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Occupy Wall Street Protests
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Post by
Heckler
Today is Occupy Oakland's attempt at a General Strike -- lots of marches and events planned (
local news story 1
,
local news story 2
), should be interesting to see what happens, if anything.
Pictures:
Men's Wearhouse closed in support of the 99%
Grand Lake Theater closed in support of OWS.
"General Strike" info:
Attention Occupy Oakland and Bay Area Police: The Lessons of 1934
General Strike - Wikipedia
Twitter feeds to watch:
#OccupyOakland
#GeneralStrike
My prediction:
Media will largely ignore it, police won't react violently, ~1-2% of Oakland will participate. Net effect will be small overall, but it should keep the overall OWS momentum high for a couple days at least.
Post by
MyTie
~1-2% of Oakland will participate.
So they are the 1%?
Post by
Heckler
The Oakland Police Union wrote an open letter to the people of Oakland yesterday, it's an interesting look at this whole situation from the Police point of view. Oakland Mayor Jean Quan gave the order that resulted in the terrible headlines for Oakland PD last Thursday (to clear out the Occupiers using riot control methods), and she's also the one who ordered the protesters be allowed back the next day. She encouraged all non-police city employees to take the day off today in support of the general strike, but also required all police officers to report to work (even if they weren't scheduled).
We, too, are the 99% fighting for better working conditions, fair treatment and the ability to provide a living for our children and families.
. . .
We love Oakland and just want to do our jobs to protect Oakland residents. We respectfully ask the citizens of Oakland to join us in demanding that our City officials, including Mayor Quan, make sound decisions and take responsibility for these decisions. Oakland is struggling – we need real leaders NOW who will step up and lead – not send mixed messages.
http://www.opoa.org/uncategorized/an-open-letter-to-the-citizens-of-oakland-from-the-oakland-police-officers%E2%80%99-association/
Today at school there was a small Occupy Seattle presence -- maybe 7 or 8 people. There were 10 police officers surrounding them. All of the other various student groups were operating without police presence as normal, pretty interesting situation.
I haven't had much time to watch the Oakland strike play out on twitter or livestream, but from what I've seen, some of the methods being employed are... interesting. I've seen tweets describing "human barricades" in front of Chase/BofA/Citi banks to "shut them down", and sit-ins at Comcast. The Port of Oakland is struggling to stay operational due to a large number of striking workers.
There was also a rumor (maybe it's true, who knows) that Whole Foods threatened to fire anyone who missed work today (and now a Whole Foods has apparently been vandalized in response -- I guess the vandals have been detained by fellow protesters though), but the WholeFoods twitter page (
here
) is full of statements saying that it was all false, and nothing like that was ever said. Maybe a local store manager said something he shouldn't have said and now corporate is trying to damage-control, who knows. Also saw a picture of a broken window with a sign taped to it that said "We are better than this" and another group of protesters cleaning spraypaint off of a bank.
Definitely an interesting thing to watch unfold. All the ingredients are here for an ugly situation tonight, I hope it doesn't happen like that.
Post by
MyTie
Not all the protesters are poor.
Post by
MyTie
OWS puts out a
list of demands
. It involves more government spending, more taxes.
The plan would involve the federal government raising about $1.5 trillion in new revenue and using it to create 25 million new public-sector jobs paying union-level wages. It would put Americans to work building bridges, roads, and affordable housing; providing free public transportation and free university education for all; staffing a single-payer health care system; and pursuing clean-energy research.
Post by
Heckler
Oh, as a side note, I'm going to take some food down to the good people at Saint Paul's. I've got uni lectures and stuff to go to so I can't set up camp and it'd be expensive to get the train there every day, but I'd like to make at least a nominal show of support.
Is this the same Saint Paul's from the Occupy London Stock Exchange story earlier?
Post by
Squishalot
OWS puts out a
list of demands
. It involves more government spending, more taxes.
The plan would involve the federal government raising about $1.5 trillion in new revenue and using it to create 25 million new public-sector jobs paying union-level wages. It would put Americans to work building bridges, roads, and affordable housing; providing free public transportation and free university education for all; staffing a single-payer health care system; and pursuing clean-energy research.
And all that is supposed to be paid for by increasing high level tax rates?
Post by
Heckler
And all that is supposed to be paid for by increasing high level tax rates?
The demands he linked to were independently produced by a Zuccotti Park working group ("The Demands Group") about 2 weeks ago (story dated 3am 18-Oct), and do not have the approval of any General Assembly. As such, they're not fully formed or 'official' (and probably won't ever be, as many OWS don't want to make specific demands of any sort because they think it will damage the movement as a whole to do so).
occupywallst.org
posted a reply of sorts (dated 3pm 21-Oct) to this story and others like it, saying that The Demands Group does not speak on anyone's behalf but their own (
here
).
Here's one
Demands Working Group page
, and
here's another
. I'm not sure if they're the same group, but detailed insight and discussion of their goals would probably be found there, if you wanted to look. A 2-minute effort on my part found
this
:
This is to be paid for by new taxes on the wealth and income of the rich, financial transactions, and corporate profits, and reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall Act – as well as by ending all U.S. wars, disbanding mercenaries, ending aid to authoritarian regimes, and closing military bases
Post by
gamerunknown
Is this the same Saint Paul's from the Occupy London Stock Exchange story earlier?
Yessir. Only ended up staying there for an hour since my friend wanted to meet, but it was fantastic. There was a guy in a suit with a briefcase that said he wanted to defend capitalism.He forwarded really quite reasonable arguments about how increased technology leading to unemployment is actually healthy as long as there is welfare to support those that inevitably become unemployed as a result. The same argument is put forward by Hazlitt in "Economics in One Lesson" - the only book on economics I've actually read, so apologies for the constant reference to it :p.
We all took turns asking him questions, one guy randomly came towards the group and said "Get a job!" - this was at 5:30pm and it looked like about 50% of the group were still wearing their work attire so I didn't think his argument was really reasonable, but he was ignored anyway.
There were three things that disappointed me there. I suppose there are inevitably disappointing things in popular events without a central body, but one of them was a guy blaming the inequality of the country on the Rothschilds and making insinuations about a Jewish conspiracy. Another was the posters that abounded sponsoring David Icke and the Zeitgeist movement (to a lesser extent, a picture of Ché struck me as misguided. If one reads transcripts of his speeches he emerges as quite a reactionary figure). Finally, what may seem like an odd criticism was Anonymous' presence there, with one guy in his efg mask giving an interview and a group of tents with a table called the "anonymous" camp. I don't think it's really practical to adhere to the "anon" code since internet based anonymity tends towards amorality at best (irony is the best dish). If one is willing to take up their mantle, they did have legitimate criticisms of Scientology or 420's raid on Stormfront, but then one has to accept that individuals under the "anon" guise also raided a forum for epileptics and posted flashing gifs.
On the whole though, once a conversation began, it was very engaging. I mean, I haven't had a frank discussion of political issues since sixth form offline and it's quite invigorating - especially when one's position is actually being challenged. I think I'll go back tomorrow with a little printout about direct democracy and see if I can get a dialectic going. Hopefully the guy that drew the crowd of 20 or so (he had a good speaking voice) will be there next time.
Post by
MyTie
OWS puts out a
list of demands
. It involves more government spending, more taxes.
The plan would involve the federal government raising about $1.5 trillion in new revenue and using it to create 25 million new public-sector jobs paying union-level wages. It would put Americans to work building bridges, roads, and affordable housing; providing free public transportation and free university education for all; staffing a single-payer health care system; and pursuing clean-energy research.
And all that is supposed to be paid for by increasing high level tax rates?
It's hard to say they are wrong or right because, as Heckler pointed out, they don't really have a set explanation of demands. However, I have yet to see a demand from any of them for decreased taxes and less government oversight, which is exactly what I believe in.
Post by
MyTie
South Park's take.
Post by
334295
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
gamerunknown
because they provide services we want.
Like Lockheed Martin? They're a massive baby of the welfare nanny.
The problem is probably the interaction between Wall Street and Government, but we've appealed to Government and despite stuff like the McCain/Feingold act Wall Street continues to have a huge influence over the government.
As for tariffs: removing them can be poisonous when there's free transmission of goods but not of labour. For example with the NAFTA, heavily subsidised US rice was a lot cheaper than Mexican rice, so Mexicans bought US rice. The Mexican rice farmers wanted to travel to where the wealth was being generated (the US) and couldn't. So they were essentially ruined.
They did serve to allow US supercomputers to take precedence in the '80s though, so as long as they're benefiting the US and harming US's competitors (Japan at the time), they're justifiable.
Post by
Heckler
Ok I'm late to this thread, but I just don't understand what they are protesting. Most of the companies on wallstreet are doing well because they provide services we want. Take apple for example. They make sweet products which we will gladly pay for.
I doubt Apple is high on the anger list of many OWS protesters, nor do I think they would fall under the description of "Wall Street" in the context that OWS uses it (though I'm sure in some ways they do, my point is that companies like Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase are better examples of "Wall Street" in this regard). I think the reason they chose to occupy Wall St. in New York City is because it's the financial center of the U.S. -- the major investment banks and financial entities reside there.
If you're confused about what they're protesting, and you want to stop being confused, this thread is full of links on both sides of OWS where you can find a lot more information -- it would be worthwhile to skim over the previous discussion for anyone looking to form a fuller opinion on the subject.
I think most people are really pissed off because their house is worth crap and they can't find a job. In which case they should blame the government not wall street execs. The government lifted housing regulations leading to the whole downward spiral of the industry (although individual homeowners are to blame as well for buying houses beyond their means on pure credit). The government is to blame for excess regulations on small and mid size businesses, hurting the bottom line and not allowing them to expand and hire. The government is to blame for allowing the US to import goods from china for virtually nothing while not standing up for US exports when china and other countries charge a gigantic tariff (just try to buy a Ford in Japan. It's a super expensive luxury car. But a toyota in America is a cheap car).
None of this is going to change until we get politicians with some backbone in office. To protest rich guys on wall street is stupid, it won't change a thing.
I largely agree that the government has the ability to both exacerbate and remedy most of OWS' concerns, and therefore it would also be a legitimate target for their anger and action (looking over the previous 19 pages will find many posts where OWS refusal to take direct political action has disappointed me). Additionally, you won't get much argument from me about our trade policies being broken.
However, that doesn't excuse the private market for the part it has played in this whole drama. I have three major points that I'll just briefly summarize (as overlap between my personal beliefs and OWS' goals), as I think I'm just repeating myself from earlier:
Deregulation (which you ostensibly support, based on your comment about "excess regulation" above), or at least the avoiding of existing regulation, did have a lot to do with the housing crisis (though it is odd that you simultaneously attack the lifting of regulations and the keeping of others -- I realize this is probably due to the fact that you didn't want to type a long explanation about what types of regulation are good, and what types are bad). Private market control of mortgage backed securities (which avoided much of the regulation in place) shares a huge chunk of blame for the overall crisis.
This is worth reading:
Explaining the Housing Bubble
- Adam J. Levitin, Susan M. Wachter.
While there is some truth that irresponsible homeowners share part of the blame, that doesn't explain the parallel (and much larger)
commercial
real-estate bubble at all. The motivation for private industry to enter a market that had traditionally been controlled by government sponsored enterprises (GSEs; namely FNMA, FHLMC) was specifically that they could avoid regulations in place on those entities, and promote low underwriting standards to expand their loan volume. Typically, these private-label securities (PLS) were backed by investment banks -- one of OWS goals, reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall separation of commercial and investment banks, could have done a lot to prevent this problem.
Read pages 17-29 in the PDF linked above for more information -- Figure 4 is especially interesting (pg 22). Private-label securities have a lot to do with the current state of our economy, and therefore, anger at the drivers of that market is completely justified. Pages 40-46 are also recommended.
Toxicity of Monopoly -- It's hard to build a rebuttal to your claim that "excess regulation" on small and mid-size business is harmful, because you didn't provide much detail into what you're referring to explicitly. While I agree there is a case to be made that some governmental regulation hinders business in general (there is very little
market
pressure to act in an environmentally conscious manner, for example), it is my opinion that monopolistic practices by trans-national corporations are much more damaging to small and medium sized businesses. Perhaps you agree, and you think that "large" businesses should be heavily regulated, while "small and medium" businesses should not (there are elements to that line of reasoning I could agree with). Competition is an important driver of the capitalistic system, and when a businesses grows so large as to have a toxic influence on competition, it becomes a toxic influence on capitalism itself. When it grows so large as to have an influence on the governmental system, it becomes toxic to the government and therefore the society as well.
Congress is for Sale -- There are many ways to describe
why
this is a problem, and also the proper ways to
fix
it -- but almost no one will deny that it is true. Congressional action is driven almost entirely by lobbyist influence. Most voting records in congress align perfectly with the interests of their largest campaign contributors. That's not democratic representation; it's an
auction
. Taking this as a fact, this means that the power to effect change in our system of laws lies mostly in those with the most
money
-- that's not how the system is supposed to work. It means that Wall Street gets to write its own regulations, Oil companies get to write their own environmental codes, and transnational corporations get to write their own labor laws. It also means that when the richest 1% of the population controls more wealth than the bottom 40%, that the idea of "one person, one vote" that is central to American Democracy goes completely out the window.
TL;DR -- While I personally don't agree with everything OWS does or stands for, there are
many
things I do agree with, at least in principle. In addition, I wholeheartedly support their right to protest; and I think that if it accomplishes nothing else but to get people talking about these issues, then it can be considered a success. Basically, I don't think your characterization is fair -- and with your stance on trade policy, I'm willing to bet that you could find at least a little bit to agree with among the OWS group; maybe it's worth looking.
Post by
gamerunknown
Oh yeah, wasn't there another financial crisis leading to a recession that needed a massive bailout?
Post by
gamerunknown
Looks like not all of the protesters complained about food for the homeless
...
I'd really be delighted if this turned into a permanent political forum and charitable organisation in the name of solidarity - between all people. As I said, apart from the wingnuts, the only really distasteful comment I saw was from the guy walking by shouting "get a job".
Post by
134377
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
gamerunknown
I was once told to "Get a Job" at an anti vivisection rally against a cat farm, raising cats for use by the cosmetics industry. It was sunday.... straight back at you driving past!
Reminds me of one of my guildies saying something similar on a Sunday when a guild got realm first heroic LK25, telling them in general chat they were pathetic since they weren't out at the pub. I pointed out that he too wasn't out at the pub and that not many people tend to go out if they have work in the mornings, but he just retorted that he was only 14 and something along the lines of "if I were still playing video games at your age, I'd have no reason to go on living". Then the raid leader said he planned to go out to the pub, despite having work in the morning, if we got Sindy down on 10 normal (we didn't) and that we should both shut up (we did). I think some people just don't like challenging social conventions, they might as well have walked past shouting "comply!" or "obey!".
Post by
Squishalot
http://www.smh.com.au/national/three-charged-in-occupy-sydney-clashes-20111106-1n1o4.html
Aside from the basic fact that Australians don't have a bill of rights:
1) Can we have a general assembly in a public place? Yes.
2) Can we erect tents in a park or public passageway? Depends on the local council rules. In the case of the City of Sydney, setting up a tent in Hyde Park is against the council rules (i.e. the rules you need to abide by to be allowed to use the park, or the rest of the city for that matter), so the answer is no.
So, noting the number of tents located around other Occupy protests, am I right in concluding that other cities don't have such rules?
Post by
134377
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
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