealthy families who understand how the central banks are destroying  the middle classes and concentrating more power in governments and more  wealth unto themselves. The occupiers are idiots playing right into the  oligarchs’ hands. The ultra-wealthy would like nothing more than a few  token Wall Streeters marched off the plank or to the guillotine or doing  the perp walk for the TV cameras because it would deflect attention  away from the wealthy elites’ evil doings.
> Worse yet, such time-honored “scapegoating” prevents real solutions  from being implemented. This misdirection enables the elite to continue  printing money from nothing at the altar of the Fed and central banks to  continue turning wealth into debt and prosperity into poverty. It  certainly won’t create jobs. It won’t prop up real estate values. It  won’t solve ANY real problems. That’s why the Occupiers are idiots.
> 
> 
> 
> Worse than idiocy is hypocrisy. After all an idiot can’t help being  an idiot. They were born that way. However, hypocrisy is a deliberate  deception. Judging by their agenda, many of the Occupiers are leftists  and socialists, a form of idiocy in itself but it is their refusal to  assign responsibility where it belongs that demonstrates their  hypocrisy. What follows should be credited to Michael Snyder of  Blacklisted News for his article *11 Reasons Why Occupy Wall Street Protesters Are Hypocrites If They Do Not Call For Barack Obama To Resign.*
> Occupiers noses are out of joint because of the bank bailouts.  President Obama engineered more bailouts than Bush so why aren’t they  blaming Obama? After all, can you blame the banks for accepting money  that Obama offered them?
> 
> 
> 
> In fact, have we heard any criticism of Obama at all? The Occupiers  are upset because Wall Street banks donated large sums of money to the  politicians who are supposed to regulate the banks yet they conveniently  ignore three of the top seven donors to Obama’s campaign were Wall  Street banks: Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup according to  OpenSecrets.org.
> The protesters say Wall Street has too much political influence.  According to Huff Post October 4th article, Michael Brenner, University  of Pittsburg professor of International Affairs names half a dozen Wall  Street insiders in Obama’s administration. So why is there no criticism  of Obama? That’s hypocrisy.
> They complain about corruption in the financial system yet ignore the  greatest corruptor of all: the Federal Reserve whose Chairman, Ben  Bernanke was re-appointed by Obama despite his long string of abysmal  failures. So why is there no criticism of Obama? That’s hypocrisy.
> Occupiers are angry at corporations for outsourcing so many jobs. In  the meantime, the Obama administration is pushing hard for new Free  Trade agreements with Panama, Columbia and South Korea which will  outsource even more jobs. So why is there no criticism of Obama? That’s  hypocrisy.
> There is anger over health insurance companies seeking to renege on  insurance yet these same companies wrote large parts of Obama’s health  care legislation. There is anger about the illegal home foreclosures  that the Obama administration has done little about; there is anger that  privacy is sold as a commodity yet Obama greatly enlarged the American  security apparatus that is destroying privacy.
> 
> 
> 
> There is anger about the torture of civilians overseas yet Obama  reneged on his promise to shut down Guantanamo Bay and there is anger  about the wealthy not paying their fair share of taxes yet Obama’s  Democrats had control of the White House and Congress for two years and  did nothing about this. How’s that for hypocrisy?
> What is sad about the Occupy This, That or Whatever is that it is  dividing and polarizing Americans into conservative and socialist ranks  at a time when united action is called for. It encourages class warfare  that will further divide Americans. It neglects the real problems and  plays into the hands of the elite who are the only beneficiaries of  these protests.
> 
> 
> 
> Worse, there is really nothing new in these protests. The Occupiers  still haven’t broken out of the left/right paradigm; they still haven’t  figured out there is no difference between Republicrats or Demopublicans  and it make no difference whatsoever who they vote for. In the end, the  oligarchs who own us all and to whom we are all indebted through their  central banks are the only winners.
> Gerold
> Oct. 5, 2011



Additional funny pic . . .


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## Lia

The fact of the matter is that every Politician and/or administration, every corporate business has contributed to this greed and corruption since forever. Goodness knows, many of us are happy to lay any blame at Obama's door, just because he's a leftie. myself included; but if we're honest with ourselves, this has been going on since the dawn of time. 

Its irrelevant to say that protesters are hypocrites if they don't call for Obama's resignation; its too late for that in this issue; and since they're all culpable, it wouldn't have mattered who got in at the last elections, this problem would still be an issue now, imho.

Its not just a singular issue that needs fixing; it'll take a lot more than just ousting an administration/party, to fix this humongous problem.


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## XeVfTEUtaAqJHTqq

Lia,  this is a "manufactured problem" the government could change all the banking laws tomorrow if they wanted to.  Protesting about Wall Street is just an attempt by the Democrat play makers to deflect the anger that it is facing towards Wall Street (or anything but them).

I see the protesters as Idiots and Hypocrites.  These people will all show up and protest at whatever the Democratic "movement" tells them to protest for.

I find it sad that you can't see through the facade but I suspect you are an idealistic person that wants to see the upside to everything.  I tend to be a little more pessimistic about everything.


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## Lia

PBinWA said:


> Lia, this is a "manufactured problem" the government could change all the banking laws tomorrow if they wanted to.


 
That's the point I was making.* Any* government could have changed the laws, at any time. Why didn't they? Because it wasn't conducive to their agendas, that's why.



> Protesting about Wall Street is just an attempt by the Democrat play makers to deflect the anger that it is facing towards Wall Street (or anything but them).


 
That may be true for some of them, but there is still the real problem of the arbitrary and completely self serving politics with banks, let alone congress, and, many other unfair issues that these protests are bringing to the fore, and of which may be the turning point of commerce and domestic policies, and a fairer system for all.



> I see the protesters as Idiots and Hypocrites. These people will all show up and protest at whatever the Democratic "movement" tells them to protest for.


 
I'm sure that was the general concensus of the suffragette movement, and other protest movements that have brought about changes for the better for mankind, but without those protesters and radicals, where would the world be now; still back in the dark ages of vast degrees of human status; such as serfdom and fiefdom?



> I find it sad that you can't see through the facade...


 
But, there is only a 'facade' from your point of view here; my eye's are clearly open, since I have acknowledged that there will be those amongst the protesters who do not have altruistic motives. 



> but I suspect you are an idealistic person that wants to see the upside to everything. I tend to be a little more pessimistic about everything.


 
You could be semi-right in your assumption of my state of mind in general. I am, and tend to be idealistic at times, thats not a bad thing to be. I do look on the positive side with most issues, and strangely enuff, I was about to (before I went down with a virus a couple of days ago), post a thread on that very subject. lol.

Generally, in my dictionary, the word 'can't' doesn't really exist. Tenacity, innovation ansd determination are there in force. 

You say you are pessimistic; and there is someone close to me in my everyday life, who is also. I find it so exhausting and debilitating trying to work with this person, that it was going to be the topic of my thread.


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## CityGirl

article said:
			
		

> The real enemies are the faceless oligarchs behind the Federal Reserve and the other central banks of the world. The real enemies are the wealthy families who understand how the central banks are destroying the middle classes and concentrating more power in governments and more wealth unto themselves. The


They are very close to the federal reserve building in NYC....closer to that actually than they are to Wall Street. Is this writer proposing they take their protests to places like Martha's Vineyard? 



			
				article said:
			
		

> Worse yet, such time-honored “scapegoating” prevents real solutions from being implemented. This misdirection enables the elite to continue printing money from nothing at the altar of the Fed and central banks to continue turning wealth into debt and prosperity into poverty. It certainly won’t create jobs. It won’t prop up real estate values. It won’t solve ANY real problems. That’s why the Occupiers are idiots.


I suppose the same thing could be said of the tea party movement despite electoral wins, the money printing continues. 



			
				article said:
			
		

> In fact, have we heard any criticism of Obama at all? The Occupiers are upset because Wall Street banks donated large sums of money to the politicians who are supposed to regulate the banks yet they conveniently ignore three of the top seven donors to Obama’s campaign were Wall Street banks: Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup according to OpenSecrets.org.


 
They are attempting to keep this from being a partisan movement! They aren't showing anti-Bush sentiment either.



			
				article said:
			
		

> The protesters say Wall Street has too much political influence. According to Huff Post October 4th article, Michael Brenner, University of Pittsburg professor of International Affairs names half a dozen Wall Street insiders in Obama’s administration. So why is there no criticism of Obama? That’s hypocrisy.


 They are well aware of this fact but again, they have not wanted to make this a partisan movement. One of the unifying causes is getting money out of politics.






Here is a little history of the movement
http://ampedstatus.org/a-report-fro...allstreet-and-the-origins-of-the-99-movement/


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## CityGirl

Interestingly, the article from Feb 2010 mentioned in the link at the bottom of my last post, I posted right here on FF  http://www.forumsforums.com/3_9/showthread.php?t=35681&highlight=economic+elite   135 view and nary a response.  

Before ya'll continue to criticize this movement, the least you should do is read a little history of the movement
http://ampedstatus.org/a-report-from...e-99-movement/ 
__________________


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## XeVfTEUtaAqJHTqq

CityGirl said:


> Interestingly, the article from Feb 2010 mentioned in the link at the bottom of my last post, I posted right here on FF  http://www.forumsforums.com/3_9/showthread.php?t=35681&highlight=economic+elite   135 view and nary a response.
> 
> Before ya'll continue to criticize this movement, the least you should do is read a little history of the movement
> http://ampedstatus.org/a-report-from...e-99-movement/
> __________________



135 views is probably more like 100 views from content indexing spiders (Google, Bing, Baidu, etc.) and then maybe 35 real views.

This movement and my view towards it is summarized in the cartoon from above:


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## CityGirl

Read the history


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## CityGirl

article said:
			
		

> They complain about corruption in the financial system yet ignore the greatest corruptor of all: the Federal Reserve whose Chairman, Ben Bernanke was re-appointed by Obama despite his long string of abysmal failures. So why is there no criticism of Obama? That’s hypocrisy.


 
Wait for it....Wait for it....Wait for it.....Dayum!  There it is!!!!!
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPQOU1KNF0U&feature=player_embedded"]A brave man speaking in Occupy Financial District, San Francisco      - YouTube[/ame]
0:47  Ben Bernanke


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## pirate_girl

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK4yACfCjGw&feature=player_embedded"]Occupy Wall Streeter rails on Obama, jobs bill, and banks      - YouTube[/ame]


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## joec

What a novel idea, people with various points of view come to pretty much the same conclusion. That is that government is no longer for the people any more.


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## SShepherd

so, what's their endgame? Without a goal and a plan it's just a fart in the wind.

it seems a bit nebulous "banks/wallstreet bad", but how do they want it to change and how are they going about doing it. Standing infront of a bldg. and yelling isn't going to do it.


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## SShepherd

pirate_girl said:


> Occupy Wall Streeter rails on Obama, jobs bill, and banks - YouTube


 

Ahh, well now it's institutional raceism !

after she gets through ranting, at about 4:00 she finally sounds like she's intelligent.


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## joec

SShepherd said:


> so, what's their endgame? Without a goal and a plan it's just a fart in the wind.
> 
> it seems a bit nebulous "banks/wallstreet bad", but how do they want it to change and how are they going about doing it. Standing infront of a bldg. and yelling isn't going to do it.


 
You are correct for the most part. Now they are getting attention around the world and this has taken some time as well. I've not seen a real list of things/demands they expect. Now I've read some demands but usually posted by one person in the group. Nothing though that I would consider a serious or official doctrine. So at this point I consider it a movement simply venting their frustration with what is happening world wide. I have a feeling though this is still just the beginning and could become much more. Now if it does we will see, I'm sure.


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## CityGirl

pirate_girl said:


> Occupy Wall Streeter rails on Obama, jobs bill, and banks - YouTube


At 3 mins, the question "Is President Obama doing enough?" is posed to this young woman.

Her response "We all know President Obama is not doing enough! We
know it's a joke and a scam. We know anybody who is funded by a bank who is charging you $5 to use your money...who is funded by them is a scam. He has nothing. He's not helping me. He ain't helping you. He's not getting ready to create a job. Even with a jobs bill because the jobs are going to go to corporations who are going to hire whoever the hell they want to hire and leave the rest of us out here to fend for ourselves and leaving the rest of us out here delivering food."

When asked if she supported Obama in 2008 she replied "No! I don't support anyone who is not supporting me! No. I will not support Obama. I will not support the next one if they are not addressing real life issues. If they are not putting real solutions on the table, they don't get my support."

In regards to the 2nd question, most voters might not couch it in those terms but the fact of the matter is that we vote for those who we think support us-I'll let you define support. I realize many of those viewing this might view it through the lens of stereotyping and assume that she means support as in "gimmee" but I don't think based on what she says that she is looking for a handout but would like the onerous burden of college loans to be lifted. Which is not too much to ask. I'm appalled at how much tuition has increased since I went to college and I'm struggling to pay for my children to go. That goes back to what Karl Denninger referred to as financialization. It was discussed in a MarketTicker article posted on FF by Glink, I think.


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## CityGirl

joec said:


> You are correct for the most part. Now they are getting attention around the world and this has taken some time as well. I've not seen a real list of things/demands they expect. Now I've read some demands but usually posted by one person in the group. Nothing though that I would consider a serious or official doctrine. So at this point I consider it a movement simply venting their frustration with what is happening world wide. I have a feeling though this is still just the beginning and could become much more. Now if it does we will see, I'm sure.


 
Joec, We are not likely to see any list of things/demands out of this movement at this stage.  The message is "The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%."  I suspect that rather than making demands, they are demonstrating some faith in the political establishment to correct the processes that have allowed for rampant corruption in business and in politics.  Obviously the crowds are filled with all kinds of people with all kinds of ideas about how things need to be done but there is and won't be anytime soon a list of demands.  Be prepared because when this movement was announced, they indicated the occupation would start Sept 17 and go through at least Dec 31.  It is very ambitious of them.


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## joec

To me it starts with the amount of money pumped into polical campaigns in general. And since the last SCOTUS ruling corporations now are people so have individual rights of free speech with no accounting required. Hence the whole system has become pretty much corrupt and has been for a long time now.


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## Dargo

pirate_girl said:


> Occupy Wall Streeter rails on Obama, jobs bill, and banks      - YouTube



I stopped watching when she said the government kept black and brown people oppressed.  I almost stopped when she said people shouldn't have to pay back student loans or mortgages.  I always thought long and hard before I signed my name to a note and *promised* to repay the money I was asking for with interest.  I've never missed paying anyone a single dime I owed money to and I don't owe anyone any money now.  To be blunt, she is a complete and total moron who has absolutely no comprehension of what makes the world turn.  She is indeed the offspring of generations of entitlement programs.  Everything should be given to her, just because.  Has the stupid girl ever wondered what would happen if nobody worked and we took all the money away from successful business owners and told them if they made more, we'd just take it too?

It's too bad we are seeing "The Greatest Generation" dying off now.  It seems that a reasonable part of the "Baby Boomers" took note of the work ethic of that generation and became successful.  Unfortunately, "Generation X" just had everything handed to them and can't comprehend that they are expected to work.  Now we have this "Total Dipshit" generation exemplified by the girl in the video who apparently will take our country down.  No great civilization has stayed on top in the history of man.  Unfortunately, I believe we are seeing the beginning of the end of the rein of the United States based on what I'm seeing.


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## XeVfTEUtaAqJHTqq

Dargo said:


> I stopped watching when she said the government kept black and brown people oppressed.  I almost stopped when she said people shouldn't have to pay back student loans or mortgages.  I always thought long and hard before I signed my name to a note and *promised* to repay the money I was asking for with interest.  I've never missed paying anyone a single dime I owed money to and I don't owe anyone any money now.  To be blunt, she is a complete and total moron who has absolutely no comprehension of what makes the world turn.  She is indeed the offspring of generations of entitlement programs.  Everything should be given to her, just because.  Has the stupid girl ever wondered what would happen if nobody worked and we took all the money away from successful business owners and told them if they made more, we'd just take it too?
> 
> It's too bad we are seeing "The Greatest Generation" dying off now.  It seems that a reasonable part of the "Baby Boomers" took note of the work ethic of that generation and became successful.  Unfortunately, "Generation X" just had everything handed to them and can't comprehend that they are expected to work.  Now we have this "Total Dipshit" generation exemplified by the girl in the video who apparently will take our country down.  No great civilization has stayed on top in the history of man.  Unfortunately, I believe we are seeing the beginning of the end of the rein of the United States based on what I'm seeing.



Well said Dargo!  

Hopefully it is a slow European decline and we can hoard away enough good things to keep our families ahead.


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## pirate_girl

Dargo said:


> I stopped watching when she said the government kept black and brown people oppressed.
> 
> Now we have this "Total Dipshit" generation exemplified by the girl in the video who apparently will take our country down.  No great civilization has stayed on top in the history of man.  Unfortunately, I believe we are seeing the beginning of the end of the rein of the United States based on what I'm seeing.



I think that video spoke volumes in my understanding of what OWS is all about, finally.
It's ALL I needed to see.


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## Big Dog

pirate_girl said:


> I think that video spoke volumes in my understanding of what OWS is all about, finally.
> It's ALL I needed to see.



Damn near identical to some of the video's we saw during the Obama campaign ............. 

I guess she was expecting this ................

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P36x8rTb3jI"]Obama Is Going To Pay For My Gas And Mortgage!!!      - YouTube[/ame]


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## JEV

And when reality finally sets in....

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x5wCxxUX7M&feature=related"]Welfare Queen celebrating Obama's election... What Have We Done? FUNNY      - YouTube[/ame]


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## Cowboy

Looks to me to be a little different type of croud in Nashville then a few of the other protests. I dont see many cops around either but its a much smaller crowd.  Video at the link. 

*Job, government anxieties fuel Occupy Nashville anger*


http://www.tennessean.com/VideoNetwork/1204729535001/Hundreds-attend-Occupy-Nashville-Rally


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## CityGirl

JEV, I keep seeing you posting these videos by this black woman as though she is dead serious about what she is saying.  This woman is a satirist.  Her stage name is Glozell.  
http://www.blogger.com/profile/06073304924452969294


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## pirate_girl

Damn, next thing we're going to hear is that The Onion isn't serious.


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## SShepherd

http://youtu.be/19v5Kjmc8FI


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## pirate_girl

Ouch, my ears lol


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## XeVfTEUtaAqJHTqq

AFL-CIO Joins Occupy Wall Street . . . 

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3l6D9pvS4E"]AFL-CIO Joins Occupy Wall Street      - YouTube[/ame]


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## Glink

I read somewhere over the weekend where several OWS folks were arrested for crapping on police cars. Pretty classy folks.

I think this whole thing is probably more helpful than hurtful to the conservative cause.


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## XeVfTEUtaAqJHTqq

Glink said:


> I read somewhere over the weekend where several OWS folks were arrested for crapping on police cars. Pretty classy folks.
> 
> I think this whole thing is probably more helpful than hurtful to the conservative cause.



I agree, just sit back and let these animals tear the place up and see how that helps the conservative/libertarian causes.


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## pirate_girl

*WASHINGTON (CNN) -- *The Rev. Al  Sharpton will bring his nationally syndicated radio show to Lower  Manhattan Monday as the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations enter their  24th day.Sharpton, an outspoken civil rights activist and talk  show host, will broadcast from Zuccotti Park, where the protests are  based, according to his National Action Network.Organizers of the  "leaderless resistance movement" also have billed Monday as *"Kids Speak  Out"* day, with school children off for Columbus Day.
Read more: http://www.wdsu.com/money/29436547/detail.html#ixzz1aOKbGUsX
----------------------

Lovely.  Will anyone be taking a poop on police car while they are there? 

 “Most of the kids are trust-fund babies. They don’t need to be here,” said Andre, 40, an activist. “I’ve seen some making out, having sex. It doesn’t look good.”

Are they going to be doing something about that before the school kids come?  Or what about this:

Many of the newcomers to the tent city are attracted by the donated freebies: pizza, sandwiches, fruit, as well as bins of sweaters, pants, boots, even underwear. There are also handout comforters for anyone who wants 40 winks.

 And with complimentary condoms on hand, a 1960s-style free love has begun to blossom. More than 400 participants spent the night Friday huddling and cuddling in Zuccotti Park.

So, the organizers of this "leaderless" protest believes that bringing young children down to witness these things are a good idea?  This is democracy in action according to them.  

http://912member.blogspot.com/2011/10/today-is-take-your-child-to-protest-day.html

​


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## Cowboy

_*I see no need in starting another thread but I thought this is an interesting article. *_


*Think Occupy Wall St. is a phase? You don't get it*
_*Editor's note:* Douglas Rushkoff is a media theorist and the author of "Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age" and "Life Inc: How Corporatism Conquered the World and How We Can Take it Back."_
*(CNN)* -- Like the spokesmen for Arab dictators feigning bewilderment over protesters' demands, mainstream television news reporters finally training their attention on the growing Occupy Wall Street protest movement seem determined to cast it as the random, silly blather of an ungrateful and lazy generation of weirdos. They couldn't be more wrong and, as time will tell, may eventually be forced to accept the inevitability of their own obsolescence.
Consider how CNN anchor Erin Burnett, covered the goings on at Zuccotti Park downtown, where the protesters are encamped, in a segment called "Seriously?!" "What are they protesting?" she asked, "nobody seems to know." Like Jay Leno testing random mall patrons on American History, the main objective seemed to be to prove that the protesters didn't, for example, know that the U.S. government has been reimbursed for the bank bailouts. It was condescending and reductionist.
More predictably perhaps, a Fox News reporter appears flummoxed in this outtake from "On the Record," in which the respondent refuses to explain how he wants the protests to "end." Transcending the shallow partisan politics of the moment, the protester explains "As far as seeing it end, I wouldn't like to see it end. I would like to see the conversation continue."
To be fair, the reason why some mainstream news journalists and many of the audiences they serve see the Occupy Wall Street protests as incoherent is because the press and the public are themselves. It is difficult to comprehend a 21st century movement from the perspective of the 20th century politics, media, and economics in which we are still steeped.















Occupy protests spread across U.S. 















Unions join 'Occupy Wall Street' 
In fact, we are witnessing America's first true Internet-era movement, which -- unlike civil rights protests, labor marches, or even the Obama campaign -- does not take its cue from a charismatic leader, express itself in bumper-sticker-length goals and understand itself as having a particular endpoint.
Yes, there are a wide array of complaints, demands, and goals from the Wall Street protesters: the collapsing environment, labor standards, housing policy, government corruption, World Bank lending practices, unemployment, increasing wealth disparity and so on. Different people have been affected by different aspects of the same system -- and they believe they are symptoms of the same core problem.
Are they ready to articulate exactly what that problem is and how to address it? No, not yet. But neither are Congress or the president who, in thrall to corporate America and Wall Street, respectively, have consistently failed to engage in anything resembling a conversation as cogent as the many I witnessed as I strolled by Occupy Wall Street's many teach-ins this morning. There were young people teaching one another about, among other things, how the economy works, about the disconnection of investment banking from the economy of goods and services, the history of centralized interest-bearing currency, the creation and growth of the derivatives industry, and about the Obama administration deciding to settle with, rather than investigate and prosecute the investment banking industry for housing fraud.
Anyone who says he has no idea what these folks are protesting is not being truthful. Whether we agree with them or not, we all know what they are upset about, and we all know that there are investment bankers working on Wall Street getting richer while things for most of the rest of us are getting tougher. What upsets banking's defenders and politicians alike is the refusal of this movement to state its terms or set its goals in the traditional language of campaigns.
That's because, unlike a political campaign designed to get some person in office and then close up shop (as in the election of Obama), this is not a movement with a traditional narrative arc. As the product of the decentralized networked-era culture, it is less about victory than sustainability. It is not about one-pointedness, but inclusion and groping toward consensus. It is not like a book; it is like the Internet.
Occupy Wall Street is meant more as a way of life that spreads through contagion, creates as many questions as it answers, aims to force a reconsideration of the way the nation does business and offers hope to those of us who previously felt alone in our belief that the current economic system is broken.
But unlike a traditional protest, which identifies the enemy and fights for a particular solution, Occupy Wall Street just sits there talking with itself, debating its own worth, recognizing its internal inconsistencies and then continuing on as if this were some sort of new normal. It models a new collectivism, picking up on the sustainable protest village of the movement's Egyptian counterparts, with food, first aid, and a library.
Yes, as so many journalists seem obligated to point out, kids are criticizing corporate America while tweeting through their iPhones. The simplistic critique is that if someone is upset about corporate excess, he is supposed to abandon all connection with any corporate product. Of course, the more nuanced approach to such tradeoffs would be to seek balance rather than ultimatums. Yes, there are things big corporations might do very well, like making iPhones. There are other things big corporations may not do so well, like structure mortgage derivatives. Might we be able to use corporations for what works, and get them out of doing what doesn't?
And yes, some kids are showing up at Occupy Wall Street because it's fun. They come for the people, the excitement, the camaraderie and the sense of purpose they might not be able to find elsewhere. But does this mean that something about Occupy Wall Street is lacking, or that it is providing something that jobs and schools are not (thanks in part to rising unemployment and skyrocketing tuitions)?
The members of Occupy Wall Street may be as unwieldy, paradoxical, and inconsistent as those of us living in the real world. But that is precisely why their new approach to protest is more applicable, sustainable and actionable than what passes for politics today. They are suggesting that the fiscal operating system on which we are attempting to run our economy is no longer appropriate to the task. They mean to show that there is an inappropriate and correctable disconnect between the abundance America produces and the scarcity its markets manufacture.
And in the process, they are pointing the way toward something entirely different than the zero-sum game of artificial scarcity favoring top-down investors and media makers alike.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/05/opinion/rushkoff-occupy-wall-street/index.html


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## pirate_girl

*Al ‘Resist We Much’ Sharpton Calls Protests ‘Occupation Wall Street’ Four Times in One Show
*
For crying out loud!*
http://www.breitbart.tv/al-resist-w...ccupation-wall-street-four-times-in-one-show/
*


----------



## muleman RIP

Get Jesse and Al in there and the circus is complete!


----------



## XeVfTEUtaAqJHTqq

Brain dead zombies chant:  "You can have sex with animals or whatever"

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My_cNzQGS8E"]"You can have sex with animals." Zucotti Sq.      - YouTube[/ame]

It's at the very end of the video.


----------



## XeVfTEUtaAqJHTqq

Found some non-idiots . . . 

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnGcUnoNa5Q"]TEA PARTY Invades OCCUPY DC- (explicit)      - YouTube[/ame]


----------



## waybomb

hahaha, the guy with 67,000 shares of T, closing at 28.77 today, complaining about capitalists. whiskey tango foxtrot!

Phukin morons.


----------



## pirate_girl

PBinWA said:


> Brain dead zombies chant:  "You can have sex with animals or whatever"
> 
> "You can have sex with animals." Zucotti Sq.      - YouTube
> 
> It's at the very end of the video.


Who is that dolt in the red shirt and why does he keep tugging at it and touching his nose?
Perhaps he's a former baseball coach or catcher?

 JHC!


----------



## pirate_girl

Apparently it's all about Jews and Russians!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WLSvK2eIoBs#!


----------



## FrancSevin

Oakland CA, center of liberalism, clamps down hard on protesters.
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/east_bay&id=8404801

Does anyone else see the Irony?, the Hypocricy?

What would happen if these deostrators took their cause to 1600 Pennsylvannia AVE?

Yep.

franc


----------



## Dargo

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKDT72GVEZI"]Get a job[/ame]


----------



## RedRocker

FrancSevin said:


> Oakland CA, center of liberalism, clamps down hard on protesters.
> http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/east_bay&id=8404801
> 
> Does anyone else see the Irony?, the Hypocricy?
> 
> What would happen if these deostrators took their cause to 1600 Pennsylvannia AVE?
> 
> Yep.
> 
> franc



Won't happen, you'd have to be capable of rational thought to piece
that simple puzzle together.


----------



## FrancSevin

I got this tidbit off of Godfathers Blog today
But too many of these protestors don’t have solutions. Some advocate wealth redistribution. Not only is it theft, but it doesn’t work. Then there’s the problem of people just not wanting to work hard. Here’s a perfect example from a 38-year-old protestor from Toronto:
“It’s weird protesting on Bay Street [Toronto’s financial district]. You get there at 9 a.m. and the rich bankers who you want to hurl insults at and change their worldview have been at work for two hours already. And then when it’s time to go, they’re still there. I guess that’s why they call them the one per cent. I mean, who wants to work those kinds of hours? That’s the power of greed.”
​
Read more: That’s Why They’re the One Percent | Godfather Politics http://godfatherpolitics.com/1721/thats-why-theyre-the-one-percent/#ixzz1c1OBM62J

Says it all about the 1%'rs.  They just don't get it. They will never get it.

how do we removethem fromthe genepool?


franc​


----------



## waybomb

Interesting read, from the side that actually occupies Wall Street...


----------



## RedRocker

Well, they won't be taking the dumb asses at OWS's jobs, those morons don't have
jobs. You can thank community downgrade for crrap like this, it's right up his alley and acorn is right in the middle of it.  If they think this is the start of some big revolution, I've got news, 99.9% of the rest of us are busy trying to get by while these gooberheads shit all over the street.


----------



## pirate_girl

Early Friday morning Fox News NY Reporter John Huddy was threatened by  an Occupy Wall Street protester, who rushed at him, tearing at his  microphone.  After the fray, the man told Huddy that he would "stab him  in the throat," and then brandished a pen.

Huddy then was talked to by other Occupy Wall Street protesters, who  seemed to take the crazed person's side.  While the reporter was talking  with these people, the assailant kept loudly mumbling, "I have a meeting with Bloomberg."  He then wandered towards the news camera, blankly staring at it for a moment.



 

The assailant, staring at the camera. 
The man then fled, but was arrested by the NYPD shortly after.

This is just another incident in what is becoming a hefty list of  violence related with the Occupy Wall Street movement.  Earlier this  month, an NYPD officer was tackled by a protester, while cars and buildings were burned in Rome by OWS members.



 

The assailant arrested.
Fox News NY also had a report of their own, including video of the aftermath.  You can watch it below:

http://www.punditpress.com/2011/10/ows-protester-threatens-to-stab.html


----------



## FrancSevin

We keephearing about all of the alleged violence, racism and hate at the TEA party rallies. How come we do not see as much evidence of it as we do of these mecreants and their behaviors?

We had violence here at a TEA rally in St Louis. SEIU thugs came in on busses and attacked a street vendor who was selling stickers and signs. Kenneth Gladney was a small businessman who's Kiosk sold such merchandise to whatever groups were attending gatherings. He was a-political in his product line.

But on this day he catered to theTEA's. His products were aimed at the market he was addressing so, it was TEA stuff. Flags, Quotes from the founders, "don't tread on me" and such patriotic bannerisms. 

Mr Gladney was hospitalized for his injuries.

How many here even heard of that incident?


franc

BTW, no sings were posted insulting JEWs or Blacks or Latinos nor were any police cars injured in the making of that TEA party gathering.


----------



## tiredretired

They have now stepped up their protests here in Vermont.  I can't help but think how much better their time would be spent helping the Hurricane Irene victims here.  Many of which are still unable to move back into their damaged homes with a major snow storm coming tomorrow and sub zero weather just around the corner.  I'll never figger people out.  They could sure warm a lot more hearts doing that than occupying a park, smoking dope and threatening to consume rich people.


----------



## Kane

News:  Mayor Jean Quan throws police under the bus.  Apologizes to OWS, MoveOn.org for "police brutality".


----------



## mak2

Were they brutal?  





Kane said:


> News:  Mayor Jean Quan throws police under the bus.  Apologizes to OWS, MoveOn.org for "police brutality".


----------



## tiredretired

Kane said:


> News:  Mayor Jean Quan throws police under the bus.  Apologizes to OWS, MoveOn.org for "police brutality".




I saw that tonight.  She's a schmuck for selling her PD down the river.  I'll bet her Police Chief is spitting nails about now.


----------



## mak2

So were the police really brutal?


----------



## tiredretired

mak2 said:


> Were they brutal?



Just as many police officers were injured as protesters.  I'm sure it was all video taped.  If anything terrible happened MSNBC would be preempting regular programming to show it.


----------



## Kane

mak2 said:


> Were they brutal?



From what I saw from video, ex-Marine Olsen took a tear gas canister point blank to the head as he rushed a police line.  Brutal hit, for sure.

But the rest of the police action against rocks and bottle?  Not so much.  This is exactly the moment that the likes of MoveOn.org and the rest of the anarchists and union groups are waiting for.  You see, the true populists that started OWC went home some time ago.  Now we have the pro's doing the protesting and it's going to get ugly.

.


----------



## mak2

Humm, then why did he apologize?  Seriously.  Neither side should be allowed to break the law, but I dont know enough to know which side broke the law.  Do you?  





TiredRetired said:


> Just as many police officers were injured as protesters.  I'm sure it was all video taped.  If anything terrible happened MSNBC would be preempting regular programming to show it.


----------



## tiredretired

Kane said:


> From what I saw from video, ex-Marine Olsen took a tear gas canister point blank to the head as he rushed a police line.
> 
> .



No brain, no pain.


----------



## mak2

Really?  And it is former Marine.    





TiredRetired said:


> No brain, no pain.


----------



## tiredretired

mak2 said:


> Humm, then why did he apologize?  Seriously.  Neither side should be allowed to break the law, but I dont know enough to know which side broke the law.  Do you?



It would seem to me if you want the respect of your law enforcement department as a mayor, you would do exactly what you just said.  Learn what happened and go from there.  All she did was watch a Move On video and then condemn her police department.  Tomorrow she will have the nards to expect them to put their life of the line to protect her if need be.  Like I said. I think she is a schmuck.  My opinion only.


----------



## SShepherd

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ned-nightmare/2011/10/28/gIQAfQBJPM_blog.html

After a career spent sparring with police brass and the last month supporting Occupy Oakland protesters, Mayor Jean Quan found herself Wednesday standing up for the police officers who had violently clashed with protesters in front of City Hall Tuesday night. 

“We want to thank the police, fire, public works and other employees who worked over the last week to peacefully close the encampment,” Quan wrote on her Facebook page. 

In one instance, she said, calls were received that a female protesters fell out of a 14-foot-tree, but the protesters’ self-appointed security force wouldn’t let first responders inside to treat her. In another, Piper said, the self-appointed security beat a man with a 2-by-4 as a form of justice. 
According to the LA Times, there were 27 calls for paramedics at the camp, and in most instances, organizers blocked access.


----------



## tiredretired

mak2 said:


> Really?  And it is former Marine.



I don't care.  Being a former Marine does not make one smart.  Sorry.  I have respect for all people in uniform.  He is no longer in uniform.   He wants to rush a police line. Bad things can happen.  As my Dad used to say.  Wanna piss with the big boys? Watch out you just might get wet.


----------



## mak2

If that is true and the protesters would not allow emergency services do their job they should be arrested, regardless of force necessary. I cant imagine her apoligizing if that is the case though.  





SShepherd said:


> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ned-nightmare/2011/10/28/gIQAfQBJPM_blog.html
> 
> After a career spent sparring with police brass and the last month supporting Occupy Oakland protesters, Mayor Jean Quan found herself Wednesday standing up for the police officers who had violently clashed with protesters in front of City Hall Tuesday night.
> 
> “We want to thank the police, fire, public works and other employees who worked over the last week to peacefully close the encampment,” Quan wrote on her Facebook page.
> 
> In one instance, she said, calls were received that a female protesters fell out of a 14-foot-tree, but the protesters’ self-appointed security force wouldn’t let first responders inside to treat her. In another, Piper said, the self-appointed security beat a man with a 2-by-4 as a form of justice.
> According to the LA Times, there were 27 calls for paramedics at the camp, and in most instances, organizers blocked access.


----------



## SShepherd

that was her last statement 11hrs ago

this was yesterday
http://thinkprogress.org/special/2011/10/27/355003/jean-quan-minimize-police-statement/

After the first heavy-handed police crackdown on demonstrators in Oakland, Mayor Jean Quan wrote a statement on her Facebook page praising police for closing down the Occupy Oakland protest encampment.* Now, facing anger from across the world, Quan is backing down on her aggressive language and even says she supports the goals of the movement.* She is committing to minimize police presence in the plaza and “build a community effort to improve communications and dialogue with the demonstrators.” View her full statement:

sounds like she's a coward now that her feet have been put to the fire


----------



## SShepherd

5min ago;

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/28/us-usa-wallstreet-protests-oakland-idUSTRE79R5LH20111028

"I am deeply saddened about the outcome on Tuesday," Quan said in the statement. "It was not what anyone hoped for, ultimately it was my responsibility, and I apologize for what happened."
"When there's violence there are no winners," she said. "It polarizes us and opens old wounds rather than brings us together, which is the aim of Occupy Wall Street and uniting the 99 percent."


----------



## mak2

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZLyUK0t0vQ"]Oakland Policeman Throws Flash Grenade Into Crowd Trying To Help Injured Protester      - YouTube[/ame]

I bet there are two sides to the story.


----------



## SShepherd

they were told to leave..period

it only takes 3 people to get the injured guy out...20 ran over.

looks to me like dept. policy was probably followed, and they probably should have made more arrests-- let the organizers who have 500k in the bank pay their bail.


----------



## mak2

SShepherd said:


> they were told to leave..period
> 
> it only takes 3 people to get the injured guy out...20 ran over.
> 
> looks to me like dept. policy was probably followed, and they probably should have made more arrests-- let the organizers who have 500k in the bank pay their bail.



So you really think the police were justified to use deadly force?


----------



## FrancSevin

mak2 said:


> So you really think the police were justified to use deadly force?


 
A demostrator tossing bricks, bottles and rocks at police is excercising his first amendment rights but a policeman using legal, and generaly accepted as non lethal, crowd control is using *Deadly force?*


Since when is a canister of Tear gas considered "deadly force?" Let us not inflate this with false hyperbole, just so we can argue the artificaly implied _"facts_."

franc


----------



## mak2

The smoke is not deadly force, the cannister is.  False hyperbole?  Did you see the guy they carried out?  Cannister=deadly force. 





FrancSevin said:


> A demostrator tossing bricks, bottles and rocks at police is excercising his first amendment rights but a policeman using legal, and generaly accepted as non lethal, crowd control is using *Deadly force?*
> 
> 
> Since when is a canister of Tear gas considered "deadly force?" Let us not inflate this with false hyperbole, just so we can argue the artificaly implied _"facts_."
> 
> franc


----------



## SShepherd

it's listed as non lethal. What part don't you get that when you throw rovks and bottles at police, and they tell you to leave that gas will be deployed don't you understand? I think this must be a fundamental gap between conservatives at liberal progressives- if you're told to leave and you don't, it was your choice and because of that if you get hurt you're the one responsable.


----------



## mak2

Lets see if I can remember.  I think deadly force when I was in the service is defined as something that can reasonably be to expected to cause death or serious bodily injury , there was a protester down with obvious serious bodily injury, yet the police fired another canister at head level again.  You really making the argument gas canisters arent deadly force?  It is not a conservative liberl thing (I hope) itis right and wrong thing. The police were not threatened at the time, they were behind a barrier.  They had no right to use deadly force in the utube I posted.  





SShepherd said:


> it's listed as non lethal. What part don't you get that when you throw rovks and bottles at police, and they tell you to leave that gas will be deployed don't you understand? *I think this must be a fundamental gap between conservatives at liberal progressives- if you're told to leave and you don't, it was your choice and because of that if you get hurt you're the one responsable*.



Yep, tell them to leave and they dont, killem.  Shades of Tiananmen Square.  This is an example of why the far right is so scary.


----------



## Cowboy

More about the Scott Olsen (wearing fatigues) incident and more accurate video showing he had his back to the police officers and hardly being threatening in any way IMHO. Make up your own minds allthough its seems most allready have. 

This particular part of the article bothers me. 

"Oakland police confirmed at a press conference that they used tear gas and baton rounds, but said they did not use flash bang grenades. Police could not be reached for comment, but Finneburgh, who said he had been "present in many protests" where flash bang grenades had been used, said they had been deployed."

FYI , I have looked at several videos and not found any evidence that shows any rocks,bottles or anything else thrown (like has been claimed in this thread) at the police officers that caused this incident. If anyone has please post them as I would like to see them before I form my own opinion.  



http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zEj_4fqDbnM

Occupy Oakland protesters carry Scott Olsen away after he was hit in the head on Tuesday night. Photograph: Kimihiro Hoshino/AFP/Getty Images
Oakland's independent police review body will examine the clashes between riot officers and protesters that left an Iraq war veteran in a critical condition as Occupy protestors prepare to rally at the same spot for a third night of protests.
Police battled protesters following an Occupy Oakland march to demonstrate against the closing of two occupations in the city in the early hours of Tuesday morning. More than 100 people have been arrested in Oakland since police cleared a camp in Frank Ogawa plaza. 
Scott Olsen, 24, suffered a fractured skull and brain swelling after he was allegedly hit in the head by a police projectile during the clashes on Tuesday. A spokesperson for Highland hospital in east Oakland confirmed he was critically ill after being admitted on Tuesday night.
A source at the Oakland citizen's police review board said it had not yet received a formal complaint, but would be "looking into" the circumstances surrounding Olsen's injuries. The board will decide whether to launch an official investigation over the next couple of days.
Jay Finneburgh, an activist photographer who was at the protest, published pictures of Olsen lying bloodied on the ground, while video footage appeared to show police throwing a 'flash bang' explosive close to fellow protesters trying to provide aid.
"[Olsen] stood behind me," Finneburgh told the Guardian. "I looked to my left and he hit the ground, and he hit it hard.
"A woman went to look down at him, and he was bleeding from the head. She started screaming," he said.
Video footage posted to YouTube shows Olsen lying motionless in front of a police line after apparently having been hit. A group of up to 10 protesters gather around him, but a police officer can be seen throwing a device close to the group which then explodes with a bright flash and loud bang, scattering the protesters. The video then cuts to footage of protesters carrying Olsen away as he bleeds from the head.
Olsen was taken to Highland hospital by protesters. Adele Carpenter, who knows Olsen through his involvement with anti-war groups, said she arrived at the hospital at 11pm on Tuesday night.
Carpenter said she was told by a doctor at the hospital that Olsen had a skull fracture and was in a "serious but stable" condition. She said he had been sedated and was unconscious.
"I'm just absolutely devastated that someone who did two tours of Iraq and came home safely is now lying in a US hospital because of the domestic police force," Carpenter told the Guardian.
Olsen, originally from Wisconsin, had only moved to Oakland in July, and met Carpenter through his membership of Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War.
Keith Shannon, who shares an apartment with Olsen and served with him in Iraq, said a neurosurgeon was due to assess him on Tuesday to determine whether he required surgery.
"It's really hard," Shannon said. "I really wish I had gone out with him instead of staying home last night."
Shannon, who is also 24, said he had seen the video footage showing Olsen lying on the floor as a police officer throws an explosive device near him.
"It's terrible to go over to Iraq twice and come back injured, and then get injured by the police that are supposed to be protecting us," he said.
He said Olsen had served two tours of Iraq, in 2006 and 2007. Olsen was in 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines with Shannon before leaving the military in 2010.
Olsen moved to the San Francisco area in July and works for Opswat, a software company, living with Shannon in Daly City, just south of San Francisco.
Shannon said Olsen was hit in the head by a tear gas canister or smoke canister shot by a police officer. He said Olsen had a curved gash on his forehead.
Veterans for Peace said Olsen was "struck by a police projectile fired into a crowd in downtown Oakland".
"Police in the majority of cities are acting with restraint and humanity towards the encampments, but Veterans For Peace will not be deterred by police who choose to use brutal tactics," the organisation said in a statement. 
Oakland police confirmed at a press conference that they used tear gas and baton rounds, but said they did not use flash bang grenades. Police could not be reached for comment, but Finneburgh, who said he had been "present in many protests" where flash bang grenades had been used, said they had been deployed.
Finneburgh said he had returned to where Olsen had originally lain injured later in the evening, and close to a pool of blood had found a beanbag round, apparently fired by police. The controversial projectile, a small fabric pillow filled with around 40 grammes of lead shot, is one of the most commonly used projectiles in US policing, though it was withdrawn for 18 years after a fatal incident in 1971.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/26/scott-olsen-occupy-oakland-review


----------



## Cowboy

Here is a video from a news chopper that shows it from before and when it happened , at the 1:01 mark you can see when Scott was hit after that the folks going to his aid. 

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7r2ETi5C1A&feature=related"]OCCUPY OAKLAND Police launch tear gas, flash bang canisters into crowd of protesters OWS Wall Street - YouTube[/ame]


----------



## Kane

FrancSevin said:


> A demostrator tossing bricks, bottles and rocks at police is excercising his first amendment rights but a policeman using legal, and generaly accepted as non lethal, crowd control is using *Deadly force?*
> 
> 
> Since when is a canister of Tear gas considered "deadly force?" Let us not inflate this with false hyperbole, just so we can argue the artificaly implied _"facts_."
> 
> franc


Alas *FrancSevin*, it just must be the way of the internet that every site has its own *rush549*.

But what fun would it be without them? Although woefully wrong more often than right, *mak2 *is still a stand up kinda' guy.
.


----------



## tiredretired

E





TiredRetired said:


> No brain, no pain.



Taking into consideration his condition and the fact that he has served this country I wish to retract this statement and apologize to Mr Olson.


----------



## pirate_girl

Crapping on cars, now rubbing one out in public.
Freaks!
---

Occupy Madison loses permit-

http://www.dailycardinal.com/news/occupy-madison-loses-permit-1.2669111#.TqwaX7JU2uI

City officials temporarily denied Occupy Madison a new street use permit Wednesday after protesters violated public health and safety conditions and failed to follow the correct processes to renew or amend a permit.

The permit, which expired Wednesday at noon, required Occupy Madison protesters to relocate from their current space at 30 West Mifflin Street, also called 30 on the Square.

A neighboring hotel's staff alleged voiced concerns about having to recently escort hotel employees to and from bus stops late at night due to inappropriate behavior, such as public masturbation, from street protesters.

In addition, officials agreed further occupation should not be allowed to continue without restrooms on site to avoid further public health violations.

"You can't be affecting the safety and health of other people around you," Madison Fire Prevention Officer Jerry McMullen said. "With the public health violations and the complaints I've heard, I don't believe it meets the spirit of the ordinance to a street use permit."

Occupy Madison representative and street use permit holder Paul Streeter said he hopes to use the 30 on the Square space again as soon as possible after Freakfest.

"[The protest] is indeed a work in progress," Streeter said. "We will continue to address issues as they come up."

Madison's Parks Division requested a written form stating the dates and location where members wish to occupy.

"You can tell us what your proposals are, but we have no idea what you are doing, how you are doing it or what your safety and security plan is," McCullen said. "We have nothing in writing to back it up, and we usually require that all events have [written plans]."

Occupy Madison is relocating onto Olin Terrace until Monday when Freak Fest is over, and they can request a new permit for 30 on the Square.


----------



## SShepherd

mak2 said:


> Lets see if I can remember. I think deadly force when I was in the service is defined as something that can reasonably be to expected to cause death or serious bodily injury , there was a protester down with obvious serious bodily injury, yet the police fired another canister at head level again. You really making the argument gas canisters arent deadly force? It is not a conservative liberl thing (I hope) itis right and wrong thing. The police were not threatened at the time, they were behind a barrier. They had no right to use deadly force in the utube I posted.
> 
> Yep, tell them to leave and they dont, killem. Shades of Tiananmen Square. This is an example of why the far right is so scary.


 
guess what, people have died from being pepper sprayed too- it's still a less than lethal device, same as a taser. Courts have ruled them less than lethal along with gas grenades, regardless of what you think.


----------



## FrancSevin

mak2 said:


> Lets see if I can remember. I think deadly force when I was in the service is defined as something that can reasonably be to expected to cause death or serious bodily injury , there was a protester down with obvious serious bodily injury, yet the police fired another canister at head level again. You really making the argument gas canisters arent deadly force? It is not a conservative liberl thing (I hope) itis right and wrong thing. The police were not threatened at the time, they were behind a barrier. They had no right to use deadly force in the utube I posted.
> 
> Yep, tell them to leave and they dont, killem. Shades of Tiananmen Square. This is an example of why the far right is so scary.


 

So, you can pick up a turd from the clean end.

Lucky you


----------



## mak2

SShepherd said:


> guess what, people have died from being pepper sprayed too- it's still a less than lethal device, same as a taser. Courts have ruled them less than lethal along with gas grenades, regardless of what you think.



There was a guy laying on the ground with TBI from one.  You are trying to argue they are not lethal force.  Ok SS, you win.  



FrancSevin said:


> So, you can pick up a turd from the clean end.
> 
> Lucky you



Nonsensical statement.  Oh yea, it's you.


----------



## Kane

mak2 said:


> Lets see if I can remember.  I think deadly force when I was in the service is defined as something that can reasonably be to expected to cause death or serious bodily injury , there was a protester down with obvious serious bodily injury, yet the police fired another canister at head level again.  You really making the argument gas canisters arent deadly force?  It is not a conservative liberl thing (I hope) itis right and wrong thing. The police were not threatened at the time, they were behind a barrier.  They had no right to use deadly force in the utube I posted.
> 
> Yep, tell them to leave and they dont, killem.  Shades of Tiananmen Square.  This is an example of why the far right is so scary.



As a serviceman then, *mak2*, you should also be familiar with this thing called the Rule of Law.  Along with property rights, the Rule of Law (not the rule of men) has served this nation well for nearly 250 years.  It has raised this Nation from once-anarchy to the most prosperous and civilized Republic on earth.

But the Rule of Law is apparently subject to your interpretation.

These protesters, this assembly of populists and professional anarchists, were warned repeatedly by the Oakland Police that they were becoming unlawful and to disperse in accordance with the Law.  Warned repeatedly.

The protesters were warned repeatedly to disperse or lawfully measures would be taken to force them to disperse.  And in accordance with the Rule of Law, the Oakland police took measures within the Law to ensure compliance.

If the protesters had obeyed the Law and the lawful commands of the Oakland police department, regardless of what *mak2* may opine, citizen Olsen would not have harmed. It would have been only the police that have suffered injury due to the unlawful acts of the protesters.

Citizen Olsen, a professional anarchist himself, will now become the poster child of the populists and other professional anarchists that occupy wall Street. A poster child for lawlessness.

 So be it.

,


----------



## Dargo

mak2 said:


> So were the police really brutal?



I'd never make it as a police officer.  If someone chunked a brick or large rock at my head, I'm going to take that action as them trying to kill me and respond in kind.  To heck with a taser or rubber bullets, that "protester" would have been double tapped center of body mass (trying for the head would leave to great of a chance to miss and injure someone else).

I believe in my own doctrine that says that 'you come at me with force, I react with that level of force +1'.  If that does not remedy the situation, no rules apply any longer and I act as I deem necessary.

I've been to protests.  I've been involved in civil disobedience in the past.  However, when law enforcement demanded I vacate the area, I always obeyed them.  If it gets to the point where I do not, that would be called civil war; which is an entirely different situation.  I've always also lived by the concept that, if you go looking for trouble, you're most likely going to find trouble.


----------



## mak2

I completely agree with you, a brick can be a deadly weapon and if threatened you woudl be perfectly justified returning fire.  I suppose if you had body armor and helmet that would neturelize a brick might make that a more difficutl argument.  Anyway that is not the case in the utube I posted.  Refusing to leave is far different than attacking the police with deadly force, I see no protestor using deadly force, in fact, they were trying to help an injured person.  Your brick throwing arguemnt does not apply in this case.  A strawman, as they say and which is quickly pointed out when someone imagines I do it. Just sayin. 





Dargo said:


> I'd never make it as a police officer.  If someone chunked a brick or large rock at my head, I'm going to take that action as them trying to kill me and respond in kind.  To heck with a taser or rubber bullets, that "protester" would have been double tapped center of body mass (trying for the head would leave to great of a chance to miss and injure someone else).
> 
> I believe in my own doctrine that says that 'you come at me with force, I react with that level of force +1'.  If that does not remedy the situation, no rules apply any longer and I act as I deem necessary.
> 
> I've been to protests.  I've been involved in civil disobedience in the past.  However, when law enforcement demanded I vacate the area, I always obeyed them.  If it gets to the point where I do not, that would be called civil war; which is an entirely different situation.  I've always also lived by the concept that, if you go looking for trouble, you're most likely going to find trouble.


----------



## SShepherd

mak2 said:


> I completely agree with you, a brick can be a deadly weapon and if threatened you woudl be perfectly justified returning fire*. I suppose if you had body armor and helmet that would neturelize a brick might make that a more difficutl argument*. Anyway that is not the case in the utube I posted. Refusing to leave is far different than attacking the police with deadly force, I see no protestor using deadly force, in fact, they were trying to help an injured person. Your brick throwing arguemnt does not apply in this case. A strawman, as they say and which is quickly pointed out when someone imagines I do it. Just sayin.


 
but, it isn't about you or what you think/feel (again) it's about the rule of law.
......this is where you go, "waaaaaa, it's not fair"


----------



## SShepherd

mak2 said:


> There was a guy laying on the ground with TBI from one. You are trying to argue they are not lethal force. Ok SS, you win.
> 
> 
> 
> Nonsensical statement. Oh yea, it's you.


 

actually, I won before you started. He was provided a chance to leave, he declined, he assumed responsability. Last I knew, he wasn't dead- so your "lethal force" arguement is invalid.

as you've told many people many times on this forum........."please try and keep up"


----------



## mak2

SShepherd said:


> but, it isn't about you or what you think/feel (again) it's about the rule of law.
> ......this is where you go, "waaaaaa, it's not fair"



Strawman, the people in the utube were not throwing bricks.  Fact.  What are you talking about feelings?  Maybe trying to change subject?


----------



## mak2

Let me go over this one more time. The guy on the ground had TBI and is currently in the ICU.  

Lethal force is an amount of force that is likely to cause either *serious bodily injury* or death to another person.

Traumatic Brain Injury=Serious bodily injury.

Get it yet?



SShepherd said:


> actually, I won before you started. He was provided a chance to leave, he declined, he assumed responsability. Last I knew, he wasn't dead- so your "lethal force" arguement is invalid.
> 
> as you've told many people many times on this forum........."please try and keep up"


----------



## SShepherd

mak2 said:


> Let me go over this one more time. The guy on the ground had TBI and is currently in the ICU.
> 
> Lethal force is an amount of force that is likely to cause either *serious bodily injury* or death to another person.
> 
> Traumatic Brain Injury=Serious bodily injury.
> 
> Get it yet?


 

and police warned the protesters or serious injury if they stayed

GET IT YET ?


----------



## Cowboy

All I know if what I posted in an early post I will post below, turns out to be true it may end up being far worse then it looks right now. If nothing else it certainly needs to nbe investigated from an outside sorce IMO. 

"Finneburgh said he had returned to where Olsen had originally lain injured later in the evening, and close to a pool of blood had found a beanbag round, apparently fired by police. The controversial projectile, a small fabric pillow filled with around 40 grammes of lead shot, is one of the most commonly used projectiles in US policing, though it was withdrawn for 18 years after a fatal incident in 1971."


----------



## SShepherd

mak2 said:


> Strawman, the people in the utube were not throwing bricks. Fact. What are you talking about feelings? Maybe trying to change subject?


 
ahh, so it's a fact, you have proof?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-canister-protesters-helping-Scott-Olsen.html

*Several small skirmishes had broken out in the night with police clearing the area by firing tear gas and protesters throwing rocks and bottles at them.*

*http://news.yahoo.com/police-fire-tear-gas-protesters-throw-rocks-044055972.html*

*California, that had gathered in front of City Hall amid a heavy police presence has scattered as authorities fired tear gas in response to rock throwing by some of the demonstrators.*

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=51d_1319747789

obviously you agree with the protestor chick-- too bad she disputes your "facts"

this just shows how retarded their logic is


----------



## Dargo

SShepherd said:


> ahh, so it's a fact, you have proof?
> 
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-canister-protesters-helping-Scott-Olsen.html
> 
> *Several small skirmishes had broken out in the night with police clearing the area by firing tear gas and protesters throwing rocks and bottles at them.*
> 
> *http://news.yahoo.com/police-fire-tear-gas-protesters-throw-rocks-044055972.html*
> 
> *California, that had gathered in front of City Hall amid a heavy police presence has scattered as authorities fired tear gas in response to rock throwing by some of the demonstrators.*



That is the report to which I responded stating the fact that I could not be a police officer due to my personal response to what I feel is someone trying to severely injure or kill me.  True?  I don't know.  I wasn't there.  I am simply stating my position and why I would not make a good law enforcement officer.  IMHO, we need to cut off 99% of all foreign aid and pay our troops and police officers better.  They have a very difficult job.  As admitted, I could not perform their jobs.


----------



## SShepherd

Dargo said:


> That is the report to which I responded stating the fact that I could not be a police officer due to my personal response to what I feel is someone trying to severely injure or kill me. True? I don't know. I wasn't there. I am simply stating my position and why I would not make a good law enforcement officer. IMHO, we need to cut off 99% of all foreign aid and pay our troops and police officers better. They have a very difficult job. As admitted, I could not perform their jobs.


 
watch the vid, a protester admits bottles and rocks were thrown at police


----------



## FrancSevin

I'm still trying to equate a tear gas cannister to "deadly force?"

But bottles and rocks are not?

The purpose of tossing tear gas is to disperse an annoying gas so the crowd will dispers.
The purpuse of throwing a bottle at my head is to purposely injure me. It could have no other intent.

MAK2; 
You speak of Strawman arguments and then you use one??????????
"_Yep, tell them to leave and they dont, killem. Shades of Tiananmen Square. This is an example of why the far right is so scary." _

No such orders were given by any authorities. There are no phlanx of tanks or armour here, just mano a mano police and demostrators.

Such hyperbole is unwarrented in this discussion. Yet, you feel justified in using it, aside from your own admonitions of others for doing it.
This is why the left scares me


----------



## Cowboy

FrancSevin said:


> I'm still trying to equate a tear gas cannister to "deadly force?"
> 
> But bottles and rocks are not?
> 
> The purpose of tossing tear gas is to disperse an annoying gas so the crowd will dispers.
> The purpuse of throwing a bottle at my head is to purposely injure me. It could have no other intent.
> 
> MAK2;
> You speak of Strawman arguments and then you use one??????????
> "_Yep, tell them to leave and they dont, killem. Shades of Tiananmen Square. This is an example of why the far right is so scary." _
> 
> No such orders were given by any authorities. There are no phlanx of tanks or armour here, just mano a mano police and demostrators.
> 
> Such hyperbole is unwarrented in this discussion. Yet, you feel justified in using it, aside from your own admonitions of others for doing it.
> This is why the left scares me


 I guess its all about who you beleive Franc, I myself am just after the truth and facts. 

   I have read about every article written from both sides of the fence as well as watched mutiple videos not in any video did I see rocks or bottles being thrown or any remnants of what would be left of them. 

  What I did see in several still videos were a few scattered water bottles that I am assuming were plastic for two reasons, 1 being they wern't broke the second being its california , I figured glass bottles were banned like anything else. Yes I am being a little sarcastic sorry. 

 Shep posted the video which I have also seen and researched about the suposed lady protestor admitting that rocks and bottles were trown before the police acted. I haven't been able to find out who she even is or what connection she has to the protestors so it makes me wonder , WHY now does everyone choose to beleive what these dirty,filthy hippie freeloaders says. Not my words but what most refer to them as . 

  That being said , it has been proven by the vids that flashbang grenades were used which the police have repeatedly denied as well as the statement that I posted that a spent bean bag was found near where the young man was injured . True or not I dont know but I allready distrust the police from what they have said and I seen in the many videos. 

  I do think it needs to be looked into though as there were several different police forces brought in for this particular protest. That being said no matter what you think about the protestors OR the police we need to have the entire factual story that we all know we are NOT going to get from the Oakland police OR any media covering it IMHO. I also wonder as many video cameras as well as cell phone folks cary these days , where are the pics and videos of the bottles and rocks being thrown Further more where the hell did the rocks come from ? 

  I am not trying to argue with anyone and dont have many answers , I just would like to know what actually took place as a young man that defended our freedom was injured severely during what looked to be very peacefull on his part at least. 

 I have heard some mention there was not these kind of protests from the Tea party and rightly so , many of them were smart enough to arm them selves while defending the second amendment. Again this happened in California and Oakland so I dont know what the laws are there but maybe plastic water bottles is all they could think of to defend theirselves if needed. 

 Just my thoughts from looking at all sides with open eyes .


----------



## tiredretired

FrancSevin said:


> I'm still trying to equate a tear gas cannister to "deadly force?"
> 
> But bottles and rocks are not?
> 
> The purpose of tossing tear gas is to disperse an annoying gas so the crowd will dispers.
> The purpuse of throwing a bottle at my head is to purposely injure me. It could have no other intent.
> 
> MAK2;
> You speak of Strawman arguments and then you use one??????????
> "_Yep, tell them to leave and they dont, killem. Shades of Tiananmen Square. This is an example of why the far right is so scary." _
> 
> No such orders were given by any authorities. There are no phlanx of tanks or armour here, just mano a mano police and demostrators.
> 
> Such hyperbole is unwarrented in this discussion. Yet, you feel justified in using it, aside from your own admonitions of others for doing it.
> This is why the left scares me



Far right scary?  Probably.  The far left left is pretty damn scary too.  

So, let's land in the middle here.  We as taxpayers spend a hell of a lot of money to keep a police department running.  We expect them to do their job and to keep us safe from those that would do us harm.

A crowd that throws rocks and bottles is looking to do someone harm.  Could just as easily be you or me walking by on our way home.  Tear gas is a proven method for crowd and riot control.  Rubber bullets work good too though apparently not used in this instance.  Someone gets hit with a cannister that is involved, he or she made a choice to be there.  Unless they were somehow forced to participate then they must accept part of the responsibility.  People are responsible for their own actions.  

I agree with FrancSevin.  As I stated earlier, and sorry for being so blunt.  Wanna piss with the big boys?  Watch out!  You might get wet.

Tiananmen Square.  LOL. Let's keep it real here.  I missed all those M1 Abrams tanks plodding down the street in Oakland.  I'm sure MoveON would have been more than happy to videotape that.  LOL.


----------



## SShepherd

and violence elsewhere
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/10/15/ap/business/main20120847.shtml






 A man affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street protests tackles a police officer during a march towards Wall Street in New York, on Friday, Oct. 14, 2011. The official cleanup of a plaza in lower Manhattan where protesters have been camped out for a month was postponed early Friday, sending up cheers from a crowd that had scrambled to scrub the park on its own out of fear the effort was merely a pretext to evict them. (AP Photo/Andrew Burton) (Andrew Burton)

In New York City, police arrested 15 people, including protesters who obstructed traffic by standing or sitting in the street and others who turned over trash baskets and hurled bottles. A deputy inspector was sprayed in the face with an unknown liquid.

And a video posted online showed a police officer punching a protester in the side of the head on a crowded street. Police said the altercation occurred after the man tried to elbow the officer in the face and other people in the crowd jumped on the officer, who was sprayed with a liquid coming from the man's direction. Police said the man, who escaped and was wanted for attempted assault on an officer, later said in an online interview he's HIV positive and the officer should be tested medically.


attacks by HIV infected people? rocks, bottles.....
if the cold weather doesn't make them head out I can see potential riots and alot of dead protesters happening.


----------



## FrancSevin

Cowboy said:


> I guess its all about who you beleive Franc, I myself am just after the truth and facts.
> 
> I have read about every article written from both sides of the fence as well as watched mutiple videos not in any video did I see rocks or bottles being thrown or any remnants of what would be left of them.
> 
> What I did see in several still videos were a few scattered water bottles that I am assuming were plastic for two reasons, 1 being they wern't broke the second being its california , I figured glass bottles were banned like anything else. Yes I am being a little sarcastic sorry.
> 
> Shep posted the video which I have also seen and researched about the suposed lady protestor admitting that rocks and bottles were trown before the police acted. I haven't been able to find out who she even is or what connection she has to the protestors so it makes me wonder , WHY now does everyone choose to beleive what these dirty,filthy hippie freeloaders says. Not my words but what most refer to them as .
> 
> That being said , it has been proven by the vids that flashbang grenades were used which the police have repeatedly denied as well as the statement that I posted that a spent bean bag was found near where the young man was injured . True or not I dont know but I allready distrust the police from what they have said and I seen in the many videos.
> 
> I do think it needs to be looked into though as there were several different police forces brought in for this particular protest. That being said no matter what you think about the protestors OR the police we need to have the entire factual story that we all know we are NOT going to get from the Oakland police OR any media covering it IMHO. I also wonder as many video cameras as well as cell phone folks cary these days , where are the pics and videos of the bottles and rocks being thrown Further more where the hell did the rocks come from ?
> 
> I am not trying to argue with anyone and dont have many answers , I just would like to know what actually took place as a young man that defended our freedom was injured severely during what looked to be very peacefull on his part at least.
> 
> I have heard some mention there was not these kind of protests from the Tea party and rightly so , many of them were smart enough to arm them selves while defending the second amendment. Again this happened in California and Oakland so I dont know what the laws are there but maybe plastic water bottles is all they could think of to defend theirselves if needed.
> 
> Just my thoughts from looking at all sides with open eyes .


 
I completely agree with your very well thoughtout post.

So, shall we not presume, at this point, that the police had lethality in mind? 

For those who have not paid attention, the "Season of Rage" was scheduled to start september 19th. It was to appear to be a ground swell movement. At that, the organizers have succeeding in pulling off the intended apperance.
And many in the media and many in mainstream Ameirca believe it.

Strange predictions however, from more than a year ago. Denied vehemently by the principles involcved and the left when challenged, But,now coming true.

Odd that.

I would hazard a guess the ACLU had their briefs already prepared well before September 19th. Just a hunch.

This will get much much worse.
The violence will escalate
Ther obsceneties will escalate 
The media will exploit it.
The White House will exploit it
The left will exploit it.

The rest of us will simply wonder in amazment, what sane men and women of good conscience can do, if anything, about the attempt to disrupt our lives. But that realization will arrive to late for reasonably implementable answers.

And, as we ask sensible questions of each other.......attemnpting to reason responsible solutions......
The "crisis" will be exploited.


We don't come back from this.

franc


----------



## Kane

And all the while America is focused on this, Ahmadenijad is still building his bomb.  Now _that_'s a flash-bang.


----------



## FrancSevin

Kane said:


> And all the while America is focused on this, Ahmadenijad is still building his bomb. Now _that_'s a flash-bang.


 
Any chance the two events are related?


----------



## Cowboy

Kane said:


> And all the while America is focused on this, Ahmadenijad is still building his bomb. Now _that_'s a flash-bang.


 


FrancSevin said:


> Any chance the two events are related?


 Good points after all who was it that said, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste" Or something to that effect. 

   I was truly hoping that maybe some good would come out of the isea of people joining together for a common interest, but with so many taking advantage of the situation for whatever reasons its not looking good IMO. Which also leads me to beleive it may have turned into a timely distraction.


----------



## joec

Cowboy said:


> Good points after all who was it that said, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste" Or something to that effect.
> 
> I was truly hoping that maybe some good would come out of the isea of people joining together for a common interest, but with so many taking advantage of the situation for whatever reasons its not looking good IMO. Which also leads me to beleive it may have turned into a timely distraction.


 
I actually see it differently cowboy. The press will naturally cover the morons or fringe of any movement since they sell papers/time on TV. I still think the majority of this movement had better be watched as it might just change life as we know it too. Other movements did such as I've listed before in other posts. As for comparing it to the tea party I don't since the tea party was bastardized by the right wing pretty quickly. This movement still hasn't picked a side are hardly seem to be against free enterprise but more of a fair system.


----------



## Kane

joec said:


> This movement still hasn't picked a side are hardly seem to be against free enterprise but more of a fair system.


I think it is more a matter of a side picking them.

The longer it goes on, tho, it becomes less of a populist's movement and more so a spectacle exacerbated by the Marxist/Socialist Movements, SEIU, the professional anarchists and even the homeless.  Any mainstream political party would be well served to distance itself from this type of chaos, especially as it moves towards violence.

But, then of course we have Barack Obama. However misguided, only Obama and David Axlerod would hope to channel this energy into an ACORN-esque attempt to scrape road kill votes from the streets.  In fact I hear that he has ordered Michelle into the morasses in an effort to seek out his support.

Tell me it ain't so!

.


----------



## Cowboy

Allthough I dont think the title to this article is neccesary or even accurate IMO , I think its a nice article for a change from the media giving him credit for what he really is instead of making Scott Olson into something he is not. 

I guess I just have a weak spot for all veterans even if sometimes I dont agree with their views. If it wasn't for all of them past and present and future I would not be allowed to voice mine.  


Injured Iraq veteran is face of Occupy movement.

*(CNN)* -- The chaotic scene unfolded with flash-bang grenades, rubber bullets and clouds of smoke. Canisters whizzed through the air amid deafening booms.
Marine Lance Cpl. Scott Olsen went down.
"Medic! Medic!" someone yelled.
Olsen, 24, had seen his share of war in two tours of Iraq as a Marine. He was lucky, returning home physically unscathed.

















Friend of wounded vet speaks 
But Tuesday evening, near the corner of 14th Avenue and Broadway in Oakland, California, Olsen went down.
The video images went viral: streams of crimson flowing down Olsen's head, his black T-shirt adorned with a white dove of peace, the war veteran carried to a hospital.
And with that, the Occupy movement had a face.
"We are all Scott Olsen," declared its website.
"It's ironic," said his uncle George Nygaard, that Olsen should be the poster child for this movement.
Ironic, said Olsen's Marine buddy and current roommate Keith Shannon, that a young man who fought for American freedoms should be injured exercising those same freedoms at home.
He was 14 at the time of the September 11 attacks and graduated in 2005 from Onalaska High School with the same sense of patriotism that drove so many young men and women to join the military.
He was working at Lindy's Subs and Salads when he decided to enlist. Soon, he was in Twentynine Palms in the Mojave Desert for training and the next year on his way to war.
Olsen deployed twice with the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment to Iraq's Anbar province, site of some the war's fiercest battles.
Shannon said they often encountered makeshift bombs in their 2006 tour during which 15 of their fellow Marines died.
Nygaard said Olsen told him about a couple of close calls, one in which he rolled over a roadside bomb that somehow failed to detonate.
Olsen had always been a quiet, shy kid, Nygaard said. A computer whiz, not a jock. And not the type of young man his friends had expected to become an activist.
But war touched Olsen as it does almost everyone who comes that close.
After his last tour of Iraq, he returned home with serious misgivings and gravitated to Nygaard, a former Marine himself who had returned from Vietnam feeling similarly.
In small-town Wisconsin, uncle and nephew talked to each other about the larger issues of war.
"He came back thinking there were better ways to deal with things than war," Nygaard said.
Olsen's parents, Nygaard said, didn't always understand the change in their son. But Nygaard felt an affinity for the young man.
"I am so much more proud of him now than when he was in (the Marine Corps), because he followed through on his convictions," Nygaard said.
Those convictions led Olsen to Madison this year to join protests of a bill by Gov. Scott Walker to weaken organized labor in Wisconsin.
"Scott thought the workers were getting screwed," said Nygaard, who was on the streets with his nephew.
This summer, Olsen's friend Shannon helped him get a job at OPSWAT, a technology firm in San Francisco.
By then, Olsen had become deeply involved with Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War. At one event, he stood with a poster that read: "32 veterans will try to commit suicide every day and 18 will succeed."
"He worried deeply about his fellow brothers and sisters who are veterans," Nygaard said.
That's what prompted him to join the Occupy movement, first in San Francisco and then across the bay in Oakland, Nygaard said. Olsen knew there were many veterans among America's down and out.
For the past three weeks, he was working during the day and out all night at the Occupy protests, Shannon said. He came home only three or four times to the Daly City apartment the two shared -- mainly to do laundry.
Still, the laid-back Olsen was never a screamer. He felt strongly about economic injustice and wanted to add his voice quietly to the fight.
And so, Tuesday night, he was standing there, almost at parade rest, when he went down, witnesses said.
He suffered a skull fracture and was in fair condition in the intensive care unit at Highland Hospital, a hospital spokesman said.
Shannon and Nygaard said Olsen was conscious and communicating by writing on a notepad. Shannon said he has been told Olsen has asked to see him, but doctors have limited visitors. Olsen's parents were with him at the hospital.
Meanwhile, Oakland police are investigating how Olsen was hurt. Protesters gathered for a vigil in his name.
National outcry over police treatment of the protesters -- many others were injured or sickened by tear gas -- prompted Oakland Mayor Jean Quan to take responsibility for those who were hurt.
And Scott Olsen became a household name.
But back in Chaseburg, Wisconsin, Nygaard worried for his nephew.
Concussions, he said, can come back to haunt you, even after you get over the bruises. A lot of veterans know that from Iraq and Afghanistan, where head injuries have been common. Only Olsen's luck ran out here, in America. Nygaard just hopes his nephew will recover to tell his own story.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/28/us/california-occupy-olsen/index.html?iref=allsearch


----------



## Melensdad

joec said:


> This movement still hasn't picked a side are hardly seem to be against free enterprise *but more of a fair system.*



Joe, not picking on you but I have to really ask about the "fair system" part of your statement.

These kids are protesting because they took out student loans at very low interest with very long/generous terms, which they agreed to pay back but then they chose to study fields that did not have any practical job skills so now they can't find work and they want other people to pay their obligations.  How is that 'more fair' to the people who actually got jobs and paid back their student loans?  Or how is that 'more fair' to the people who lent money and will now lose it if the money is not paid back?

Much of the protest seems to be on killing the capitalistic system.  Some are actually advocating communism/socialism while others are simply ignorant and want to retain free enterprise/capitalism but only for their favored industries/companies.  Listening closely to the words these people speak in interviews its pretty clear there is no focus, but they all want a hand out, and most of them want it for themselves.


----------



## Cowboy

The problem IMO is a lot of the protests and what some of them are trying to accomplish never gets reported by the major media. I'm sure the folks in this protest will also be considered idiots because of the chanting and crap but to me the message is not necesarily a bad one. Video at the link. 

On Oct 29,Occupy DC marched on Bank of America, then the US Treasury, and finally the White House demanding a "Robin Hood" tax, a 1/2 of 1% tax on all investment transactions.

Included in the march were large "green arrows" symbolic of the arrows of the original Robin Hood, who in British legend fought against and mirror-imaged a regime that robbed from the poor to give to the rich. The arrows had to be cardboard, real arrows that size would be javelins, which are potent weapons that could not be brought to the area in question.

The Robin Hood tax, being a 1/2 of 1% tax on every investment transaction, would primarily hit speculators and would hammer the "high-frequency" traders who contribute so much to economic instability and market volatility. It would encourage mutual funds and other instruments serving people saving for retirement or school to "buy and hold," and this strategy would encourage stability. Someone buying an investment once would pay only 1/2 of 1% in taxes.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=53e_1319939091


----------



## Cowboy

Also it seems to me that only NYC and Oakland are mainly getting all of the place when in fact its nation wide. Here is the link to their blog page that shows all of the places the protests are taking place, if anyne even cares to look . 

http://occupynews.blogspot.com/2011/10/why-occupy-news-believes-occupy.html


----------



## joec

Melensdad said:


> Joe, not picking on you but I have to really ask about the "fair system" part of your statement.
> 
> These kids are protesting because they took out student loans at very low interest with very long/generous terms, which they agreed to pay back but then they chose to study fields that did not have any practical job skills so now they can't find work and they want other people to pay their obligations. How is that 'more fair' to the people who actually got jobs and paid back their student loans? Or how is that 'more fair' to the people who lent money and will now lose it if the money is not paid back?
> 
> Much of the protest seems to be on killing the capitalistic system. Some are actually advocating communism/socialism while others are simply ignorant and want to retain free enterprise/capitalism but only for their favored industries/companies. Listening closely to the words these people speak in interviews its pretty clear there is no focus, but they all want a hand out, and most of them want it for themselves.


 

Really that is all this is about advocating communism/socialism to you? There is a lot more going on than the small percentage that are advocating that. It is also about income disparity where the top 1% income rose about 278% while it went pretty flat over the same period for the middle and lower classes. We have the highest income disparity since the 1800 in this country and the highest on the planet. It is also about the very banks and government that ran this country into the situation we have now then bailed out the banks and screw the rest of the people.

In closing I don't think it is about bringing down capitalism as it is about not letting it have free run to as it please. I don't trust any institution to run it self with our rules at least I've never seen one do it in my life time.


----------



## jimbo

"We have the highest income disparity since the 1800 in this country and the highest on the planet."

Source please.


----------



## joec

I've caught this over the last couple of weeks from Morning Joe to business news channels as well as local and national news shows. That is my source but will look from something from the CBO or some other group you might accept though every time I bother it is never good enough for this crowd. You can just chalk it up as another crazy opinion by me if you like also. It is freaky though how many of my crazy opinion are right on target long after I post them. Once example was the gun runner scandal going on now. I posted about it months before it hit here and was told my source was bad and I didn't know what I was talking about. DUH.

Edit: Here is the report by the CBO. http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12485


----------



## Kane

Do the 99% understand that the 400 richest of the 1% include hundreds of their revered sports figures, rock stars and movie stars?

All of these exceptional people, whether worth their obscene payoffs or not, help to demonstrate that there are indeed people striking it rich in America and accumulating wealth well beyond the curve.

But they are not all greedy banksters.  Many and perhaps most of them fall into the category of American entertainers ...  the ones the protesters pay big bucks to go see, virtually or in person.

Ironic, ain't it.
.


----------



## joec

Kane said:


> Do the 99% understand that the 400 richest of the 1% include hundreds of their revered sports figures, rock stars and movie stars?
> 
> All of these exceptional people, whether worth their obscene payoffs or not, help to demonstrate that there are indeed people striking it rich in America and accumulating wealth well beyond the curve.
> 
> But they are not all greedy banksters. Many and perhaps most of them fall into the category of American entertainers ... the ones the protesters pay big bucks to go see, virtually or in person.
> 
> Ironic, ain't it.
> .


 
Really perhaps you should look at this list and find perhaps those you grouped with them. I found none in this list at least in the top 60 that I went through.

http://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/#p_1_s_arank_All industries_All states_All categories_


----------



## Melensdad

joec said:


> Really that is all this is about advocating communism/socialism to you? There is a lot more going on than the small percentage that are advocating that.


Yes it pretty much is about that from what I can see.  It seems like much MORE than the small % you claim.  It seems like many of the protestors CLAIM they don't want communism/socialism but they actually are asking for it with some/many of their demands.





joec said:


> It is also about income disparity where the top 1% income rose ...


Yes, I see SOME of that, but really the anger is more about the top 1/100th% not about the top 1%.  And the demands that seem to be spouted off to 'correct' this 'problem' seem to be with some level of socialism and/or communism.





joec said:


> It is also about the very banks and government that ran this country into the situation we have now then bailed out the banks and screw the rest of the people.


That is where all the ignorance seems to come into play.  They say the "people are screwed" but had the banks not been bailed out then many businesses (small ones) would have crashed as credit lines would have vanished.  They say the "people are screwed" but had the banks not been bailed out then MANY MORE HOMES would be foreclosed.  So it is reasonable to argue that the bank bail outs did, in fact, prevent a near total collapse of banking, our monetary system, or at least a full blown depression ... all of which would have dramatically hurt the "rest of the people."

Me, I personally think there should have been no bail out and that the world should have ground to a halt in a depression.  I believe it would have hurt much worse, but that we'd already be in a full blown recovery by now had we taken our medicine back then.  Now we are sputtering along, kicking debt down the road, no recovery in sight, always on the razors edge of default.





joec said:


> In closing I don't think it is about bringing down capitalism ...


We disagree.


----------



## 300 H and H

Not many so called "stars" or pro athletes here....

The players in the top 400 own the teams and the media, and these underlings work for them. 

It is interesting however to read the source of the wealth they in the top 400 list to see where their money has come from. Pipe lines seem to have been very profitable, as well as realestate/investments. When you get down the list a way, lots of Wall Streeters are to be found. Bet they toiled long and hard for their "gains".... 

Lots of billionares, more than you'd imagine...

Regards, kirk


----------



## Dargo

It's nothing but a bunch of lazy ass dead beats wanting to be given something they have not earned nor deserve.  They are showing their stupidity and should really go to school what is paid for by the people they despise so they too can use their education and better themselves in society.  In all of history, no group of people became wealthy by being dumbasses and demanding entitlement programs that would bankrupt their country and raise unemployment to levels unimaginable.  If brains were dynamite, these deadbeats wouldn't have enough powder to blow their noses.  They need to piss off and go get a job!


----------



## FrancSevin

Cowboy said:


> The problem IMO is a lot of the protests and what some of them are trying to accomplish never gets reported by the major media. I'm sure the folks in this protest will also be considered idiots because of the chanting and crap but to me the message is not necesarily a bad one. Video at the link.
> 
> On Oct 29,Occupy DC marched on Bank of America, then the US Treasury, and finally the White House demanding a "Robin Hood" tax, a 1/2 of 1% tax on all investment transactions.
> 
> Included in the march were large "green arrows" symbolic of the arrows of the original Robin Hood, who in British legend fought against and mirror-imaged a regime that robbed from the poor to give to the rich. The arrows had to be cardboard, real arrows that size would be javelins, which are potent weapons that could not be brought to the area in question.
> 
> The Robin Hood tax, being a 1/2 of 1% tax on every investment transaction, would primarily hit speculators and would hammer the "high-frequency" traders who contribute so much to economic instability and market volatility. It would encourage mutual funds and other instruments serving people saving for retirement or school to "buy and hold," and this strategy would encourage stability. Someone buying an investment once would pay only 1/2 of 1% in taxes.
> 
> http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=53e_1319939091


 
It sems we always resort to some sort of new tax everytime our ntion wants to level out the dissparity of the rich getting rricher and the poor getting poorer.

Yet despite since the inception of the concept of progressive taxes our disparity between the rich and the poor has simply increased. Asking our Corporations to collect taxes from their customers to hand over the the government has not helped "equalize" wealth either.

History shows that the last forty yearsour Congress has spent it's time on dicking around with special tax targeting, deductions, TIF's, Loophoes etc, which has only magnified the disparity. I find it truely unlikely that the solution would be another layer of taxes on any group rich, poor, or the common Joe's and Bettys that get out of bed everday and dutifly report to their jobs. 

The so-called Robin Hood tax sounds so noble in title, but in effect will be no different. Perhaps it is time to recognize that _targeted_ taxation is not _equa_l taxation and perhaps is not an effective method to create a more equal distribution of our nation's potentials of properity and wealth.

I agree the system needs to be changed but another layer of duct tape won't fix the system. I believe it is time to rip it all off and start with a new version of the old system. Calibrate taxes to income , tax everyone's income and tax property , everyone's property on the same scale. Thereby keeping one of the original founding principles of a equal burden of taxes on each equal citizen.

Not only is it fair but each of us would then clearly know how much of our labour is consigned to the government. Unlike today where most of us have no idea.

It's not about entitlments or boondogle loans and grants to worthless "green" technologies or Snail Darter research holding back construction of a Hydroelectric dam. This stupid overspending and rampant cronyism is the result of a concentration of wealth, not so much in the families of rich Industrial Barons, but in our own Government. Why do lobbiests and corporations go to DC?.....As Dilliger put it once......"that's where the money is."

More than 50% of a person's income goes to the governments under which they live. How many of us actually know that?
How many are mad about that?

Perhaps it is truely time we did something about that?


franc


----------



## Cowboy

FrancSevin said:


> It sems we always resort to some sort of new tax everytime our ntion wants to level out the dissparity of the rich getting rricher and the poor getting poorer.
> 
> Yet despite since the inception of the concept of progressive taxes our disparity between the rich and the poor has simply increased. Asking our Corporations to collect taxes from their customers to hand over the the government has not helped "equalize" wealth either.
> 
> History shows that the last forty yearsour Congress has spent it's time on dicking around with special tax targeting, deductions, TIF's, Loophoes etc, which has only magnified the disparity. I find it truely unlikely that the solution would be another layer of taxes on any group rich, poor, or the common Joe's and Bettys that get out of bed everday and dutifly report to their jobs.
> 
> The so-called Robin Hood tax sounds so noble in title, but in effect will be no different. Perhaps it is time to recognize that _targeted_ taxation is not _equa_l taxation and perhaps is not an effective method to create a more equal distribution of our nation's potentials of properity and wealth.
> 
> I agree the system needs to be changed but another layer of duct tape won't fix the system. I believe it is time to rip it all off and start with a new version of the old system. Calibrate taxes to income , tax everyone's income and tax property , everyone's property on the same scale. Thereby keeping one of the original founding principles of a equal burden of taxes on each equal citizen.
> 
> Not only is it fair but each of us would then clearly know how much of our labour is consigned to the government. Unlike today where most of us have no idea.
> 
> It's not about entitlments or boondogle loans and grants to worthless "green" technologies or Snail Darter research holding back construction of a Hydroelectric dam. This stupid overspending and rampant cronyism is the result of a concentration of wealth, not so much in the families of rich Industrial Barons, but in our own Government. Why do lobbiests and corporations go to DC?.....As Dilliger put it once......"that's where the money is."
> 
> More than 50% of a person's income goes to the governments under which they live. How many of us actually know that?
> How many are mad about that?
> 
> Perhaps it is truely time we did something about that?
> 
> 
> franc


Very well put Franc and I agree , I really dont understand quite what the point is of the Robin hood tax or wether its a good idea or not . I just found it an interesting idea that these protestors are mentioning . 

  I dont know much about big money these days because we dont have much left thanks to our government, not that I ever had a lot but I have been down and back up many times in my life and everytime I have been at the upside it seems the government allways wants more then I can afford. But I doubt I am much different then most here when it comes to that , I recon I just like to bitch more . 

 I just get tired of seeing all of the corruption in wallstreet as well as our government that it seems to me the rich now own. Theres a big difference IMO from the honest working folks that get rich due to their hard work and dilligence rather then those that get rich from using others money for their own wealth , many times bankrupting those that had faith to invest. 

  But like I said I dont understand the high finance world these days, but I do know I would be in prison if I even tried to pull what many are getting away with these days, and no one seems to be held accountable for their crimes .


----------



## FrancSevin

Cowboy said:


> Very well put Franc and I agree , I really dont understand quite what the point is of the Robin hood tax or wether its a good idea or not . I just found it an interesting idea that these protestors are mentioning .
> 
> I dont know much about big money these days because we dont have much left thanks to our government, not that I ever had a lot but I have been down and back up many times in my life and everytime I have been at the upside it seems the government allways wants more then I can afford. But I doubt I am much different then most here when it comes to that , I recon I just like to bitch more .
> 
> I just get tired of seeing all of the corruption in wallstreet as well as our government that it seems to me the rich now own. Theres a big difference IMO from the honest working folks that get rich due to their hard work and dilligence rather then those that get rich from using others money for their own wealth , many times bankrupting those that had faith to invest.
> 
> But like I said I dont understand the high finance world these days, but I do know I would be in prison if I even tried to pull what many are getting away with these days, and no one seems to be held accountable for their crimes .


 
Corruption on Wall Street?
Never forget that Wall Street is connected to DC AT THE HIP. Actually the connection is more of a sexual act but I did not want to perverse my comments.

There are many who work hard on Wall Street, honestly tending portfolios for their clients and properly earning the fees for their expertise. But, when CEO's get golden parachutes despite the failing of their card houses, one has to be angered. Especially when our government funds such shenaegans with Tax payer funded bailouts.

It takes large doses of cash to get re-elected, and it takes large doses of cash to coverup financial boondoogles, frauds and scams.

Again, I remind all of why this relationship exist......because for the benefit each side, the money grubbers and the politicians...that's where the money is. 

We all need to stop sending so much of it there. And, we need to stop backing Wall Street gamblers.

In 1920 Wall Street and the Big banks suffered the worst collapse in  our nation's history.  The government did nothing. No bailouts, no loans, no new regulations.

The "crisis" was over in 6 months.  Only the rich and the speculators involved were affected. Most Americans had no idea it even happened. 

Did you?

franc


----------



## joec

FrancSevin said:


> Corruption on Wall Street?
> Never forget that Wall Street is connected to DC AT THE HIP. Actually the connection is more of a sexual act but I did not want to perverse my comments.
> 
> There are many who work hard on Wall Street, honestly tending portfolios for their clients and properly earning the fees for their expertise. But, when CEO's get golden parachutes despite the failing of their card houses, one has to be angered. Especially when our government funds such shenaegans with Tax payer funded bailouts.
> 
> It takes large doses of cash to get re-elected, and it takes large doses of cash to coverup financial boondoogles, frauds and scams.
> 
> Again, I remind all of why this relationship exist......because for the benefit each side, the money grubbers and the politicians...that's where the money is.
> 
> We all need to stop sending so much of it there. And, we need to stop backing Wall Street gamblers.
> 
> In 1920 Wall Street and the Big banks suffered the worst collapse in our nation's history. The government did nothing. No bailouts, no loans, no new regulations.
> 
> The "crisis" was over in 6 months. Only the rich and the speculators involved were affected. Most Americans had no idea it even happened.
> 
> Did you?
> 
> franc


 
Now this I agree with 90% as this has been coming for a very long time with each party sharing in where it is now. I also think that if we had not bailed them out it very well might have been over by now, but do have some doubts though. It does seem to be getting better but a lot slower than I think it should. 

I do think there needs to be regulations on what banks can do as well as most industries. If they are allowed to set the rules what we have is what is happening now. I don't advocate as it completely was however we have swung too far away from regulations in my opinion.


----------



## Kane

joec said:


> I do think there needs to be regulations on what banks can do as well as most industries. If they are allowed to set the rules what we have is what is happening now. I don't advocate as it completely was however we have swung too far away from regulations in my opinion.


Often times people will speak to "social value" when wrangling with the issues of regulation and taxation ... all the way back to the Banking Act of 1933, I suppose ... which is really akin to the left's concept of the "Robin Hood" tax.

And frankly, it wouldn't bother me if we looked at "social value" when it comes to taxation, particularly if this OWS broohaha and the deadlock in Congress actually results in Robin Hood taxing the rich.

You see, once upon a time corporate America actually produced something of "social value" in the terms of the manufacturing and service sectors.  Cars, dishwashers, lung transplants, oil, bananas to beef cattle AND small banking financial services.  These corporations, these 'persons', risked capital to provide a product (value) at a profit.  This is indeed capitalism at its finest.  And the profits from entering into capitalism and providing 'value' were taxed accordingly.

Some would argue that the 1999 repeal of Glass Steagall changed the rules of capitalism and again allowed huge profiteering by the investment houses for providing absolutely nothing of social value.  I have to believe that THIS is what the 99% are upset about, and moreover, I would have to agree.  For the banksters to take literally trillions of $$$ out of circulation from the rest of society (ala hedgefund CDS and the like) without in turn providing anything of social value _does_ seem obscene.  Particularly since the banksters, no longer limited to traditional banking services, have accumulated huge sums in imaginary profits betting with other people's money; the forgotten man's money, as pointed out in another thread.

So it wouldn't bother me at all if Robin Hood taxed the shit out of hedgefund profits.  Perhaps heavy taxation on the gambling house profits that have little or nothing to do with providing social value would be a deterrent risking the money of the forgotten man. And even tho most would detest giving more money to the government to return as IT chooses to society, to me it is better than being lost to the zither of the hated one percent.

.


----------



## Bamby

FrancSevin said:


> In 1920 Wall Street and the Big banks suffered the worst collapse in  our nation's history.  The government did nothing. No bailouts, no loans, no new regulations.
> 
> The "crisis" was over in 6 months.  Only the rich and the speculators involved were affected. Most Americans had no idea it even happened.
> 
> Did you?
> 
> franc



The Federal Reserve System
The Money Masters--Educational Video's
What is Really about-- the three part presentation

Is Posted Here, I given up attempting to embed the u-tubes here

All three worth viewing, for the Quoted Part in post view apx. 2:20 in part Two
The Banks ARE RESPONSABLE for most of not all the mess we're facing as a nation


----------



## joec

Bamby said:


> The Federal Reserve System
> The Money Masters--Educational Video's
> What is Really about-- a three part presentation
> 
> Part 1/3
> 
> ">
> 
> Part 2/3
> 
> ">
> 
> Part 3/3
> 
> ">
> 
> All three worth viewing, for the Quoted Part in post view apx. 2:20 in part Two
> The Banks ARE RESPONSABLE for most of not all the mess we're facing as a nation


 
What ever the links are to they didn't post Bambi.


----------



## Bamby

joec said:


> What ever the links are to they didn't post Bambi.



So Very Right you are, I edited the OP and gave up the embedded u-tubes


----------



## joec

Ok I looked them up here is the full version.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXt1cayx0hs"]The Money Masters - Full      - YouTube[/ame]


----------



## Bamby

_Now that maybe some have a grasp on the Bankers... We're now off to "Riddle Me This" and see how the right wing explains how we're to compete against this:_

The San Francisco Bridge That's Being Built In China Is Almost Done

China  will send the final four segments of the new Oakland Bay Bridge 6,500  miles to California next month as the 2,050 foot project enters its  final phase.


China, a savvy, confident bidder of construction and  engineering projects throughout the world is now bringing that  experience to bear in the U.S.


According to the Guardian,


> _...five  of the world's top 10 contractors, in terms of revenue, are now  Chinese, with likes of China State Construction Engineering Group  (CSCEC) overtaking established American giants like Bechtel._
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _CSCEC has *already built seven schools in the US*,  apartment blocks in Washington DC and New York and is in the middle of  building a 4,000-room casino in Atlantic City. In New York, it has won *contracts to renovate the subway system, build a new metro platform near Yankee stadium*, and *refurbish the Alexander Hamilton Bridge* over the Harlem river._


Chinese engineering companies have several things going for them:


Financing, companies are mostly state owned and have much easier access to the large sums required in contracting
They transfer Chinese workers who work much more cheaply
They use construction machinery built in China
Because of the large profit margin, they hire globally renown  architects to demonstrate they can deliver better designs than anyone  else
 The main barrier to full Western expansion is seen as cultural, but  likely something the Chinese will master with time and experience while  doing business in the U.S. *Update:* An article was forwarded from Foreign Policy after this post went up this morning and mentions some salient points.



> California saved $400 million dollars by going with the Chinese workers  who make $12 a day toiling from 7 a.m. till 11 p.m., seven days a week,  and sleep in a company dorm room.
> 
> _So the $400 million estimated saving is largely a result of cheap  Chinese labor. But is that a pure saving? If California and/or the  United States have no unemployed workers who could make steel or polish  it or do fabrications, then it is a pure saving. But last time I looked  both California and the United States have close to 10 percent reported  unemployment and closer to 15 percent if we count part time workers who  want full time work and those who have become discouraged from even  looking for work. Now those unemployed workers get some unemployment  compensation and their health care has to be paid for by public means if  they can't pay it themselves, and the banks have to repossess their  homes when they can't make the mortgage payments, and then states and  the Feds have to bail out the banks. I can count way over $400 million  in unemployment costs pretty quickly and that's without even considering  the downward pressure on all wages in the United States that arises  from the import of these low wage products in the midst of high  unemployment. I mean, I guess we could have had a cheaper Golden Gate  Bridge in 1937 if we had just brought over a bunch of Chinese workers to  do the job. But that would have defeated the purpose of building the  bridge which was a major project in the effort to cut U.S. unemployment  in the midst of the Depression._


The author cites a story in Sunday's New York Times. Considering the enormity of decisions like this, both pieces are worth checking out.



Read more: http://articles.businessinsider.com...rkers-unemployment-compensation#ixzz1cIapvHCM

_Personally I'm thinking a lot more people should actually get involved in the movement myself..

_


----------



## Kane

We should surely ask if Mayor Jean Quan, the same mayor now apologizing to the OWS gang for the Oakland Police "brutality", had any part in the decision-making process to outsource this new Oakland Bay Bridge to the Chinese.

And by the way, *Bamby*, why is this a riddle for the right wing?  Since when in California have decisions been made by the right wing?

.


----------



## Bamby

Kane said:


> And by the way, *Bamby*, why is this a riddle for the right wing?  Since when in California have decisions been made by the right wing?
> 
> .



Why are we hiring contractors from China to build American infrastructure, when we have a perfectly good workforce here in the states? 

The answer is profit, and it’s the reason why Republican politicians and many corporations do not support infrastructure projects that would put millions of Americans to work. The Chinese contracting firms are government owned, they are able to bid for contracts at very low prices. 

In other words, their labor is cheap. American companies don’t want to hire Americans to do the work when they can call up Communist China to come do the work instead. This is particularly helpful to Republicans politicians because their campaigns receive the extra profits made by these companies. It’s a win-win. But it’s a loss to Americans who may be desperate to find work.

Obviously, Republicans will say that all we need to do is end regulations and abolish the minimum wage to entice companies to start hiring Americans. But that’s pretty un-American if you ask me. What Republicans are saying is that if we want to beat China, we need to be just like them.

That’s very hypocritical considering the rhetoric Republicans have been using to slam communism all the while praising the free market system. How exactly “free” is the free market when they hire the Chinese to do jobs that Americans should be doing? How are private enterprises "patriotic" when they favor Chinese workers over American workers? 

The reason America became the richest country in the world is because we made sure that Americans were paid livable wages and not pennies. We passed regulations, (maybe quite a few too many) to keep American workers safe on the job and American consumers safe at home. And private industry employed Americans, and made products in America. 

That is how America became an economical superpower. American companies would still make huge profits by hiring Americans at livable wages. They just don’t want to because they want to make disgustingly bigger profits. It’s all about the bottom line.

We shouldn’t be hiring Chinese contractors to build our infrastructure. We should build our schools. We should build our roads and bridges. The fact is, by hiring such contractors, the American private sector is relying on a foreign government owned industry to do the work, all while they oppose the United States government getting involved in infrastructure programs that would create American jobs for American citizens. 

It’s time for the American government to take back what American corporations have been giving away to the Chinese for the last decade. And the only way to do that is to fire the Republican politicians who only represent the interests of corporations and replace them with politicians that want to create jobs for Americans. Because it is clear, that private industry will not hire Americans to do the work when they can hire slave labor do it instead. We cannot allow it to become "the new American way."


----------



## SShepherd

*The answer is profit, and it’s the reason why Republican politicians and many corporations do not support infrastructure projects that would put millions of Americans to work. *

do you have proof this is the motivation of the "right wing republicans" , or just the goal of business ( to profit) in a business climate in this country that's not friendly  to business ?

perhaps the reason the so called "infrastructure" projects are not popular is; 
We're broke
they're short term jobs at best (kicking the can down the road)
it's just another govt. job, which ends up costing more than it should.


----------



## FrancSevin

*"The answer is profit, and it’s the reason why Republican politicians and many corporations do not support infrastructure projects that would put millions of Americans to work. "*

WOW.  Have I had it figured all wrong.

I was unaware that one could *not* make a profit from Infastructure projects. I always assumed it was possible with honest hard work and the delivery to the customer, of their expectations.

I was not aware that one could not make a profit by puting people to work.

I was not aware one could not profit delivering goods and sevices customers, including governments, what they wanted and were willing to pay for.

Been doing these things for 30 years now in my own busnesses. Nobody told me about this. Wasted all that time college and Business school.

So, whatever this is I have accumulated over the years, do we have a name for it 

And when companies run by flaming Liberal Democratics do it,what do they call the proceeds?


----------



## joec

Nothing wrong with making a fair profit or return on labor and materials used plus a fair increase. It is when you either tilt the scale lowering the quality of materials or labor costs to increase one profit that it becomes wrong charging the same or higher rate that it becomes a problem. Now that is just my opinion personally so nothing to prove as I just did. I might ask also what is a fair return on money invested in a job, 10%, 20%, 100%, 500% well what is it if anyone has the answer please spell it out.


----------



## SShepherd

joec said:


> Nothing wrong with making a fair profit or return on labor and materials used plus a fair increase. It is when you either tilt the scale lowering the quality of materials or labor costs to increase one profit that it becomes wrong charging the same or higher rate that it becomes a problem. Now that is just my opinion personally so nothing to prove as I just did. I might ask also what is a fair return on money invested in a job, 10%, 20%, 100%, 500% well what is it if anyone has the answer please spell it out.


 

I think that's part of the entire issue here Joe. Many are crying the that the so called rich should "pay their_ fair_ share", that companies are making "_unfair_ profits"
Who decides what's_ fair_? it used to be the market, when things cost too much people didn't buy it.
the reality of what those who keep crying for_ fair_, is that it just means _more_.

I don't remember seeing anything pertaining to fair in the constitution, bill of rights, or anywhere else.
What this country used to be about was giving everyone the oppertunity to succeed.


----------



## joec

SShepherd said:


> I think that's part of the entire issue here Joe. Many are crying the that the so called rich should "pay their_ fair_ share", that companies are making "_unfair_ profits"
> Who decides what's_ fair_? it used to be the market, when things cost too much people didn't buy it.
> the reality of what those who keep crying for_ fair_, is that it just means _more_.
> 
> I don't remember seeing anything pertaining to fair in the constitution, bill of rights, or anywhere else.
> What this country used to be about was giving everyone the oppertunity to succeed.


 
I can't argue with that and the word fair is just another 4 letter word really. As for the constitution it does cover somethings that seem to have been missed by most and are really stated clearly in the very first paragraph of the document and I quote.



> We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.


 
The Preamble pretty much spells out the purpose of what it was written for.


----------



## SShepherd

it says promote the genereal welfare, not create. (I'm not saying this in a sarcastic way by any means )
There's an increasing group that feels the govt. needs to create jobs to improve their lives.


----------



## Kane

Bamby said:


> Why are we hiring contractors from China to build American infrastructure, when we have a perfectly good workforce here in the states?
> 
> The answer is profit, and it’s the reason why Republican politicians and many corporations do not support infrastructure projects that would put millions of Americans to work. The Chinese contracting firms are government owned, they are able to bid for contracts at very low prices.
> 
> In other words, their labor is cheap. American companies don’t want to hire Americans to do the work when they can call up Communist China to come do the work instead. This is particularly helpful to Republicans politicians because their campaigns receive the extra profits made by these companies. It’s a win-win. But it’s a loss to Americans who may be desperate to find work.
> 
> Obviously, Republicans will say that all we need to do is end regulations and abolish the minimum wage to entice companies to start hiring Americans. But that’s pretty un-American if you ask me. What Republicans are saying is that if we want to beat China, we need to be just like them.
> 
> That’s very hypocritical considering the rhetoric Republicans have been using to slam communism all the while praising the free market system. How exactly “free” is the free market when they hire the Chinese to do jobs that Americans should be doing? How are private enterprises "patriotic" when they favor Chinese workers over American workers?
> 
> The reason America became the richest country in the world is because we made sure that Americans were paid livable wages and not pennies. We passed regulations, (maybe quite a few too many) to keep American workers safe on the job and American consumers safe at home. And private industry employed Americans, and made products in America.
> 
> That is how America became an economical superpower. American companies would still make huge profits by hiring Americans at livable wages. They just don’t want to because they want to make disgustingly bigger profits. It’s all about the bottom line.
> 
> We shouldn’t be hiring Chinese contractors to build our infrastructure. We should build our schools. We should build our roads and bridges. The fact is, by hiring such contractors, the American private sector is relying on a foreign government owned industry to do the work, all while they oppose the United States government getting involved in infrastructure programs that would create American jobs for American citizens.
> 
> It’s time for the American government to take back what American corporations have been giving away to the Chinese for the last decade. And the only way to do that is to fire the Republican politicians who only represent the interests of corporations and replace them with politicians that want to create jobs for Americans. Because it is clear, that private industry will not hire Americans to do the work when they can hire slave labor do it instead. We cannot allow it to become "the new American way."





> *joec* said: Nothing wrong with making a fair profit or return on labor and materials  used plus a fair increase. It is when you either tilt the scale  lowering the quality of materials or labor costs to increase one profit  that it becomes wrong charging the same or higher rate that it becomes a  problem. Now that is just my opinion personally so nothing to prove as I  just did. I might ask also what is a fair return on money invested in a  job, 10%, 20%, 100%, 500% well what is it if anyone has the answer  please spell it out.


*Bamby*, thank you sincerely for your thoughtful response.  Clearly you have weighed the issues, formed an opinion and have relayed it here with best  clarity.

Unfortunate as it may be, tho, it does appear that some folks are still buying what Obama is selling.

It is late on the East Coast and I owe you a better explanation.  So tomorrow I promise we can talk more about the exodus of American jobs overseas.  And to you too,* joec*.  As a construction manager with forty-some years in the business, we'll talk more about profit margins in construction.  You both just might be surprised.  I can tell you right now with all confidence that the construction business (with perhaps the exception of overseas military work) is politically and ideologically neutral.

In the meantime, lay off the koolaid.

.


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## FrancSevin

joec said:


> Nothing wrong with making a fair profit or return on labor and materials used plus a fair increase. It is when you either tilt the scale lowering the quality of materials or labor costs to increase one profit that it becomes wrong charging the same or higher rate that it becomes a problem. Now that is just my opinion personally so nothing to prove as I just did. I might ask also what is a fair return on money invested in a job, 10%, 20%, 100%, 500% well what is it if anyone has the answer please spell it out.


 

Companies who make cheap products not worth the value they ask, lose their customers. GM and Chrysler took so much value out of their cars in the last ten years nobody wanted to buy them over what was offered from the Orient and Europe.

So we, or should I say Washington, bailed them out.

That's putting an unfair thumb on the scale.

The free market doesn't allow the tilting of the scales. If I learned anything in 30 years of owning my own business I learned this.

That and,,,,,, Payback is a bitch.

As for your question,the fair and proper selling price for any item follows one universal truth.....Whatever the customer is willing to pay for it. 

Unless,as in the case of car insurance and now health insurance, the government again puts it's thumb on the scale.

Profit is quite irrelavent to the equation. And the term "fair" is as well.



franc


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## JEV

Contract awarded by a democrat controlled entity, yet it's the republicans fault. Sometimes I feel as thought I've entered the twilight zone when i open ForumsForums.


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## SShepherd

you know why these people (OWS) can't quantify what fair means regarding taxes and profits?

because fair is a feeling/emotion to them


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## waybomb

What's the 10th commandment about? (hint - Exodus 20:17 "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that [is] thy neighbor's.") God only gave Moses 10 items; and the 10th damns all these protesters to hell.   Burn, baby, burn.


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## SShepherd

waybomb said:


> What's the 10th commandment about? (hint - Exodus 20:17 "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that [is] thy neighbor's.") God only gave Moses 10 items; and the 10th damns all these protesters to hell. Burn, baby, burn.


 remember...most of them are probably athiests, or pagans.

religion was just created to enslave the weak minded


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## jimbo

I'm not sure what religion or lack thereof has do to with these idiots camping in parks demanding stuff.   Probably has more to do with their education, parenting, or the government telling them they are owed.


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## RedRocker

Sorry if this is a repost, but it sums it up nicely.
http://www.pjtv.com/s/GYZTKNQ


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## SShepherd

RedRocker said:


> Sorry if this is a repost, but it sums it up nicely.
> http://www.pjtv.com/s/GYZTKNQ


 
it's so simple, they'll never get it.


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## FrancSevin

RedRocker said:


> Sorry if this is a repost, but it sums it up nicely.
> http://www.pjtv.com/s/GYZTKNQ


 
perfect!


franc


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## pirate_girl

How about cowards and vandals?
Rome-

http://faithonthehighwire.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-rome-cowards-vandals.html

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0b6QZWnsFA"]Occupy Rome Rioter Smashes Virgin Mary Statue      - YouTube[/ame]


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## Kane

pirate_girl said:


> How about cowards and vandals?
> Rome-


Even grown adults have been known to do this.  Now I don't mind the statue of Saddam being pulled down, but remember the destruction of the Sphinx and other early-history Islamic monuments at the close of fighting in WWII Africa?

Fun with howitzers and tanks.
.


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## nixon

That's just an isolated incident , PG . Just look at Seattle . According to CNN they are a balanced group of concerned ,and productive folks . 
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matt-hadro/2011/11/01/cnn-segment-hypes-diversity-occupy-seattle
And You know in Your heart that CNN would never ,ever slant any news !


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## muleman RIP




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