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Protests and media silence


Pali

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So are we hating on cop brutality in this thread' date=' or Wall Street, or the federal government? Or are we just lumping it all together and hating on the whole mess of it? Just trying to catch up here. :)[/quote']

Hell, I was originally just hating on the media for not covering this. ;)

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So are we hating on cop brutality in this thread' date=' or Wall Street, or the federal government? Or are we just lumping it all together and hating on the whole mess of it? Just trying to catch up here. :)[/quote']

I hate aspects of everything equally. At some point they become related. Follow the flow of money. Everyone has a price, etc...

Erego, if I hate aspects of everything equally, it's not discrimination. :D

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this whole occupy "movement" is nothing but fanfare and theater to distract the public.

Distract the public from what? The state's that have people talking about cesseding from the Union, again? That the government is blowing money? That our Congress is gripped by paralysis of partisanship that's only broken when factional compromise has more money being blown or used in such small fragmented portions it does nothing but blow as much money as if one side had it all? That the state's (whether they like it or not) cannot function in a global society alone?

Oooh, wait, are those soldiers going to be in trouble because they signed a contract for crap benefits not paying them enough to be government property, so they're not allowed to think for themselves or protect citizens from police brutality (which they should be protected from anyways by constitutional rights) because Wall Street is funding the government, so it's best to protect the ones who pay the lobbyists to make sure they firmly have the governments ear? :)

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It's seceding, Valek, not cesseding. ;)

And a "movement" that spent weeks dealing with a media blackout regarding it really doesn't seem to qualify as "fanfare and theater" to me. I do think that they need to be more focused... right now it's being driven by anger and frustration and lacks any sort of central message beyond "Wall Street has too much influence on govt." If they want to keep growing, they'll need a bit more than that.

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Valek, its funny because this whole movement is targeting wall street, when wall street isnt at fault here. The fault lies with obama/congress. If anything, they should be occupying the white house. ;) I have a feeling though that theyd have a new definition of police brutality after that. In reality though, these kinds of displays never achieve anything and make everyone involved look like immature kids throwing tantrums.

With regards to your comments about the marines, keep in mind that I am a staff sergeant in the active duty air force with quite a few years of experience under my belt. Im probably the last person to preach to about the conditions and pay of the military. They are also certainly capable of having theor own (idiotic) ideas and opinions. However, the military code of conduct clearly states that a member will not use the uniform for personal political purposes and will not make public statements on behalf of the military without consent. I can guarantee these marines did not have consent. So, yes, I can safely say I wouldnt want to be in their shoes. ;)

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It's seceding, Valek, not cesseding. ;)

Google lied to me. :(

inscribed:

What these Marines are doing is great, imho, contract or no. We've become such a litigious society, we try to cover our asses at all costs and it's become at the expense of too much, including many ideologies that I'm finding a fascination with drawing between American government and it's constituents AFTER the Revolutionary War period and today. I'm certain back then people were also considered to be throwing tantrums. Shay's Rebellion as an example.

Wall Street may not be the end all be all of our problems and they may not be the ideal answer to our problems (I can't find anything ideally appealing about money, anyways, being as it's synonymous with power), but money makes the world go round. Here we are, financial turmoil and all in our nation, and it COULD all go away. But we can't reach a conclusion on how. Meanwhile, the liberties, freedoms, etc...of everyone are being repressed. It's everywhere. People are once again looking at what seems to control everything, which is money and where it is.

Now, the difference between then and now seems to be globalization. Everything is on a grander scale, less internal and more external, but the problem is still here at home.

If we were to stop, say, paying Israel $2.3 Billion a year in aid, that'd be a NICE start to solving some problems. I see no reason for them to have that much money from us. Problem: Most people don't know American foreign policy. Most people don't know how much aid we give to one teeny tiny nation.

Back to home, people see Wall Street as the biggest component of the political/corporate machine. Speculators help drive the price of gas, oil, other commodities; all of which has worsened since NAFTA allowed cross speculation. I could write PAGES on how to remedy America. But I can't tell you how it would be funded.

What I can tell you is that jobs are leaving this country. For the sake of profit. To avoid paying due diligence. So the owners, living in America, can get rich. So the stock holders can be happy. Which eventually leads you back to Wall Street and globalization. Yes, the people are throwing tantrums. The people are not happy. You yourself are not happy with an overpowered federal government. The people are not happy with a free ranging capitalist market...though I would believe it's less a free market than even I think.

So, in your opinion, it's a tantrum. In mine, it's a way. I salute those Marines. Much the same way I would salute Shay. In the words of Fredric Jameson, "Perpetual cultural revolution".

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Valek, sorry, but you threw out way too many ridiculous thoughts for me to respond to in any kind of organized manner. Those marines are free to attend this protest in their free time and in their own clothes, representing only themselves and their personal opinions... that's not a problem. However, they are acting as if they are speaking on behalf of the US Military, which is completely in the wrong, no matter how you feel about this particular protest. Just look at your post and the article you linked... "Marines coming to protect protesters!!". When an individual sees a person in military uniform, its instinct for that individual to assume the uniformed person is on official business representing that military. Some protesters see some low ranking idiot show up in his blues, and all of a sudden the naive protestors think "oh the marine corps supports us", when really its just an idiot with a uniform. There are strict rules on how to behave while in uniform for a reason. The US Military is above having its reputation dragged through the mud over some silly protest. I don't know how else to explain why this is a bad thing to you. I would however, question anyone who wants individuals who can't even follow simple rules, let alone uphold a professional image, serving their military.

As for the rest of the stuff, Wall Street isn't to blame here, like I said. They aren't even on the list of people to blame. To think they are shows a very poor understanding of how the world works. Every economic problem we have right now can be directly traced back to piss poor economic policy on behalf of the government. You cannot really expect businesses to bring jobs stateside just out of the kindness of their hearts. Businesses exist to make money. That is a good thing; its how an economy is supposed to work. It is not something to be criminalized or demonized. When the government steps in to tell you how much to pay your employees, what employees you are allowed to hire, how to design your products, and how much profit you are allowed to make, then absolutely will jobs start leaving the country. If you want jobs to return stateside, tell government to back off and let owners run their business as they see fit, within the confines of the law. The only reason the government should interfere with a business is to protect consumers from theft, deceit, or other predatory practices.

You know, Hitler drove the Nazi party against the Jews by building them up to be evil banking masterminds bent on sending all the poor lower/middle class Nazis to perpetual poverty. The difference today is that race was taken out of the equation. :)

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You know' date=' Hitler drove the Nazi party against the Jews by building them up to be evil banking masterminds bent on sending all the poor lower/middle class Nazis to perpetual poverty. The difference today is that race was taken out of the equation. :)[/quote']

Godwin's Law proven right yet again. ;)

If you want jobs to return stateside, tell government to back off and let owners run their business as they see fit, within the confines of the law. The only reason the government should interfere with a business is to protect consumers from theft, deceit, or other predatory practices.

Would you support repeal of things like minimum wages, child labor laws, maximum workweeks, etc.?

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Would you support repeal of things like minimum wages' date=' child labor laws, maximum workweeks, etc.?[/quote']

Child labor is a tricky subject and would require its own thread. There's a lot of factors to consider. The other two, though, I'd absolutely support repealing.

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I'm quite familiar with the first article. It diminishes to a straight modernist perspective, from the Book of Enlightenment, if you will, purely empirical.

Is there a truth in it? Yes. But it's not THE ONLY truth. Which it would like to be. It runs on an implied perspective that social classes not only exist, but they exist to serve a function, a hierarchy, on which economical structures will run smoothly in market demand situation.

The negative side of that truth is that there are human elements. Especially now that the Supreme Court has ruled corporations are people. Now, more than ever, it's feasible to slap words like greed, callous, and cold to a corporation that leans on policies like this. So, on one hand, we would always have an ever growing lower class due to minimum wage staying low as globalization caught up to us (at the time, every other country was "sucking it" as far as economy went and the internet was not wide spread enough to create globalization at the micro level) or we could raise the minimum wage and stave this off temporarily, creating the situation we have today, of companies going over seas and a still ever growing lower class while the upper class continues to get richer.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. The result would have been the same.

EDIT: I'm going to have to give ground the rest of the day. I need a shower. Starting to smell like a marine on the Iwo Jima portion of the pacific float. Ton of homework, too. You gentlemen have a good day! :) Or, actually, I might be smelling like one of those protesters. They looked like they needed a shower. ;) Maybe the mace was an improvement to the smell. :)

EDIT2: I can say what I said in the EDIT. Godwin's law has come into play.

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There will always be frustration amongst people regarding wealth. There is one major problem with the mindset of many people who beg for all the freebies.

I would like to see an experiment. Take a group of average lower income/low net worth individuals and give them 50k and wipe their slate clean from debts or obligations. Next take a group high income/high net worth individuals and do the same. Wipe everything, debts and assets out besides the same 50k. Fast forward one year, two years, five years and ten years. I would be willing to wager that in most cases the group of high net worth individuals would be much better off once again. In my experience in this life I have worked for minimum wages, worked in management, run a business, etc. I have seen things from many different angles and one thing has repeatedly made all the difference between succeeding and growing wealthier and failing and growing poorer. Mindset.

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Samag, were you to factor in other conditions that affect people's "mindsets" (education, culture, living situation, etc.), I think the outcome of your experiment would come out with both groups doing fairly evenly. Of course, you've also given no metric beyond how much money they have to determine good results from bad ones... a metric that I hardly consider sufficient for determining how one should live one's life. But I guess that's just the socialist in me speaking. ;)

For some more good news... we now consider it acceptable to kill American citizens without a trial by simply labeling them as "enemy combatants" despite them never having killed anyone and us not being in a declared war against anyone! Woo-hoo!

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For some more good news... we now consider it acceptable to kill American citizens without a trial by simply labeling them as "enemy combatants" despite them never having killed anyone and us not being in a declared war against anyone! Woo-hoo!

I have to head to bed and catch some Z's, but please, elaborate this for me when you get some spare time. Disconcerting to say the least. :(

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