Occupy Wall Street

That's.. I'm torn between fear and hope. Looks like we've reached a turning point in history.

Let's hope we reach more than this one. Wall Street must pay for their crimes eventually, and I rather them sooner.

While the sentiment is nice, it won't help anything, as money will still influence all levels of politics in the form of "gifts". The Power of Friendship can be used for evil as readily as good.

What if we Occupy the Federal Reserve next, where the money is being "made"?

Bottom line, we've let too many people wh are bad for this nation take power. Where's the justice?! Where's the real fight?!!

edited 9th Sep '11 7:01:39 AM by LostAnarchist

The solution: get more and more people to vote, not just in the Presidential election but local and state ones. Because the opposition is ruthless; you give an inch, they take a mile, punch you in the gut and call you weak for it. Reality is naturally stacked in favor of the powerful, and they'll legislate to keep it that way. Don't give them the chance. Be stronger than that.

Sounds stupid. Won't work. Will hinder traffic. Endorsed by Anonymous.

And protesting/complaining just isn't enough anymore IMHO. They are only small ailments to this disease that is Wall Street, just like other things making me hate my country.

There will come a time when this rings true... For now, I support this.

edited 9th Sep '11 7:13:09 AM by LostAnarchist

Meh, that one flier with the guy wielding a sword and a hammer reminds me a little too much of russian propaganda posters from the cold war..

That was a bit cheesy. However, "would Communism fix America?" is always a question that comes to my mind, so...

edited 9th Sep '11 7:32:41 AM by LostAnarchist

I'm all for peaceful protests! Best of luck to them.

America's problems aren't really that significant, it wouldn't take much marginal change to fix them. That's my opinion anyway.

@Barkey: I think that's the joke, actually: it's a bit of self-aware parody, I Resemble That Remark! or Insult Backfire, and Refuge in Audacity.

...well, they'd probably just get thrown out for loitering.

Once again, as nice as it is to go with the whole "civil disobedience" crap, it's usually better to just vote. If people expended half the effort they do on complaining, protesting, and generally doing stupid shit on voting, we might be more center or Left-leaning than we are now...

You mean people who go as far as risking life and limb on the streets don't bother taking a walk to the voting booth? Unless they're against the entire party system and are suggesting (or strongly expecting someone to suggest) alternatives that'd never fly through the party system... I mean, what sort of anti-party party would vote for its own destruction...? Hey wait a minute...

what? so you're saying we are far to the right? like, as in now?

...yeah. I thought that was common knowledge.

Of course, whether this is bad or not is subjective, but I imagine these people don't like it. So instead of complaining and doing stupid shit, go vote. The system doesn't work because people do everything but use the system. Gee, and we wonder why it's broken...

Compared to many other first-world nations? Yes, the US is far to the right.

USAF, who says these people don't vote?

edited 9th Sep '11 2:57:13 PM by YoungMachete

If they all voted (or at least, all of them that can vote), the country wouldn't skew to the Right nearly as much as it does.

I think we have about an equal number of people who think the Republicans right versus the opposite. Hell, less people vote for the Republicans.

I suppose it's also partially because the Electoral College is pretty damn stupid, but that's only going to affect the Presidency...

Point is, they shouldn't be bothering with the protests, they should be voting...

"If they all voted (or at least, all of them that can vote), the country wouldn't skew to the Right nearly as much as it does."

Citation needed.

There are not a lot of these protesters. There are, however, a great amount of small-town Americans who are very right-oriented. If you look at an electoral map of America, it's less Red state-Blue state and more of a rural-urban split. Rural areas are far less often seen on the news protesting or on the internet posting about things like this. It may seem to you that there's more left-leaning people, but I have seen very little evidence of that.

1. How do you know these people don't vote?

2. How do you know that if these people voted the nation would not be this far to the right?

edited 9th Sep '11 3:12:26 PM by YoungMachete

It's a nice idea, but the thing they are protesting against is too big and universal. The protests in Tahrir were against a specific person and what his regime represented. These guys need to specifically identify who the enemy is and stay there until that specific person is gone or a specific policy is changed.

If you could order up a crowd to protest one specific person or policy what would it be?

false equivalency. They can, and most certainly do, both.

edited 9th Sep '11 3:14:12 PM by thatguythere47

~shrug~

If that's true, then democracy is working. I don't know what to tell you. If you lose the vote, then you lose the vote.

Yes, it is. None of us are debating this. I was questioning your opinion of protests like this being "useless" Things like that were the core of the civil rights movement.

Protests work if they're conducted peacefully and manage to convince people you're right. These two rarely happen concurrently, however. The Civil Rights Movement was almost a perfect storm of sorts. I don't see such a thing happening again in the near-future, and even then remember that after some basic civil rights stuff got passed it went from peaceful to mindless rioting (of course, MLK Jr. dying didn't help matters).

I think voting is better than protests. I'm not saying you shouldn't protest. But don't set yourself up to fail. If you can't do it without breaking shit, hurting people, or otherwise going against the law—which will hurt your cause by itself, mind you—I don't know why you'd bother. Since that happens most of the time in protest situations...

This may not go well. All it will take is one thrown rock, bottle, or brick for it turn into a shit storm. That is even if the authorities let anyone near it.

Trying to occupy the federal reserve would get you a swift bullet to the head.