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Where should the Occupy Protests go from here?

Discussion in 'Tilted Philosophy, Politics, and Economics' started by ASU2003, Nov 14, 2011.

  1. Alistair Eurotrash

    Location:
    Reading, UK
    Why should a large group of people ever assume that?
     
  2. EventHorizon

    EventHorizon assuredly the cause of the angry Economy..

    Location:
    FREEDOM!
    because they're facing a resistance they are incapable of overcoming. not out of any lack of willpower, just outnumbered pure and simple.
     
  3. Joniemack

    Joniemack Beta brainwaves in session

    Location:
    Reading, UK
    Since when has the numbers disparity mattered in a revolution? I would say imbalance and inequality is exactly the reason for the protest. If every member of the 99% were to storm the Bastille, so to speak, who would be outnumbered then?

    Eventually this has to be addressed and resolved. Do it now or do it later. The problem is not going away on it's own.
     
  4. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    Why should they give up their current society? They aren't the assholes who are ruining it.

    The numbers don't matter; what matters is upholding the principles of democracy and using that existing process that ensures meaningful change can be made despite who's the minority.

    I also think that those causing the most damage are actually the minority. They're the ones who are outnumbered. I think the point of Occupy right now is to demonstrate that.
     
  5. Alistair Eurotrash

    Location:
    Reading, UK
    I think it's too soon to tell.
     
  6. roachboy

    roachboy Very Tilted

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/nov/30/festive-firepower-santa-ak-47-us-gun-club

    i am conflicted about this article, which i submit because of its deeply american americanness. on the one hand, santa claus holding an ak surrounded by young girls holding other machine guns is kind of disturbing. on the other, i really want to have a similar photograph taken of myself and maybe my family. for that, i would even do xmas cards.

    but yeah, nothing pathological about the united states. no reason for a social movement like the occupation. everything's really really normal.

     
  7. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    What are you talking about? Nothing demonstrates joy, geniality, and generosity like a bunch of guns and Santa Claus.
     
  8. roachboy

    roachboy Very Tilted

    i imagine burl ives singing holly jolly christmas on tinny american speakers and visions of sugarplums and ammunition dancing in the heads of the happy people who surround the santa with the ak. i imagine santa cradling the ak, looking down at it with infinite concern in an image destined to replace the pieta just as plastic crosses filled with tap water from graceland were destined to become one of your most treasured possessions.
    --- merged: Nov 30, 2011 3:48 PM ---
    [​IMG]
     
  9. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    It really is a heartwarming image, being that it encompasses such important values as utopian socialism and freedom from oppression.

    I think it's quite powerful.
     
  10. Joniemack

    Joniemack Beta brainwaves in session

    Location:
    Reading, UK
    Holy fucking shit.

    Mother of the year.
     
  11. ralphie250

    ralphie250 Fully Erect Donor

    Location:
    At work..
    i understand it to a point. my opnion and my outlook (proablly wrong).

    so its like a cult?? i read in the paper here the other dday where they were outside someones house occupying the property so the bank didnt foreclose on the home. Now, how is that going to work??

    So eventually it will be just be abunch of rioting??
     
  12. Joniemack

    Joniemack Beta brainwaves in session

    Location:
    Reading, UK
    Cults usually have a leader with self serving motives and protesting and rioting are as different as rice and Saki. So yeah, you're understanding is a bit off.
     
  13. ralphie250

    ralphie250 Fully Erect Donor

    Location:
    At work..
    ok, in lamens terms, what is their problem?
     
  14. roachboy

    roachboy Very Tilted

    look around. there are plenty of problems. cowboy capitalism. the inability and unwillingness of the united states of control financial flows. the revolving doors that connect government and the corporate interests they are supposed to regulate. debt peonage as a device for buying social solidarity. a media system largely obsessed with opinion management on the one hand and idiot entertainment on the other. a top-down fake democracy in which people are politically free one day every 4 years and even then not so much. from the national-political viewpoint, that the united states is a single party state with two right wings. the bloated conservative welfare state (military, surveillance, police and jails--the stuff conservative love to throw money at). the disastrous state of the american health care system and conservative attempts to keep it fucked up. the distastrous state of the public educational system. the problems with the existing university system--outrageous tuition levels, administration as the fastest-growing sector, education reduced to a consumer matter, ruinous levels of debt. the inability of the existing form of capitalism to do or say anything coherent about unemployment. the continuation of the idiotic war on terror. that the united states has never stood down from the cold war. and so on.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  15. Joniemack

    Joniemack Beta brainwaves in session

    Location:
    Reading, UK
    Do you mean what are they protesting about? I think roachboy summed it up pretty well.

    To simplify it further - GREED.

    [​IMG]
     
  16. Charlatan

    Charlatan sous les pavés, la plage

    Location:
    Temasek
    While greed certainly distills things down to its most basic, the issues, in layman's terms, are laid out in earlier posts in this thread.

    Some examples of the issues:
    Post #1
    Post #5
    Post #7
     
  17. Joniemack

    Joniemack Beta brainwaves in session

    Location:
    Reading, UK
    I didn't know how "layman" ralphie needed it. :D He regarded the movement as a cult and didn't understand that the protesters are not rioters. I assumed he'd read the earlier posts and still had those perceptions.

    If he hasn't read them yet, perhaps he will now.
     
  18. redux

    redux Very Tilted

    Location:
    Foggy Bottom
    I am reminded today of the 56th anniversary of Rosa Park's "occupation" of the front of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama on December 1, 1955. What followed was a year-long boycott of the city bus system.

    It took ten years to affect societal change with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

    Significant change starts with a small movement facing resistance and opposition and does not come quickly or easily.
     
  19. ralphie250

    ralphie250 Fully Erect Donor

    Location:
    At work..
    i understand that its greed, i have read the previous posts before i said that.
    but how do we make the greed go away
     
  20. roachboy

    roachboy Very Tilted

    this is an interesting perspective, from ny magazine, just out:

    http://nymag.com/news/politics/occupy-wall-street-2011-12/

    watch to see what happens this spring.
    we're just getting started.

    and this piece--writing problems aside---opens an interesting little window onto some of the many reasons why the occupation is happening in the way it is and is directed against the financial industry as a primary target:

    http://www.alternet.org/economy/153...ions_about_wall_street's_"secret_government"/