I try to spend my free time as far
from Austin as possible. There's that cow college there, and I'm
allergic to them. :-)
And, yes, there is an #OccupyDallas, but I am unsure of their
numbers. They are in some park in downtown Dallas, and I doubt
that they will move out to the suburbs, but you never know.
I could actually see the Methodist Church on Josey Lane get behind
this. They required membership in a "peace group" (AKA
anti-Republican group) during the 8 years of Bush, but now they
don't push that so much, even though Barry hasn't brought all of
the troops home or closed Guantanamo. It's amazing what a change
in Presidents did for their principles.
David
"Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of
what's good for people than people do is a swine."--P. J. O’Rourke
On 10/9/2011 11:03 PM, [email protected] wrote:
Well, it would be a first in American political history
if this movement
was not, like all the others, divided into factions or
sub-groups.
And it would be rather off the wall to suggest that more
than a minority
of Democratic Party voters are seriously hard Left or
Anarchist. They aren't.
The obvious majority are working class stiffs, or
business types who align
themselves with the Dems for the same reason a lot of
business people
do with the GOP, locally it is the only game in town. At
least this is true
not counting the inner cities. But to some extent it is
even true there.
Like West Virginia, in which if 5 % are hard core types
in would be a miracle,
and fastnesses like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Rhode
Island. Sure, you get
above 10 % in states like Massachusetts, Oregon, and
Vermont, but
this is still a mostly middle class country. I've known a
heck of a lot
of Democrats in my life and only a minority are anything
like
your characterization.
Think about it. Unless you spend all of your free time in
Austin,
I'd guess that this is also your real life experience.
Right-wing
publications & media are about as accurate in
describing "the other"
as Left wing media & publications. Viz, not very.
Billy
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes,
I did, but I also noted that the news footage did not
correspond to the racial make up of the first picture.
Their propaganda, to be more realistic, isn't WHITE
enough.
I just see this as the looter class kvetching that they
didn't get enough of the loot, so they want the
government to steal more for them. They need to quit the
#OccupyMyWallet portion of their protest.
I am trying to help my daughter with her poverty level
job and a kidney stone that needs to get out. I do not
have extra money for them. They can sod off.
David
"Anyone who
thinks he has a better idea of what's good
for people than people do is a swine."--P. J. O’Rourke
On 10/9/2011 9:37 PM, [email protected] wrote:
See the other stuff about the protests that I
sent today.
Like the Tea Party, this movement is also
divided into sub-groups,
the good guys and the crazies. I think there
are more crazies
in the Wall Street protest groups, but who's
counting ?
But, yeah, you know my sentiments about the
BHO WH.
I heard a good analogy by a talking head
yesterday or the day before.
At least this applies to the non-crazies.
The Tea Party is primarily focused on
Washington DC, the Wall Street protestors
are primarily focused on NYC. Also, one filters
its thinking moreso than not
through a conservative lens, the other through
a 'liberal' lens, but in the end
both are reacting to much the same thing,
getting ripped off, being lied to,
and moneybags who own the government, lock,
stock, and barrel.
As I said, and thanks for making an issue out
of it, this does not include
the crazies. The Anarchists, hard core
Leftists, etc, plus conspiracy theory
nuts on the Right, can all go pluck
themselves.
Billy
-------------------------------------------------------------
message dated 10/9/2011 7:27:37 P.M. Pacific
Daylight Time, [email protected]
writes: I don't know
either. I DO know that with all of the bank
bailouts, stimulus, TARP, etc, that if they
want to protest against Wall Street, one of
the most prime places to do it would be 1600
Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC at the
residence of President Goldman Sachs.
David
"Anyone
who thinks he has a better idea
of what's good for people than
people do is a swine."--P.
J. O’Rourke
On 10/9/2011 4:11 PM, [email protected]
wrote:
International Herald Tribune
Editorial
Protesters
Against Wall Street
Published: October 8,
2011
As the Occupy Wall Street protests
spread from Lower Manhattan to
Washington and other cities, the
chattering classes keep complaining that
the marchers lack a clear message and
specific policy prescriptions. The
message — and the solutions — should be
obvious to anyone who has been paying
attention since the economy went into a
recession that continues to sock the
middle class while the rich have
recovered and prospered. The problem is
that no one in Washington has been
listening.
At this point, protest is the message:
income inequality is grinding down that
middle class, increasing the ranks of
the poor, and threatening to create a
permanent underclass of able, willing
but jobless people. On one level, the
protesters, most of them young, are
giving voice to a generation of lost
opportunity.
The jobless rate for college graduates
under age 25 has averaged 9.6 percent
over the past year; for young high
school graduates, the average is 21.6
percent. Those figures do not reflect
graduates who are working but in
low-paying jobs that do not even require
diplomas. Such poor prospects in the
early years of a career portend a
lifetime of diminished prospects and
lower earnings — the very definition of
downward mobility.
The protests, though, are more than a
youth uprising. The protesters’ own
problems are only one illustration of
the ways in which the economy is not
working for most Americans. They are
exactly right when they say that the
financial sector, with regulators and
elected officials in collusion, inflated
and profited from a credit bubble that
burst, costing millions of Americans
their jobs, incomes, savings and home
equity. As the bad times have endured,
Americans have also lost their belief in
redress and recovery.
The initial outrage has been compounded
by bailouts and by elected officials’
hunger for campaign cash from Wall
Street, a toxic combination that has
reaffirmed the economic and political
power of banks and bankers, while
ordinary Americans suffer.
Extreme inequality is the hallmark of a
dysfunctional economy, dominated by a
financial sector that is driven as much
by speculation, gouging and government
backing as by productive investment.
When the protesters say they represent
99 percent of Americans, they are
referring to the concentration of income
in today’s deeply unequal society.
Before the recession, the share of
income held by those in the top 1
percent of households was 23.5 percent,
the highest since 1928 and more than
double the 10 percent level of the late
1970s.
That share declined slightly as
financial markets tanked in 2008, and
updated data is not yet available, but
inequality has almost certainly
resurged. In the last few years, for
instance, corporate profits (which flow
largely to the wealthy) have reached
their highest level as a share of the
economy since 1950, while worker pay as
a share of the economy is at its lowest
point since the mid-1950s.
Income gains at the top would not be as
worrisome as they are if the middle
class and the poor were also gaining.
But working-age households saw their
real income decline in the first decade
of this century. The recession and its
aftermath have only accelerated the
decline.
Research shows that such extreme
inequality correlates to a host of ills,
including lower levels of educational
attainment, poorer health
and less public investment. It also
skews political power,
because policy almost invariably
reflects the views of upper-income
Americans versus those of lower-income
Americans.
No wonder then that Occupy Wall Street
has become a magnet for discontent.
There are plenty of policy goals to
address the grievances of the protesters
— including lasting foreclosure relief,
a financial transactions tax, greater
legal protection for workers’ rights,
and more progressive taxation. The
country needs a shift in the emphasis of
public policy from protecting the banks
to fostering full employment, including
public spending for job creation and
development of a strong, long-term
strategy to increase domestic
manufacturing.
It is not the job of the protesters to
draft legislation. That’s the job of the
nation’s leaders, and if they had been
doing it all along there might not be a
need for these marches and rallies.
Because they have not, the public airing
of grievances is a legitimate and
important end in itself. It is also the
first line of defense against a return
to the Wall Street ways that plunged the
nation into an economic crisis from
which it has yet to emerge.
--
Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community
<[email protected]>
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism
Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
--
Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]>
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism
Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
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