CHARTS: Here's What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About...

[astonas]

Re: CHARTS: Here's What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About...

I think I get what you're saying, you're trying to say they should frame things in a less combative manner if they really want things to change or at least to get the change they want with less effort right?

Precisely. Or at the very least, the best strategy OPENS with a less combative stance, so that one has more levels left to escalate to without going all the way to violence (either incited or suffered). The more room you leave yourself to build before crossing that line, the more support you have a chance to build.

I think you're way too optimistic about the class divide perception and how easy it is to cross it these days. What you're saying makes sense, I just don't believe it can work out that way anymore. The 1%'ers have been thoroughly attacking and denigrating even mild attempts at change well before OWS or the 99%'ers were ever heard of. Change that favors the 99% is already framed as "punishment" and "class warfare" in the big media since at least early this year.

I'm not really being optimistic. Saying that this approach is not the most likely to work is not the same thing as saying there is another approach that will certainly work. There might very well be no viable path at all to enact peaceful change. (And honestly, that is increasingly the view I am being drawn to.) I am merely saying that of the paths available to them, they have not made the best strategic choice. One such choice does not make for an unproductive or collapsed movement. A long string of such strategic choices will.

I'll continue to watch. We'll see where this goes.

[astonas]

Re: CHARTS: Here's What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About...

Again, while I haven't followed the OWS creed closely, not that there is one yet, from what I've seen the spokespeople are not seeking to redistribute, as much as to seek justice.

I don't disagree. But their ability to present this theme has so far been insufficient, and so the message is by default being shaped by others. The essence of communication is not in what you mean to say, it is about what the listener takes away. If they're thinking "justice" and the current power structure is hearing "vengeance," that's going to be a problem.

[dcarrigg]

Re: CHARTS: Here's What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About...

The 1%'ers have been thoroughly attacking and denigrating even mild attempts at change well before OWS or the 99%'ers were ever heard of. Change that favors the 99% is already framed as "punishment" and "class warfare" in the big media...

Exactly. It isn't the whole 1% either. Just some of them. And it has been going on for a long time. They label things socialist, but have no fundamental understanding of the term. There is a fundamental difference between public services, public product distribution, and public ownership of the means of production. But all three are labeled class warfare and socialist. Unless it's the state-run liquor stores in New Hampshire. Then somehow it's libertarian. Who knows how they come to that conclusion.

Frankly, all of the data bears out the case for a dying middle class. It has a right to fight for its existence. It has a right to fight to save our capitalist republic from turning into a nobility/banana republic. Label it what you will.

To be even more frank, the majority of the 1% now comes from finance and private sector bureaucrats. See, entrepreneurs have to take risks and invent things. Becoming CEO of an existent company requires connections and navigating bureaucracy. They're glorified bureaucrats. Sure these financial sector folks 'produce value.' They do it by lying, cheating, stealing and cooking the books. Mark to model accounting, bad banks, bail-outs, subsidiary derivative dumps attached to commercial bank holdings insured by the FDIC, buying off the SEC - you name it - they did it.

And now they want more deregulation? They want us to leave them alone? The argument is galling. And I have heard it before.

The proper thing to do would have been to come together, admit you had a problem, swallow a couple of years of decreased bonuses, and work to fix the system. Instead we got denial.

I think the lot of them could learn something from AA:

1. admitting that one cannot control one's addiction or compulsion;
2. recognizing a higher power (or moral center) that can give strength;
3. examining past errors with the help of a sponsor (experienced member);
4. making amends for these errors;
5. learning to live a new life with a new code of behavior;
6. helping others who suffer from the same addictions or compulsions.

[astonas]

Re: CHARTS: Here's What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About...

I can certainly understand the frustration that some might feel over the use of the word "punishment". I should probably clarify that I did not select it to question whether punishments should occur. In my opinion, the punishment of the various fraudulent activities at the highest levels of major banks are richly deserved. Nor was it selected to minimize the need for rebalancing power away from the "1%". This too, is eminently justified, even apart from any punitive motives.

But the term was selected (in hindsight, perhaps poorly) to emphasize that the more adversarial tones of the protestors are being highlighted in the media. Whether this is true to the overall spirit of the protest or not, it is nonetheless a tool that is being used by the protestors' detractors to diminish their ability to implement real change. Therefore, for the protestors to be more effective, they need to find ways of undermining this meme in the press, by focusing on positive calls for change in their demands.

I'm certainly not claiming that this is fair. Or that the playing field is level when it comes to presenting your viewpoint to the nation through the existing media outlets. I'm just stating that the present reality of the situation is that the protestor's detractors are winning the media-war when it comes to framing the debate. This present reality, by default, will remain true until something acts to change it.

In my opinion, the change that is needed for the movement to have maximal impact is to embrace exclusively positive tones, thus denying their detractors ammunition.

This media situation may not be fair, but it IS actionable. And the required action is apparently not being taken.

[dcarrigg]

Re: CHARTS: Here's What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About...

In my opinion, the change that is needed for the movement to have maximal impact is to embrace exclusively positive tones, thus denying their detractors ammunition.

This media situation may not be fair, but it IS actionable. And the required action is apparently not being taken.

Fair enough. This will be a constant struggle, particularly without spokespeople or leaders.

[tombat1913]

Re: CHARTS: Here's What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About...

http://mises.org

[Verrocchio]

Re: CHARTS: Here's What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About...

No. I'm saying that child labor allowed many kids to survive until the area around them developed to the point where it was wealthy enough that they no longer needed to work. I'm also saying that I think child labor is better than child death, which was where many kids ended up in the centuries before working in places like cotton mills was an option.

Um, I doubt that the children working in cotton mills had any option. You are also posing a false dichotomy, that Option A was to live by working in the cotton mills and Option B was to die. It makes me wonder what kind of childhood you had.

[Guest]

Re: CHARTS: Here's What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About...

I'm guessing many of the participants aren't really all that into the "job thing", based on the personal grooming, neck tattoos, and facial piercings on display. There are only so many independent record stores and head shops hiring, you know.

[Guest]

Re: CHARTS: Here's What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About...

Actually Sharky is right. In Britain in the Victorian age the children of dead solidiers would be given jobs making cartridges for the army's rifles. Before that they starved or begged. Not perfect but for its time better than nothing.

[flintlock]

Re: CHARTS: Here's What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About...

Actually Sharky is right. In Britain in the Victorian age the children of dead solidiers would be given jobs making cartridges for the army's rifles. Before that they starved or begged. Not perfect but for its time better than nothing.

You beat me to it.

Too many today live in some sort of idealistic bubble. The idea of human rights, though admirable, is a recent concept, a luxury of modern times. Children until very recently were usually expected to work. In many cases their family's survival depended on it. I have a letter from my gg grandmother telling of how she and her very young brothers worked the farm during the civil war. She was about 11. All the men were away and it was either that or starve. She spent long nights in the woods, hiding the livestock from Yankee raiders, scared witless.

[flintlock]

Re: CHARTS: Here's What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About...

Fixed your post.

Did EPA come before or after the nation's air was unbreathable and rivers were on fire?

Did FDA come before or after the nation's meat was disease-ridden, falsely packaged and rotten?

Did OSHA come before or after workers were dying of chemical exposure and losing limbs in unsafe machinery?

Did the Mine Safety and Health Administration come before or after thousands of miners died of black lung, were forced to live in company towns and shop in company stores and routinely subject to mine explosions and cave ins?

Did child labor laws come before or after eight year old children were working 60 hour weeks?

We've seen the Libertarian wet dream and it's really pretty ugly for, say, 99% of us.

So its all just white and black huh? No gray? I don't recall Sharky calling for anarchy???????

[dcarrigg]

Re: CHARTS: Here's What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About...

I'm guessing many of the participants aren't really all that into the "job thing", based on the personal grooming, neck tattoos, and facial piercings on display. There are only so many independent record stores and head shops hiring, you know.

Gainfully employed. On lunch. Wearing a suit. No piercings or tattoos. Use no drugs (not even prescription). And I was there last Saturday with 50,000 other Americans.

I met firemen, retired soldiers, train drivers, nurses, and people from all ages and walks of life.

Believe what you want. But I saw it with my own two eyes. No propaganda can take that away.



If anyone watched the Republican Debates last night, they saw the difference between sane views and fundamentalist views in this clip:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video...2#.Tp8Ch1Fwc7w

People that follow me know I'm not a Ron Paul fan, never mind a cheerleader. But I do believe the man has principles. Herman Cain on the other hand is just terrible, and Ron Paul did an excellent job juxtaposing a fundamentalist view with a sane one. Kudos.

[c1ue]

Re: CHARTS: Here's What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About...

To continue such a discussion is therefore pointless, unless all parties are willing to agree that we make trade-offs that necessarily compromise our personal value systems for the benefit of living with and relating to others. In this context, what matters is not how fervently believe in your own values, as compared to your discussion partner, but how well you can logically support the trade-offs you are advocating for.

I am in full agreement with this sentiment.

Note that I have never advocated direct redistribution, nor direct subsidy, nor socialism, nor any of the other polarizing labels which are used in present day political discourse.

My view is entirely economic: that a too great concentration of wealth leads to a fundamentally unstable economy. That the concentration of wealth is not always a natural outcome of the system, particularly in the past several decades where the system was twisted specifically to help those already inordinately wealthy. And that the only solution is to at least return to the previous state where these abuses were clearly limited both by law and by society.

Later on I am posting the latest Dr. Michael Hudson commentary: a published paper looking at the roots of neoliberal economics vs. progressivism as a result of objective economic study.

[lektrode]

Re: CHARTS: Here's What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About...

The beauty of a (small r) republican system where political power is mostly localized and the 10th Amendment actually matters is that any given individual concerned about how politics works has about 50 laboratories to choose from.

A state government may be easier to capture than the federal one, but what about a state government focused primarily on its citizens version of maximizing liberty with the backup of a federal system designed to do the same? That's a wholly different animal from what we have now.

at the fed level perhaps, but in _some_ states, New Hampshire, for a _fact_
the 'small-r' ideal is _still_ in effect, almost 400 years later and _still_ has no sales or income taxes, with LOCAL town/county gov still 'pulling its own plow' with respect to _basic_ services such as police, schools etc, with quite a few of the fire depts still being mostly volunteers and most taking their own trash to the dump.

The fundamental benefit of NH's small-r system with NO Broadbased Taxes?

there's NO money for the political class and all the bullshit political patronage, graft, corruption that comes along with 'professional politicians' hauling in 75-100k +/year, voting themselves raises/benefits, while they create fifedoms with impunity, staffed with layer upon layer of directors, deputy directors, secrataries to the deputy directors etc etc - add to that gov unions and POOF! the entire thing that was fought for over 235years ago goes/has gone straight into the toilet!

and ALL the bluestates show exactly the same pattern; give em the power of the broadbased tax and look whats happened: no matter how high the rates go, no matter how much is _stolen_ from the private sector in the name of 'fairness' or whatever utopian ideal they use to BS the electorate into voting for them or their agendas? the outcome is the same, in virtually all of them: theres never enough money and they are all teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

New Hampshire is The Gold Standard on how the states and the fed gov should work

[lektrode]

Re: CHARTS: Here's What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About...

Exactly. It isn't the whole 1% either. Just some of them. And it has been going on for a long time. They label things socialist, but have no fundamental understanding of the term. There is a fundamental difference between public services, public product distribution, and public ownership of the means of production. But all three are labeled class warfare and socialist. Unless it's the state-run liquor stores in New Hampshire. Then somehow it's libertarian. Who knows how they come to that conclusion....

in the case of the state packies in NH: it eliminates the corruption that permeates the liquor biz and has since the time of prohibition - its The Public who 'profits' from sales of liquor, vs organized crime that blossomed during the 'dry age' and gave rise to, not incidently, the kennedy family fortune and political 'dynasty'

if state liquor stores = 'socialism', then i guess i'm a 'small-r socialist' (now if that isnt schizophrenic politix, i dunno what would be ;) but i DONT WANT the 'private sector' to have control over and profit from the booze biz - if for only one simple reason: the booze is _cheaper_ in states that have the 'monopoly' in the hands of The Public vs some politically connected schmoe that owns the distribution 'rights'