Pro-tax Occupation Protests Held Across U.S. (O.W.S. Thread)

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so what you are saying is capitalism eats itself.



unregulated capitalism, yes.

also, capitalism doesn't just happen. free markets are created and maintained, there's no magical, invisible hand that will solve all problems if we just get out of it's way.
 
last night, Bill Clinton talked about harnessing the energy of OWS into coherency. this might be a place to start:

My Advice to the Occupy Wall Street Protesters
Hit bankers where it hurts

By Matt Taibbi
October 12, 2011 8:00 AM ET


I've been down to "Occupy Wall Street" twice now, and I love it. The protests building at Liberty Square and spreading over Lower Manhattan are a great thing, the logical answer to the Tea Party and a long-overdue middle finger to the financial elite. The protesters picked the right target and, through their refusal to disband after just one day, the right tactic, showing the public at large that the movement against Wall Street has stamina, resolve and growing popular appeal.

But... there's a but. And for me this is a deeply personal thing, because this issue of how to combat Wall Street corruption has consumed my life for years now, and it's hard for me not to see where Occupy Wall Street could be better and more dangerous. I'm guessing, for instance, that the banks were secretly thrilled in the early going of the protests, sure they'd won round one of the messaging war.

Why? Because after a decade of unparalleled thievery and corruption, with tens of millions entering the ranks of the hungry thanks to artificially inflated commodity prices, and millions more displaced from their homes by corruption in the mortgage markets, the headline from the first week of protests against the financial-services sector was an old cop macing a quartet of college girls.

That, to me, speaks volumes about the primary challenge of opposing the 50-headed hydra of Wall Street corruption, which is that it's extremely difficult to explain the crimes of the modern financial elite in a simple visual. The essence of this particular sort of oligarchic power is its complexity and day-to-day invisibility: Its worst crimes, from bribery and insider trading and market manipulation, to backroom dominance of government and the usurping of the regulatory structure from within, simply can't be seen by the public or put on TV. There just isn't going to be an iconic "Running Girl" photo with Goldman Sachs, Citigroup or Bank of America – just 62 million Americans with zero or negative net worth, scratching their heads and wondering where the hell all their money went and why their votes seem to count less and less each and every year.

No matter what, I'll be supporting Occupy Wall Street. And I think the movement's basic strategy – to build numbers and stay in the fight, rather than tying itself to any particular set of principles – makes a lot of sense early on. But the time is rapidly approaching when the movement is going to have to offer concrete solutions to the problems posed by Wall Street. To do that, it will need a short but powerful list of demands. There are thousands one could make, but I'd suggest focusing on five:

1. Break up the monopolies. The so-called "Too Big to Fail" financial companies – now sometimes called by the more accurate term "Systemically Dangerous Institutions" – are a direct threat to national security. They are above the law and above market consequence, making them more dangerous and unaccountable than a thousand mafias combined. There are about 20 such firms in America, and they need to be dismantled; a good start would be to repeal the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and mandate the separation of insurance companies, investment banks and commercial banks.

2. Pay for your own bailouts. A tax of 0.1 percent on all trades of stocks and bonds and a 0.01 percent tax on all trades of derivatives would generate enough revenue to pay us back for the bailouts, and still have plenty left over to fight the deficits the banks claim to be so worried about. It would also deter the endless chase for instant profits through computerized insider-trading schemes like High Frequency Trading, and force Wall Street to go back to the job it's supposed to be doing, i.e., making sober investments in job-creating businesses and watching them grow.

3. No public money for private lobbying. A company that receives a public bailout should not be allowed to use the taxpayer's own money to lobby against him. You can either suck on the public teat or influence the next presidential race, but you can't do both. Butt out for once and let the people choose the next president and Congress.

4. Tax hedge-fund gamblers.
For starters, we need an immediate repeal of the preposterous and indefensible carried-interest tax break, which allows hedge-fund titans like Stevie Cohen and John Paulson to pay taxes of only 15 percent on their billions in gambling income, while ordinary Americans pay twice that for teaching kids and putting out fires. I defy any politician to stand up and defend that loophole during an election year.

5. Change the way bankers get paid. We need new laws preventing Wall Street executives from getting bonuses upfront for deals that might blow up in all of our faces later. It should be: You make a deal today, you get company stock you can redeem two or three years from now. That forces everyone to be invested in his own company's long-term health – no more Joe Cassanos pocketing multimillion-dollar bonuses for destroying the AIGs of the world.

To quote the immortal political philosopher Matt Damon from Rounders, "The key to No Limit poker is to put a man to a decision for all his chips." The only reason the Lloyd Blankfeins and Jamie Dimons of the world survive is that they're never forced, by the media or anyone else, to put all their cards on the table. If Occupy Wall Street can do that – if it can speak to the millions of people the banks have driven into foreclosure and joblessness – it has a chance to build a massive grassroots movement. All it has to do is light a match in the right place, and the overwhelming public support for real reform – not later, but right now – will be there in an instant.

My Advice to the Occupy Wall Street Protesters | Politics News | Rolling Stone



and which of these demands would the Tea Party object to?

remember, the Tea Part started with TARP, back in 2008.
 
Lech Walesa is flying to NYC to visit and participate in OWS.

The leader of the solidarity movement in Poland that contributed to the fall of Communism...watch the right now vilify him. Up until today he would have been a valiant freedom fighter against the Commies.
 
Lech Walesa is flying to NYC to visit and participate in OWS.

The leader of the solidarity movement in Poland that contributed to the fall of Communism...watch the right now vilify him. Up until today he would have been a valiant freedom fighter against the Commies.

This cannot be possibly correct, as it is just a bunch of privileged white hippy students causing aggro and stopping people going to work because the bums have nothing better to do.

There is no way a respected figure such as Walesa would support these ne'er do wells.
 
Will there be an OWS when Walesa arrives?

CNN has breaking news that the protesters have to leave by 7am tomorrow. But the OWSers say they won't leave. Watch, there will be clashing and possible violence between the police and the protesters. Sigh.

Not that I believe all the protesters deliberately wanted violence from the start. I'm just saying its going to happen with the police forcing them to leave Zuccotti.
 
last night, Bill Clinton talked about harnessing the energy of OWS into coherency. this might be a place to start:





and which of these demands would the Tea Party object to?

remember, the Tea Part started with TARP, back in 2008.

Normally Matt Taibbi irrates the hell out of me in his Rolling Stone diatribes, but this makes a lot of sense. I could get behind these suggestions!
 
This cannot be possibly correct, as it is just a bunch of privileged white hippy students causing aggro and stopping people going to work because the bums have nothing better to do.

I don't think you know just how evil and all-pervasive US capitalism is. I support these young people who are trying to right a system that has really gone too far.
 
I don't think you know just how evil and all-pervasive US capitalism is. I support these young people who are trying to right a system that has really gone too far.

Entirely agree and in fact my post was ironical. I support the protestors, as do most of the public figures I respect. It's an interesting litmus test, as a matter of fact.
 
Normally Matt Taibbi irrates the hell out of me in his Rolling Stone diatribes


May I ask why? I'd grant you his style, use of bad language, etc, can be annoying but I have found him to be generally an incisive commentator, particularly given that it's Rolling Stone and not the Financial Times he's writing for.
 
So, the Tea Party think that the Government is pathetic and does not represent them anymore, and that George Soros is the puppateer pulling the strings. The Occupy Group think that the Government is pathetic and does not represent them anymore, and that Goldman Sachs is the puppateer pulling the strings. Have I got that right?
 
This cannot be possibly correct, as it is just a bunch of privileged white hippy students causing aggro and stopping people going to work because the bums have nothing better to do.

There is no way a respected figure such as Walesa would support these ne'er do wells.

again... please. anyone who wants to... go there. i've been there three times now.

let me just also state, for the record, that i'm not a republican... i believe in a lot of things that the logical side of this OWS thing have come out in support of. i'm in favor of tearing down both political parties, and that our financial system, and society as a whole, is in need of a radical change.

but just like tea party rallies inevitably get over-run by a bunch of clueless, racist, redneck trailer park trash who don't really know what they're supporting anyways... zuccotti park is filled with a bunch of 18-22 year old white kids who don't even have a clue as to why they're actually there. the place is the definition of freak show.

hey... the 60's were known for political activism and the civil rights movement... but we all know full well that the majority of the people at woodstock were there to get high and have freaky hippy sex.

so my problem with occupy wall street is that it is building up a huge DAILY cost in police protection to babysit a bunch of college kids, and that cost will eventually be passed on to the average taxpayer like myself.

i would be all in favor of this turning into an organized political movement that can actually achieve some sort of change. i am not in favor of wasting taxpayer money babysitting a group that's at least 75% there for the experience and nothing more.
 
So, the Tea Party think that the Government is pathetic and does not represent them anymore, and that George Soros is the puppateer pulling the strings.

I don't think that 99% of the teabaggers have any idea who George Soros is...
 
anitram said:
I don't think that 99% of the teabaggers have any idea who George Soros is...

Oh they all know who he is... They all know the Glenn Beck version of who he is, Beck spends whole shows dedicated to Soros and to show how he's connected to the fall of the Roman Empire and how he helped fund the holocaust.
 
everything he said

i completely agree with.

i like being able to look at the pictures of this social conundrum from a safe odor-free distance away, but that's about it. the reasoning behind it are misaligned. i don't know what #OWS is expecting "wall street" to do. it's like the CEOs are looking down from the 45th floor at an anthill. "so anyway, back to making more money..."

do they really expect to get them to turn themselves in? or for politicians to wave away campaign contributions? the most they will get from them is "i understand how they feel down there."
 
I certainly know who he is and what he does. Am I the 1%, or do you just want to admit that you pulled that number out of thin air?

Likewise, can I say that a majority of these protestors have no idea who, say, the Koch family is, outside of what Rachel Maddow tells them? What's the difference?
 
Likewise, can I say that a majority of these protestors have no idea who, say, the Koch family is, outside of what Rachel Maddow tells them? What's the difference?


you probably can't say that -- i'm sure a lot of people do, and i disagree with the 1% number.

i also don't agree with putting Maddow and Glen Beck in the same sentence. one is a left-ish host of an MSNBC program, the other is a snake oil salesman who holds rallies on the National Mall and goes to Israel for ... well, no idea on that one. it was just bonkers evangelical stuff.

i think the Tea Party's initial object to TARP and then the Stimulus was at least rational, in that it could be logically debated. perhaps it would have been better to let the banks fail, to let the auto industry fail, and to let the country fall into a depression. that can be debated. where it lost my respect was when Tea Party became known for blaming Obama for everything that has ever happened, ever, with the Hitler/Stalin/Mao/Malcolm X/Karl Marx comparisons, and then the screaming about "death panels" over the summer of 2009.

you'll also note the presence of actual criticism from people in here (who are mostly non-conservative) of the OWS movement, which i never saw from the right in regards to the Tea Party. at least in here.

though, admittedly, there aren't many on the right in here.
 
2861U2 said:
of what Rachel Maddow tells them? What's the difference?

The difference is that the percentage of these protestors that listen to Maddow is probably A LOT smaller than tea protestors that listen to Beck.
 
i don't know what #OWS is expecting "wall street" to do.

I imagine that at some point they expect them to "give" on a few things and stop lobbying for said things. There have been a number of influential and wealthy business people (hedge fund owners, CEOs and so on) who have made statements to the effect of - we have to accept that some things will have to change (ie. taxes will go up, may have to swallow a financial transaction tax, may have to swallow some regulations, etc) not because they want to sing Kumbaya with the 99% but because they correctly recognize that it is in their best interest to do so.

If you are part of the elite, you get to stay there so long as the people below you are relatively happy and complacent. When you start having social unrest and large numbers of people taking to the streets, who over time begin to feel more and more like the law is not there to protect them so that they may as well step out of the law, that directly threatens the elite. Do you think that CEOs want to have bands of people running through the streets? 20, 30% unemployment and people feeling like they have nothing to lose, so hey, may as well smash some windows, help themselves to food they think they are entitled to and so on?
 
I certainly know who he is and what he does.

Really?

Can you tell me about his work to combat Communism in Eastern Europe for decades and the personal fortune that he committed to that fight? Or is this something that Glenn Beck hasn't told you about?
 
my number one issue with this entire movement is that i see no end game that doesn't result in violence.

i want them to be organized, to try to become a part of the establishment, to make change from within the system. right now it's just being bastardized by the same political establishment that helped fuck this country up in the first place.

for better or worse... the tea party have gotten people elected and in a position where they can actually effect change. it might not be change that you or i agree with, but they are there. they have also helped fracture the republican party in many ways.

organize. run for office. put the heat on the liberal establishment, who won't be able to publicly support the #OWS movement, and then go back to the same corporate money bags that got them elected in the first place.

the political parties need to be busted apart. let the tea party splinter the republican party and occupy wall street splinter the democrats, and then the rest of us can all meet in the middle and actually accomplish something.
 
my number one issue with this entire movement is that i see no end game that doesn't result in violence.

i want them to be organized, to try to become a part of the establishment, to make change from within the system. right now it's just being bastardized by the same political establishment that helped fuck this country up in the first place.

for better or worse... the tea party have gotten people elected and in a position where they can actually effect change. it might not be change that you or i agree with, but they are there. they have also helped fracture the republican party in many ways.

organize. run for office. put the heat on the liberal establishment, who won't be able to publicly support the #OWS movement, and then go back to the same corporate money bags that got them elected in the first place.

the political parties need to be busted apart. let the tea party splinter the republican party and occupy wall street splinter the democrats, and then the rest of us can all meet in the middle and actually accomplish something.

Sure, but... this is, what, two or three weeks in? Not sure what you were expecting to see develop that quickly. And if you were planning it, Phase 1 would just be about getting attention anyway. There will be a point where you naturally move on, when you're also ready to move on.

It's a different beast too - it's global. If it works, at the very least, millions and millions will 'unite' under that slogan. How that is effectively networked and organised remains to be seen, but it's 2011, so the potential is certainly there. For organisation in the US, they'll need some pretty smart heads up front fairly soon. It has the potential to be very, very big, and very, very diverse. That's fantastic, but tough to manage. I mean, imagine, say, figuring out a ten point manifesto? Pretty easy for the Tea Party, you just take their top ten bumper sticker slogans. But for this lot, I suspect it will be way, way, way more complex.

As for violence, it doesn't have to end that way. They've had a protest camp (of fluctuating size) right outside the Parliament House in London since the Afghanistan War began. That's never led to violence. Don't over police it. If they're playing (roughly) by the rules, leave them alone.
 
it will end that way. we're already seeing it.

an element of the protesters were emboldened by the fact that they weren't kicked out of the park, and decided to try to march on the new york stock exchange. the inevitable clash ensued. tomorrow they plan on marching on chase bank, and eventually an attempt to take over times square and the subways.

if they want to just chill in the park, with protest marches on the weekend? i'm cool with that. but the controlling elements within this thing have made it clear that they have objectives beyond that. they already tried to take over the brooklyn bridge.

everyone has a breaking point. i'd prefer not to see a riot in my city. not good for the commute.
 
They need some leadership here in America. Seriously.

And that leadership needs to preach this:

Article V Convention
Convention to propose amendments to the United States Constitution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In order for THE PEOPLE to introduce a Constitutional Amendment to get corporate lobby
influence out of lawmaking. And also term limits could be a secondary item.

Although the former is certainly what the OWS and Tea Party types (including everybody else) could easily agree on. The downside here is that these conventions open the door for ALL sorts of Constitutional Amendment discussion (Balanced Budget Amendment, etc.) so that could be a 'talking point' used by the suits in DC to squash it. And believe me, they would try to squash it.
 
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