The Occupy Movement in 2012

Co-ordination via social networking and smartphones has been so effective for movements like this that not using them would be tantamount to tying one's arm behind one's back and sawing off the other arm.

Edit: ninja'd.

edited 26th May '12 2:26:48 PM by pagad

Yours and Kark's metaphors were cleverer than anything I had to say about it.

Your elaboration was probably more useful to furthering the discussion than my snark, though, Ace. :)

@Derelict: I've never been to Wall Street. I live in a suburb.

Sincerity Mode here. Why do you feel Wall Street represents the 1%? I honestly want to know why people think that.

Wall street tends to represent the 1% because it's mostly financial institutions which make money by betting on the ability of other financial institutions to make money. They don't contribute to society by making a product, or even contributing to the profits of the companies they're buying stock from, as they're often buying stock from other companies, and not gaining anything since their IP Os. one of the top 20 hedge fund managers makes in an hour more than a family does in a lifetime, at the probable expense of said family plus many more.

To a lot of people, wallstreet is nothing more than a massive casino in which our finances are put on the line, and anyone who tries to keep them from betting like that gets told that they're being anti-capitalist.

There are of course people who made their money through industry, such as Bill Gates or the Koch brothers, but they're, in the public eye, outnumbered by the not-quite billionaires who made their money being lucky and acting like they earned it.

But they're outnumbered by, say, doctors, no?

What you're saying is right. But that doesn't seem like a reason why they represent the 1%. Most of the 1% reached that point because they went to good colleges and graduate schools, which made them very good (in theory) at certain high-paying careers.

It has nothing to do with betting other people's money on Wall Street. Now, do people get rich doing that? Hell yes. But 1% of the country is a huge number of people. It seems harsh to blame all of them for Wall Street.

Being outnumbered by doctors is slightly irrelevant, as you don't get to be the 1% on a doctor's salary. Top 20%, most likely, but not 1%.

Your point about them going to graduate school: They did not simply get the chance to go to good schools because of good grades, they got there via their own parent's money. Again, lucked out via birth, being in a field which pays incredibly well, and being lucky within that field.

The other thing is that the Occupy Movement is more than just a backlash against the 1% and wallstreet. Wallstreet is a very symbolic organization/coalition/other word which stands for what I said. The 1% equally so as a group which uses its vast power not to aid others but to aid themselves. The fact that the average annual pay for the 1% has gone up more than 200% while the bottom 80%'s has stagnated is quite indicative of how the power balance is very, very out.

I'd like to make a more clear and concise point, but I'm suddenly all sorts of tired, and I tend to meander when like this. My apologies for that. @_@

Again, it's a catchy slogan to catch people's attention, UY. To create a sense of inclusiveness. And again, doctors don't make as much money as you think they do; I expect that very few of them are multimillionairs, even though I do know they make vastly more money than teachers. Their paycheck also depends on their specific specialty and place of work. And again, one of the concerns of the movement is the fact that paying for the education to become a doctor can financially cripple you for years. Which agian, prevents the accumulation of wealth. I don't know why you keep mentioning doctors like they're some sort of monetary elite.

And betting with other people's money IS the issue. The banks are basically trying to hamstring all of us. And the rest of Wall Street, too. They're betting huge sums of money and then getting away scot free for their actions.

I feel like despite the San Francisco riot being done by a fringe group, that shouldn't even matter at this point. When you're at the point that you have fucking large-scale riots, something's gone terribly wrong.

edited 26th May '12 9:22:48 PM by Pykrete

To continue from Ace's last post, just recently JP Morgan just lost $2 billion plus, and people in the business are unconcerned with that. This guy says that it somehow proves we need LESS regulation.

Is part of the backlash, that despite all their advantages, all their training and experience, they don't seem to be very good at it?

The backlash is that they're doing it with other people's money and somehow managing to get away with millions in dollars of paychecks and perks for themselves, even when they fail. In a sane situation, someone who lost millions of dollars of anyone's money would be fired without references.

@Pykrete; As I recall, the Civil Rights movement had quite a few violent riots. That didn't stop MLK and the like from trying to be peaceful about it, and it didn't make the goals that they desired less valid. One riot from a group that wasn't claiming to be with the OWS anyway isn't going to invalidate the rest of the protestors. And yes, something has gone wrong. But it's not the protestors that have in this instance.

I'd point out that medicine is field with huge problems right now. General Practition (that is, the kind of doctor you see for regular checkups and when you have a cold) is unprofitable. You cant really make a damned dime in GP, all the money is in specializations like brain surgery. Doctors have to take on so much debt to get their training, that very few are willing to risk bankruptcy by going into a dead end field like GP>

I'm tempted to respond, but that's probably too far off topic. Want to start a new thread?

What the fuck has OWS done?

Thank you.

^^

What's in the link? I can't see it on this computer.

It goes to a site which displays a misc. achievement of the Occupy movement, with a button to make it display a different one, all with sarcastic "well that isn't anything" trappings.

... What has the Occupy Movement achieved that can be displayed concretely with a picture? AFAIK they haven't really accomplished anything past awareness.

It's not pictures, it's words. I'll quote some of it.

Until the encampments were dismantled, of course.

As much as I like art, I fail to see how that's a noteworthy achievement of what should be an anti-corporatist populist political movement. That's like saying the anti-war movement of the '60s had "as an achievement" the sexual revolution; that's great, but irrelevant to the stated goal.

I have no idea what this means.

Yay, but nobody gives a damn about what they think unless they plan to stop electing terrible people to office.

Direct democracy is useless for actual government, and I don't know that being associated with anarchists is that great in the current political climate.

No objections.

Which means what?

Again, that's wonderful, but not relevant to sacking the corporatists.

I guess Occupy is really good at doing things besides what they're supposed to be doing, apparently. Though to be honest, nobody in their right mind cares whether or not DC people get representation in Congress, since it doesn't matter anyhow so long as the government is a collective corporatist shill.

No objection (other than perhaps "how high is it?").

edited 28th May '12 6:28:42 AM by DerelictVessel

They've helped to house the homeless, converted unused space into farmland, made governor Andrew Cuomo back down and introduce a millionaire's tax after he pledged not to, fought foreclosures, and organized a massive transfer of accounts out of large corrupt banks into small local banks and credit unions. For starters.

EDIT: Ninja'd partially. The foreclosure opposition and switch to alternative financial institutions are the big things, I'd think.

edited 28th May '12 6:32:16 AM by RadicalTaoist

@Barkey: I think the alternative banking solutions means that people are switching to smaller banks and credit unions to store and invest their money and as a result taking all that money out of the "too big to fail" institutions like Chase and Wells Fargo. Which I sort of guess is good? I'd need to know more about banking, really. But I think the smaller banks and such don't take as many risks with your money.

The whole consensus model is probably really good for local decision making and people who want to try co-ops as a business model, though. There is a place for it.

As for the DC thing; it matters to the people who live there. Frankly, I think it's ridiculous that their city government has to defer to Congress for the day to day things. The people there know how to run their own city, let them do it. The Congress is there for the federal decisions. And I object to the "right mind" thing. Yes, the government has a shill problem. That doesn't mean that DC shouldn't be represented. Or that the people there shouldn't be upset.

Hmm... that site needs to do some work on making the comments randomized. I got the same things in the same order.

I also got to "In response to the failure of mainstream media to cover the movement, protesters have created various independent media sources including newspapers, radio programs, and websites."

The source is "too damn many to list." (which made me laugh after seeing all the others)

(It also needs more entries. It only has about 20-30 right now. Got it to start repeating shortly after.)

Yeah, unfortunately almost none of the things on that link are remotely useful concrete results outside of self-perpetuation of the movement. The ALEC thing is about the only noticeable one there, and it's not like their sponsors' other clients are any less corrupt.

The New York millionaire's tax is less impressive than it sounds. Almost all of the proceeds are going straight into deficit reduction rather than into programs the citizens need right now.