Occupy Wall Street

~shrug~

Although I think the non-reporting on the issue is pretty dumb, I don't agree with these people (or at least, I think they're unrealistic and delusional), so I'm not going to shed a tear over it instead of, you know, attempting to do something more constructive with my time...

@kash: You serious?

What makes it realistic is their underestimation of others' apathy, nothing more.

I meant the censorship, though apathy plays a factor as well.

edited 26th Sep '11 8:08:23 PM by Kino

Yahoo said they did it accidentally, but I call BS because they're owned by AOL Time-Warner...

An article talking about that from 6 days ago

Here is a Wall Street Journal article on it. Too bad it is now subscriber-only, but the comments are still interesting.

A youtube written article using a video of a previous protest.

@ people dismissing these protesters for various reasons: You are right. It is quite hard to take them seriously, especially with no clear leader or goals. What I find harder to dismiss are the reasons behind this protest. Unless something is done (and soon), there will be many more people hitting the streets in protest.

edited 26th Sep '11 10:18:44 PM by Belian

Except there are clear goals: make the top 1% richest people pay their taxes. Regulate banks and Wall Street more closer to prevent financial bubbles. Abolish tax havens etc. but none of this gets reported.

As for lack of leaders, that's kinda the point.. This isn't a guerilla election campaign for some politician, and movements that rally around one person tend to have problems.

I don't know about that, but they don't need a single person in charge. Maybe a few people that can keep them organized and keep morale up I think would help them be more successful. It's great if you've got a lot of people there, but on the whole people tend to fall apart without some sort of leadership keeping them focused.

And now I'm curious about what these protesters think of Obama's recent plans involving increasing taxes on the rich.

Obama's and Buffet's proposal, and the Republican response to it are instrumental to the birth of this movement. It is also inspired by the Spanish Democratica Real Ya and other European protests against making the people pay for the recession the banks caused, and the Arab Spring. the movement is a bit ill-defined, but the whole point of that is to welcome a diverse political coalition instead of some party line, and really isn't all that more vague than the Tea Party. One is "make the rich pay their taxes" one is "less taxes".

By the way, I heard somewhere that Buffett owed $1 billion in back taxes... *looks for an article to back up claim*

Wow, it is worse than I thought. Same person who told me about his taxes thinks that the "Warren Buffett rule" should be renamed to "just another rule Warren Buffett can break."

Looks like the biggest problem with the tax code is not the tax rate, but collecting taxes from millionaires at all.

Also there is a basic argument for keeping the general capital gains tax low and have higher rates phased in: capital gains is already taxed twice and there are a number of smaller companies who would be significantly effected by a higher capital gains tax.

Why are we so cynical about protesting????

I might not agree with everything Noam Chomsky says but he is right about something, and remember he is the worlds most important linguist, we, in the US, are quite indoctrinated.

PROTEST DONT NEED ORGANIZERS!!!!!!!!!!! and they seldom do have them. Unless its a FOX NEWS rally, but we are not aming to be like that.

OR at least not public figures. No offense but U guys seem to know little about protesting.

edited 27th Sep '11 7:53:22 AM by Baff

I agree that they don't. At least, not to start out. The problem is that it is hard to have a clear goal and be taken seriously until somebody (could be a group) becomes the leader. Example: Countries had a hard time working with the Libyan rebellion until they had clear leadership. Not a perfect comparison (they needed leadership to fight better as well), but the basics are the same.

(veering offtopic:) I'm a firm believer in the best and most successful protests having a leadership structure if not a definite hierarchy (I love the idea of nonhierarchical structures but haven't seen any that work as well, sadly). Its disadvantages (can be hampered by poor leadership, danger of becoming a closed circle, members more visible and may be arrested) are more than countered by their advantages (better organisation, faster reaction times, harder to infiltrate, better safety and security, better training, easier to raise money for big actions, media points of contact easier to reach, easier to stay on message rather than lose energy protesting lots of different things). Feel free to disagree though. If you do we could make it a new thread.

Don't see how that is off topic. Part of the reason this protest is not being taken seriously is that there is no solid leadership. For the record, I say that even if this protest does not amount to much, it is important because more will follow unless their basic reasons for protesting (the wealth gap and jobs) are dealt with.

No wonder I have heard nothing on NPR... the comments are a little on the brutal side even if I think they are mostly right.

NPR is scared shitless that the big bad rightwingers are going to defund them off the air.

Which is a valid concern, but they have to realize that the big bad rightwingers would do that no matter what they did, so they might as well show some balls.

I wonder why news corporations don't want to report on this...

Who owns the news corporations?

Throw enough money around, you get to dictate reality. You get to choose what makes an impact, and what doesn't. Why do you think small sex scandals and social issues keep hitting the forefront of American media when other issues like Bill S.978 are ignored (by offline news sources)?

MSNBC is interviewing Michael Moore who is there down there.

So thats something...

But yeah, I don't mean to sound cynical but this will be completely ignored.

It's already been ignored. Pushed under the rug. The lack of discussion in this thread speaks for itself. With no news we can't talk much.

edited 28th Sep '11 5:19:59 PM by mailedbypostman

Well, I'm not surprised. Their general failure to organize and make themselves properly heard gave everyone the necessary excuse to ignore them.

If you can't make an argument well, don't make it. You just discredit those who can make the argument well.

Well, that's just it. It's not organized, and that's exactly why we need to discuss it. It's not a movement that's being orchestrated by some puppet-master in the establishment. There aren't leaders, or organizers, or any of that stuff. Because unlike all the other protests, this one is truly a grass-roots movement.

The very reason it's not being discussed is why we should be discussing it. Of course, Michael Moore and MSNBC are helping out a bit.

Wow. I haven't heard of that at all until just now.

People here says the reason the movement is not being take seriously because there is no leader... but wouldn't be because no one hear about that? I mean, yeah, a few thousands (what are the numbers again) of unorganized people may not mean much. But this is not a a one day march. There are hundreds of people there for more then a week now ((?) again, I lack information). This ought to be "taken seriously" at some form (even if just to dismiss them), and it certainly ought to be commented by the media.

Yet, the protest seems to be ignored by the media. There is something seriously wrong with this whole thing.

PS:I would personally care much less by this had it not be being ignored by media. This stealthy "censorship" is what makes the whole thing fishy.

edited 28th Sep '11 6:06:27 PM by Heatth

I thought Michael Moore was against our current establishment. Though I do admit I think he's a blowhard. Why would he be against this?

In any case, Dark Confidant, they needed an organizer/leader badly. Grassroots movements aren't made less grassroots by having someone who can keep them focused on their goal. And if they can't keep focused on their goal, all we'll have to discuss is what a failure they were at it. And really, lack of organization is on them. I'm sympathetic the goals, those tax loopholes do need to be closed and the rich should pay more, but this has been an entirely ineffective way to go about it. (And I don't think that most people have an objection to the closing of tax loopholes unless they're the ones benefiting from those.)

As for the lack of media; I'm not quite sure how much influence businesses or whatever have on the local news there, but I still get the feeling it's a matter of them trying to ignore it until it goes away. Or the news stations there truly don't care for some bizarre reason. It is kind of weird that there's not even been a quick blurb so far.

At least James Fallows continue following the news

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/09/an-important-video-to-watch-pepper-spray-by-a-cruel-and-cowardly-nyc-cop/245629/

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/09/more-on-the-pepper-spraying-coward-cop/245714/

Second Attack Video, different Victim : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQNtI60fw90

His name is Anthony Bologna

What they need to get atension is some good rioting and vandalism.