Crackpot's Guide to Political Outrage

[Shroom Man 777]

They don't actually have to wear physical che guevera shirts to wear che guevera shirts in spirit. Bunch of whiny losers. I hope that police officers evolve salivary glands that secrete mace, so they can spit on those veterans while macing them at the same time.

[Col. Crackpot]

and for the record I prefer CNN

[JointStrikeFighter]

Damn kids in their Che guevara shirts!

Its not like Che is common on shirts because it's a famous and culturally significant piece of pop art right?

Fucking communists.

[Stark]

The more he repeats 'political movements are unacceptable until they include people like me' the funnier it gets.

Are you aware that people other than yourself exist? That they suffer? That they have expectations and dreams? Why are they less legitimate than yours?

Oh right - American freedom. The funniest part is that media coverage focuses on fringe or 'other" elements of protests to create this very reaction in viewers - to convince people that the unhappy ones AREN'T LIKE THEM. Maybe he should react against news programming, rather than people exercising their rights.

Unless everyone unhappy is a dirty fringe freak that Crackers can dismiss out of hand to feel safe.

[Simon_Jester]

Obama is center-right, of course the left hates him

I will say though, I was in Providence yesterday for other reasons but I took a detour to Burnside Park to see the spectacle that is Occupy Providence. The few hundred people were exactly what i though they would be. Affluent Brown and RISD students biting the hand that feeds them...

In many cases, they're finding that the hand which used to feed them is now beating them with a stick. If you racked up student loans in the expectation that the establishment's implied promise that "if you have a college degree and aren't a fuckwit, yes you too can join the white collar workforce like your daddy did!" would come true, and then found that the promise isn't true, because you're graduating into a global recession in which all employers seem to want to hire single, unattached thirty year olds with twenty years' work experience who have no desire for enough money to live in a home of their own and don't mind not having health insurance... well, now they've got a pile of student loans and not much else.

If you wouldn't be pissed under the circumstances, it says more about you than about the circumstances. And of course the ones who are thus pissed off and yet have the goddamn time to say anything about it are often the ones who can see the waterfall coming but haven't yet gone over it: i.e. the ones still in school.

Meh, they might as well bitch. Not much else they can do - that's the point of the thing, the power is held by these other pigs - so they have nothing to lose but their chains.

And put that power in the hands if different pigs.

Ultimately, the charge being laid against the current round of pigs is that they have mismanaged. Modern capitalist society is based on the implied promise by the capitalists that if they're allowed to control the wealth, things will get better at a reasonably steady pace. "Trickle-down economics," "invisible hand," call it what you will. Capitalism is supposed to provide cheap goods, employment for those willing to work, and growing efficiencies and productivity in the economy, even if it isn't so good for the lazy or the stupid.

That is what we hear from the libertarians and pseudo-libertarians every election cycle, after all.

So what about people who aren't especially lazy and stupid, who are desperate to work and can't find anything stable enough to build a life on, who face increasing prices of goods? What are they to do when they see the rich just keep getting richer, for all the world as if they'd done something for the rest of the world that explained why the money kept flowing to them? Leave that set of pigs in office?

I'd think a demand for a new set of pigs is in order- indeed, it's pretty minimal and unambitious. If the current set of pigs has accomplished nothing except to get fat at our expense, perhaps we need new pigs to run things.

This is the same demand that we've seen time and time again- "we do not want to be ruled by you anymore, your rule is painful and abusive and keeps us artificially weak and impoverished." Sometimes it's aimed at foreigners; sometimes it's aimed at a dictator, or a class of domestic oligarchs- like Louis XVI and the French aristocracy.

Sometimes the attempt to achieve the demand fails and the old rulers continue to abuse. Sometimes it succeeds, but the new rulers are as bad as the old ones. Sometimes it succeeds well, and future rulers shudder to contemplate ever becoming as bad as the ones the revolution overthrew.

Such is life, and revolutions.

Well then here's to hope. Hope that people like those in the pictures grow in numbers and drown out the clowns in che guevera shirts.

They will. They usually do... but it's the "clowns in che guevara shirts" who have the balls to go out there and be the first people to go to the protest when nobody else has shown up yet. So make fun of them if you will- but it just shows your ingratitude to the class of people who've done a lot over the centuries to make your life bearable today.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Well then here's to hope. Hope that people like those in the pictures grow in numbers and drown out the clowns in che guevera shirts.

You're an idiot.

[Samuel]

Does anyone have a list of demands, goals or programs of the protestors?

[D.Turtle]

Why is a clear list of demands, goals, or programs so important?

[Samuel]

Why is a clear list of demands, goals, or programs so important?

Because saying "we want to reduce inequality" is incredibly vague. It could be anything from increasing taxes, raising the minimum wage, work programs, salary caps, etc. Some of these are good, some are bad, but more importantly I'm really curious about what they plan on doing.

You don't let canidates for office run without being clear about what they want and I take the same approach to all political movements.

Plus it is the inner political junky that is curious. I mean the tea party was pretty clear and had a good idea of what they were against (taxed enough already). The political party's have websites (ironically both are similar and to the left of what the parties actually do. McCain promised to fight global warming in his).

Finally movements with clear goals or plans tend to disappate.

[Count Chocula]

Why is a clear list of demands, goals, or programs so important?

You're kidding, right?

All these thousands of union members, veterans, students and hippies are protesting for weeks at a time in various cities. It begs the question: WHAT DO THEY WANT?

Look at any successful protest movement, from the Magna Carta to the Tea Party, and ask yourself: "did these people know why they were protesting?" The Cliffs Notes answer is "yes."

All I would like to know is, simply, what are these OWS groups protesting? What do they want? What are their goals? From my perspective, they would have been just as successful and had more fun if they had hired some bands and just gone to Woodstock.

[Samuel]

The closest I can find are various proposals that seem to die in development hell. Here is an example:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/list-of-g ... ll-street/
1) public funding of elections only
2) public election channels
3) no monetary requirement to meet officials
4) investigation into the financial meltdown
5) investigation into social security status
6) Environmental and wage requirements for countries we trade with

4 and 5 are perfectly fine (although I wonder how effective investigation could be for getting things done), while 1, 2 and 3 I wonder about the workability and effects, but I don't think they are bad. 6 on the other hand is a great way to sabotage free trade, especially since the rationale is that American workers can't compete with foreigners who are willing to work for lower wages or worse conditions.

[Shroom Man 777]

Maye there's no central message of "what they want" precisely because they're not a centralized organization under a definite party with specific goals?

[Count Chocula]

So they're a bunch of littering unhygenic unemployed or retired malcontents or rich bitches with generalized pissed-offedness at the status quo but no plan?

[sarcasm]Well then they're credible[/sarcasm].

[D.Turtle]

Because saying "we want to reduce inequality" is incredibly vague. It could be anything from increasing taxes, raising the minimum wage, work programs, salary caps, etc. Some of these are good, some are bad, but more importantly I'm really curious about what they plan on doing.

You don't let candidates for office run without being clear about what they want and I take the same approach to all political movements.

Plus it is the inner political junky that is curious. I mean the tea party was pretty clear and had a good idea of what they were against (taxed enough already). The political party's have websites (ironically both are similar and to the left of what the parties actually do. McCain promised to fight global warming in his).

Finally movements with clear goals or plans tend to dissipate.

It is quite clear to anyone looking at the protests what the general gist is as to why they are protesting and what they want (reduce inequality, lessen the role and influence of corporations and rich people, and other things in this direction). In addition, I would say that the Occupy movement is trying to be more than just a political movement, but is trying to become a social movement.

In effect, the focus is not so much on "this is what we want", but more about consciousness raising as to the situation that exists and voicing displeasure with this situation. Hence the emphasis on things like 99%, general assemblies, etc.

You're kidding, right?

All these thousands of union members, veterans, students and hippies are protesting for weeks at a time in various cities. It begs the question: WHAT DO THEY WANT?

Look at any successful protest movement, from the Magna Carta to the Tea Party, and ask yourself: "did these people know why they were protesting?" The Cliffs Notes answer is "yes."

All I would like to know is, simply, what are these OWS groups protesting? What do they want? What are their goals? From my perspective, they would have been just as successful and had more fun if they had hired some bands and just gone to Woodstock

Magna Carta protest movement? Please do tell.

As for what they want: They are raising consciousness of inequality and problems in society. And looking at the polls, media coverage, the spreading of protests, and so on they seem to have been quite successful so far.

That they do not have a clear list of demands is not a failure of the movement but a clear decision made by the people who started it.

[Count Chocula]

You've managed to "prove" a negative proposition. Congratulations.

If the OWS organizers want to have any degree of success, they need A MESSAGE. What is that message?

Amorphous "We Want" =/= effectiveness. Try again.

[Losonti Tokash]

So they're a bunch of littering unhygenic unemployed or retired malcontents or rich bitches with generalized pissed-offedness at the status quo but no plan?

[sarcasm]Well then they're credible[/sarcasm].

Are you stupid? Pretty sure we've already gone over how dismissing a movement because it isn't comprised solely of stereotypes you approve of is pretty dumb.

[Count Chocula]

You are missing the point, Losonti. WHAT IS THEIR MESSAGE? I have little in common with Tea Party protesters, probably only 40%, but I understand their message. What do the union workers, old soldiers, and college graduates of OWS WANT? How does camping out in a park where they litter it so badly they have to be pushed out so NYC sanitation can clean it spread their message?

What is the goal?

[Coop D'etat]

You've managed to "prove" a negative proposition. Congratulations.

If the OWS organizers want to have any degree of success, they need A MESSAGE. What is that message?

Amorphous "We Want" =/= effectiveness. Try again.

At this point of the TEA party's life cycle they didn't have a coherent message beyond "taxes are too high" and "no bailouts."

OWS basic message seems to be "the system is rigged in favour of the wealthy." Which is just as cogent.

[Losonti Tokash]

I can tell you what the ones outside my office want, since I went and had lunch with them just now. They want to roll back Citizens United, some way to limit the power corporations have on politicians, stop this culture of death we've been building, and just possibly leave a world for our grandkids to live in. Plus, it'd be kinda nice if rich people actually paid their fair share. No, they don't have some specific policy with a plan to lay it out, none of them were lawyers. But it's not some unknowable mystery, it takes like 5 minutes.

PS, none of them were littering.

[Shroom Man 777]

They didn't carry firearms to the townhall meeting though. So who gives a shit about them? Just a bunch of unarmed people bitching.

[Count Chocula]

No no no, Coop, you are 100% wrong. The Tea Party's philosophical underpinnings lead directly to concrete solutions, i.e. elect people who will lower taxes and borrowing and eliminate direct Federal supervision of private companies.

The OWS message of (your words) "the system is rigged in favour of the wealthy" is neither cogent or specific with regard to remedy, if such is needed. In other words, the OWS message is vague bullshit.

[D.Turtle]

You've managed to "prove" a negative proposition. Congratulations.

If the OWS organizers want to have any degree of success, they need A MESSAGE. What is that message?

Amorphous "We Want" =/= effectiveness. Try again.

Their message is quite simple: The status quo is broken. The status quo is working for the 1% at the top and not the 99% below them. The system is rigged so that the top 1% are getting richer and richer, while the rest has to work harder and harder just to stay in place. The political system is rigged so that the interests of the 1% are being heard at the expense of the other 99%.

And they want to change that.

How is that not a message? Why does that have to be coupled to a list of demands, law proposals, etc?

How do they want to change that? This is how:

[Phantasee]

The Tea Party was able to elect people that did things to enact their philosophy because potential candidates and the electorate realized this was a thing they could support.

The OWS people will be able to elect people maybe at some point in the future when there's an actual election? Assuming there are candidates that are willing to step up to the plate for them. "Lower taxes" is a solidly supported platform, after all. Harder to convince people of the need to raise taxes, or whatever other solution, whether it's in their interests or not. And I think part of this movement is to basically show people with the ability to come up with a plan that there is support for any plan that addresses these "vague" issues.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

No no no, Coop, you are 100% wrong. The Tea Party's philosophical underpinnings lead directly to concrete solutions, i.e. elect people who will lower taxes and borrowing and eliminate direct Federal supervision of private companies.

The OWS message of (your words) "the system is rigged in favour of the wealthy" is neither cogent or specific with regard to remedy, if such is needed. In other words, the OWS message is vague bullshit.

So you're just a idiot then. You prefer the Tea Party's message because it gives you a simple answer, even if that answer's either self-contradictory or just plain wrong. But how dare the OWS protesters point out that maybe, just maybe, wealth-inequality and corporate ownership of politics isn't a simple problem with a simple solution. My question is why should they be the ones expected to come up with the solution? They're definitely not getting paid for that. In fact a vast majority of them are there because they or their loved ones either lost their jobs because of corporate heads fucking over the economy, or they've been driven far into the red thanks to the joke that is this country's health care system. They're there because they know what the problem is, they know it is ruining their lives and the lives of those they love, and they feel that those in power are ignoring them, thus they are trying to make themselves ever more visible to compensate.

Why the fuck do you expect them to come up with a solution that addresses your simplistic worldview, rather than the government officials which get paid, at the very least, a six-digit salary with full benefits to do that very fucking job? Christ you're an idiot.

Once again, John Stewart is there to put it in simple-speak for you.

[Simon_Jester]

No no no, Coop, you are 100% wrong. The Tea Party's philosophical underpinnings lead directly to concrete solutions, i.e. elect people who will lower taxes and borrowing and eliminate direct Federal supervision of private companies.

The OWS message of (your words) "the system is rigged in favour of the wealthy" is neither cogent or specific with regard to remedy, if such is needed. In other words, the OWS message is vague bullshit.

Can you demonstrate that there was a clearly recognizable "Tea Party" with a specific, concrete platform one month after the first protestor showed up?

Had the term "Tea Party" even been coined then?

Hell, can you even attach a date to the first Tea Party protests, as I can attach Sept. 17 to the first protests in New York?

Did you even know the Tea Party existed one month after the first event that, in hindsight, we can call the "Tea Party movement?" [Well, OK, maybe you did, but that's only because you're probably more in touch with the Tea Party's membership than the average American.]

At this point, to borrow a phrase from the First Amendment, the OWS movement is built around exercising "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

I do not need a policy plan to be petitioning for a redress of grievances. That plan may come, it may come from many places after long conversations and heated internal disagreements- and even the Tea Party contains plenty of diversity and people who disagree about what is to be done. But it does not need to be there for the movement to have a right to exist. Certainly not at this time.

To expect a detailed policy agenda agreed on by the entire set of all people who think that crony capitalism needs to stop, one month after protests against crony capitalism start forming a "movement," is absurd.