Largely true, in many respects; again, the Tea Party had much the same problem for the same reasons.
Joel Send a noteboard - 22/11/2011 12:26:29 AM
What's Congressional approval at, 11%? 9? Everyone, left and right and center and unaligned and whatever knows that we have problems, and no one seems to think our government is able- or willing- to fix them.
Admittedly, OWS took some time to focus its message. It started off, I believe, as a response to all of the problems that we've been facing.
So people jeered at OWS "What, you're upset about bailouts? AND the increasing amounts of debt of the American public? AND the fact that government and corporations are becoming increasingly entwined? AND dishonest banking/investment policies!? AND a list of half a dozen other things? Well, you have to pick one! You don't even know what you're protesting!"
OWS has definitely focused its message since it started, but I find it a little odd that that was a criticism at all.* If only 9% of America (9%! Jerry Falwell had a higher approval rating than that!) thinks Congress is doing a good job, surely people recognize that there are problems across the board?
*Well, not THAT odd. I just read a leaked report from an anti-OWS public relations firm that basically said it would try to plant stories with "negative narratives" and influence language to do just that. I don't doubt that there are others- I can barely even blame them. If I was a big corporation or bank, I'd want to discredit this movement, too.
Admittedly, OWS took some time to focus its message. It started off, I believe, as a response to all of the problems that we've been facing.
So people jeered at OWS "What, you're upset about bailouts? AND the increasing amounts of debt of the American public? AND the fact that government and corporations are becoming increasingly entwined? AND dishonest banking/investment policies!? AND a list of half a dozen other things? Well, you have to pick one! You don't even know what you're protesting!"
OWS has definitely focused its message since it started, but I find it a little odd that that was a criticism at all.* If only 9% of America (9%! Jerry Falwell had a higher approval rating than that!) thinks Congress is doing a good job, surely people recognize that there are problems across the board?
*Well, not THAT odd. I just read a leaked report from an anti-OWS public relations firm that basically said it would try to plant stories with "negative narratives" and influence language to do just that. I don't doubt that there are others- I can barely even blame them. If I was a big corporation or bank, I'd want to discredit this movement, too.
I know they dislike that comparison, but I still think it dead on; Tea Partiers dislike people drawing similarities between them and a group whose GOALS are so diametrically opposed to theirs, but the myriad murky MOTIVES are undeniably the same in many cases. There is something to the notion that the two groups simply identify (or misidentify) very different causes of the same problems, and in many cases do not identify a cause at all, only object to the problem. Which, of course, is one of the objections to OWS, and one I happen to share, but I think it exists to just as great an extent with the Tea Party, and many members of both groups find it much easier to just blame groups they already despised than make a sincere effort to learn about and accurately diagnose the problem. Why face the difficult task of seeking the cause of and solution to complex problems when it is so much easier and more convenient to make them a pretext to attack groups one already wished to cripple or destroy?
Perhaps the most constructive, if unlikely, thing (and it would REALLY upset the apple cart in Washington) would be for OWS and the Tea Party to initiate dialogs between each other over common interests like their shared disgust with our disconnected ineffective national leaders so disinterested in anyone who cannot drop millions in personal, corporate, PAC and party campaign donations in their lap. That is the primary thing that prevented the ground swell of Tea Party support from taking over the Republican Party last year, the thing that is slowly and steadily nominating the ONLY GOP presidential candidate NONE of the Tea Party actually wants. It is also the most egregious and staggering betrayal by Barack Obama; just a few days ago I read RON PAUL, of all people, disputing his fellow candidates claims that Obamacare is socialism, instead insisting (rightly) that corporate power expressed through government is actually fascism (in fact, that is pretty how Mussolini defined fascism when he came up with the concept.) It may be a long shot, but if the populist left AND right got together against the government AND corporate elite ignoring the rest of the country, there is no telling how it would all end, but I doubt the plutocratic establishment could hold out for long without implementing real and large scale changes.
Honorbound and honored to be Bonded to Mahtaliel Sedai
Last First in wotmania Chat
Slightly better than chocolate.
Love still can't be coerced.
Please Don't Eat the Newbies!
LoL. Be well, RAFOlk.
Last First in wotmania Chat
Slightly better than chocolate.
Love still can't be coerced.
Please Don't Eat the Newbies!
LoL. Be well, RAFOlk.
An Open Letter to All People with Nothing Better To Do
20/11/2011 10:49:21 AM
- 1748 Views
Huzah! A man chooses and a slave obeys! *NM*
20/11/2011 10:56:42 AM
- 530 Views
Yeah, 'cos YTs comments are all about disobedience, and the OWSers are all about submission.
20/11/2011 12:24:36 PM
- 853 Views
Actually, my comment are about taking responsibility for yourself. *NM*
20/11/2011 05:48:33 PM
- 538 Views
As usual you miss the point completely. *NM*
20/11/2011 08:27:02 PM
- 530 Views
You want people vocally refusing slavery to return to slavery; I got the point.
21/11/2011 11:24:21 PM
- 952 Views
If what I was saying amounted to that than what your arguing for would to...
22/11/2011 06:32:04 AM
- 827 Views
This is also not about you; the response to which you replied here has been edited accordingly.
22/11/2011 08:10:21 AM
- 895 Views
How much violence has there actually been?
20/11/2011 12:35:54 PM
- 884 Views
Re: How much violence has there actually been?
20/11/2011 12:44:00 PM
- 944 Views
Because it's easy.
20/11/2011 12:49:02 PM
- 848 Views
I think it's great that student loans can't be discharged in bankruptcy.
20/11/2011 06:27:27 PM
- 763 Views
Asian parents have the right idea
20/11/2011 08:49:39 PM
- 893 Views
because that's not a huge generalization of an entire race...
20/11/2011 09:05:26 PM
- 836 Views
every pakistani, indian, viet, chinese, cambodian person I know (and thats a lot) ....
20/11/2011 09:27:34 PM
- 857 Views
I had a lot of asian peers in class growing up with parents who were not like that
20/11/2011 10:35:45 PM
- 859 Views
I understand that, and agree to a certain extent.
20/11/2011 11:53:30 PM
- 823 Views
To take it a step further
21/11/2011 02:36:49 AM
- 787 Views
Fees are mostly increasing because of tuition increase caps paired with state funding cuts
21/11/2011 01:50:02 PM
- 725 Views
Ultimately, there is only black and white, but they mix freely and liberally in the real world.
21/11/2011 11:38:34 PM
- 750 Views
HUZZAH! Very well said.
20/11/2011 01:20:48 PM
- 775 Views
Our leaders should be held accountable for refusing to lead, and we for accepting that.
22/11/2011 12:09:51 AM
- 756 Views
I think people were jeering OWS for not being "focused" because there are so many damn problems
20/11/2011 04:54:24 PM
- 881 Views
Largely true, in many respects; again, the Tea Party had much the same problem for the same reasons.
22/11/2011 12:26:29 AM
- 925 Views
It is WEIRD when Ron Paul consistently comes off as the least insane GOP candidate
22/11/2011 02:56:33 AM
- 751 Views
Yeah, I recall that link, and still do not entirely agree with it.
22/11/2011 04:16:13 AM
- 667 Views
"There are plenty of jobs and pay"... Do you read the news? *NM*
20/11/2011 12:42:30 PM
- 498 Views
Yep, there are lots of jobs...
20/11/2011 05:49:58 PM
- 875 Views
Re: Yep, there are lots of jobs...
22/11/2011 04:01:35 AM
- 773 Views
I know about a dozen Philosophy Majors off the top of my head, all of whom are gainfully employed.
22/11/2011 11:36:47 AM
- 814 Views
Re:I know about a dozen Philosophy Majors off the top of my head,all of whom are gainfully employed.
24/11/2011 04:30:00 AM
- 975 Views
Excercise in creative thinking...
20/11/2011 06:45:49 PM
- 880 Views
So you think there's no real unemployment problem aside from people being lazy and entitled? *NM*
21/11/2011 03:32:16 AM
- 531 Views
I'm sorry dude, but there ARE jobs.
20/11/2011 07:21:21 PM
- 861 Views
but what kind of jobs?
20/11/2011 08:08:58 PM
- 687 Views
"My plastic surgeon" WTF Aisha
20/11/2011 08:36:13 PM
- 918 Views
Im a nurse
20/11/2011 09:24:14 PM
- 800 Views
You had me worried about the young girl I used to know for a moment. *NM*
21/11/2011 01:01:04 AM
- 491 Views
I actually have a lot of respect for plastic surgeons outside pure cosmetics
21/11/2011 01:02:59 AM
- 866 Views
job that pay money
20/11/2011 08:57:55 PM
- 842 Views
lets face it. all the jobs you just mentioned are jobs illegals take
20/11/2011 09:35:07 PM
- 829 Views
Re: lets face it. all the jobs you just mentioned are jobs illegals take
20/11/2011 10:29:16 PM
- 779 Views
Re: lets face it. all the jobs you just mentioned are jobs illegals take
21/11/2011 12:19:52 AM
- 885 Views
That's a shitty situation
21/11/2011 12:24:20 AM
- 742 Views
First of all, I worked at a dairy and have a friend who busses tables.
20/11/2011 10:32:39 PM
- 802 Views
Actually it is the case in some parts of America. Just not the parts that get mentioned.
22/11/2011 04:05:44 AM
- 788 Views
Doesn't matter when people aren't there, or people don't have the required skills.
20/11/2011 11:51:53 PM
- 768 Views
If you can drive a truck I can get you a job tommorw hauling sand for fracing *NM*
02/09/2012 09:32:39 PM
- 325 Views
...I feel like you've been getting all of your information from TV News. This isn't about bills.
20/11/2011 04:35:13 PM
- 803 Views
Wait...you think there is a problem with courts treating corporations as persons?
20/11/2011 08:33:43 PM
- 765 Views
You know what he meant.
20/11/2011 09:32:59 PM
- 829 Views
You're talking about the Supreme Court case Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission.
20/11/2011 10:38:43 PM
- 703 Views
Pretty sure the inception of corporations was not 1886.
22/11/2011 05:45:31 AM
- 795 Views
You do realize...
22/11/2011 06:01:47 AM
- 749 Views
Almost anything CAN happen.
22/11/2011 07:43:31 AM
- 789 Views
Actually I think we should be prosecuting these people
22/11/2011 07:46:56 AM
- 761 Views
Well, this is a red letter day; I agree with nearly, perhaps ENTIRELY, all of what you said here.
22/11/2011 07:59:42 AM
- 771 Views
You're right. I will hand you your ass on this one. If you give me gloves before touching it.
23/11/2011 02:26:35 PM
- 796 Views
Funny how once we as a society used protesting for non personal gain ...
20/11/2011 08:49:37 PM
- 880 Views
Good post
20/11/2011 09:13:12 PM
- 828 Views
The UN is clearly out of touch with reality.
20/11/2011 10:44:44 PM
- 824 Views
"There is no right to work"?
22/11/2011 05:50:30 AM
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That would be a legal right relating to unions not a basic human right. *NM*
22/11/2011 05:57:34 AM
- 474 Views
Right; there is a right to work when it suits you, and not when it does not.
22/11/2011 07:16:40 AM
- 718 Views
...do you know what "right-to-work" in those states entails?
22/11/2011 07:55:02 AM
- 859 Views
I would not pretend to be an authority on it, no, but broadly speaking, yes.
22/11/2011 08:12:50 AM
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Also, do you even have a job yet? *NM*
22/11/2011 06:02:11 AM
- 450 Views
Ikke ennĂ¥.
22/11/2011 07:28:27 AM
- 795 Views
So do you think there is no cause whatsoever for protest?
21/11/2011 03:31:04 AM
- 819 Views
I don't think the protest is about being people feeling entitled
22/11/2011 07:45:50 AM
- 901 Views
Re: I don't think the protest is about being people feeling entitled
24/11/2011 03:07:09 AM
- 749 Views