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[Vester]

Maybe he thinks we're having a french revolution repeat, only with wealthy people getting the guillotine instead of nobility.

Or maybe he's just being Glenn Beck. Yeah, probably that.

 Isn't Glenn beck rather wealthy as well, so that just adds to his madness :\.

No, that would make him sane (if the protestors actually did want to drag people into the streets and kill them for what they have, at least).

[Bauglir]

Well, I don't want to do that, but for Mr. Beck I might be willing to make an exception. His estate can keep his stuff though, that's not really the point. [/poor taste]

[Nilocy]

This post on reddit is rather interesting and relevant.

I'm rather disappointed by the police action on the protesters; but not surprised at all. What's the coverage of the Occupy movement like on American TV? There's not much at all over in the UK atm.

[LoneTophat]

The time for the worker's of this 'great nation' has come. Our rights have been trampled on by these corporate cronies. Our votes mean nothing in this form of corrupted democracy. The lobbyists hold more sway than the people of America. The rich run our nation and our government. I grew up with Bush. I thought things would change with Obama. I've lost all faith in the government. Oil companies owned Bush, Medical companies own Obama. Is this what America has become?

This is not freedom. This is socialism for the rich. This is corporate cronyism at it's extreme, where they have no rules and can do as they please.

I hope OWS gives birth to a much larger movement, one where we can truly be a democracy once more. :\

[Bauglir]

This is not freedom. This is socialism for the rich. This is corporate cronyism at it's extreme, where they have no rules and can do as they please.

Not sure how on board I am with the rest of your rhetoric, but this "socialism for the rich" thing is spot-on.

Look, I'm down with capitalist philosophy and am perfectly willing to accept a system that relies on it. I might have ideas I think are better, but I agree that there are merits to it. I feel exactly the same way about certain flavors of socialism (the word having so many meanings heaped onto it for rhetoric that it nearly has none left for legitimate discussion, but let's run with it for now).

Where I start to see problems are with a system that claims socialism is evil, people should work for a living, that government intervention will spoil people and crush the incentive for competition - but whose actions clearly suggest that the rich should get richer because they are already rich, that really only certain people need to work for a living, and that government intervention is too risky because it lets people who aren't competing yet have a shot at getting there.

Fuck that hypocrisy. If you're capitalists, act like it and go down with your company. Don't get a $10,000,000 severance package for tanking it.

[Chaoswizkid]

I'm surprised I haven't seen this or this reposted elsewhere, but the articles are really enlightening. The first is an article about the government's inability to write legislation on Wall Street regulation, and the second is about Wall Street's hand in the economic collapse.

Edit: Mistakenly described the first url, fixed now.

[LoneTophat]

The time for the people to take back what once was their country has come gentlemen. That is all I have to say on the subject honestly.

[Reiina]

It always amuses me how some americans can shout "socialist" like it's an insult, a remnant of the cold war brainwashing .

As for the various grievances by the protesters:
-Wallstreet the big evil.
Starting in the 80s the US/UK started deregulating banks, allowing them to merge deposit banks/affairs bank/insurance.
In our age of technology it also lead to absurdities such as high frequency trading which has no base in reality.
Now why did the US/UK authorized those deregulations(followed by nearly every country in the world)? Because it made money, it increased the wealth of the banks, allowing them to lend more money and everyone made a profit off it. Yes, everyone, not only the rich...
Well until they lent too much compared to what they had, then of course those that had the less money suffered the most...
The solution is simple, separate deposit banks/affairs banks/insurance all over again. I think the UK are considering doing this, probably other countries too, the US I doubt it as the politics and the financial powers are quite closely intertwined.

-Politicians are corrupt.
Now that's an american specific issue in my opinion. The fact that you only have 2 parties is quite an oddity. As someone from the "old countries"(ie europe :p) it's frankly bizarre. In my country we have political parties from the extreme left(yes, communists! :p), left(socialists), center, right, extreme right and also political parties with specific agendas like ecology. Usually not a single party can expect a majority and must form alliances to set a government, leading to concessions from the leading party on a specific agenda from another party, etc. I feel this leads to less frustrations than a bipartite governement as you can always vote your disatisfaction by voting for the issues that matter the most to you.
And the financial side of political campaigns is insane too. Corporations can give unlimited donations to parties? Unlimited funds? Capitalism Ho! And the amount of slandering going on is insane!
In my country the funds are limited for all the parties. You are reimbursed by the state depending on your score(1/20th of the max if you do less than 5%, a quarter of the max if you do more than 5%, half if you end up in the 2nd round(the top 2 of the first round go in the 2nd round)).
You have a limited time alloted on television for each candidate/party and I think "ads" are run one after another.

As to how to change the fact that the finance has very deep links with the politics, I have no idea how to do that. I doubt very much protesting in the streets pumping fists with vague revendications is going to do that...

You could make a third "clean" party at the next election but that party would just get slandered by the massive media machine behind the democrats and the republicans...

Frankly I'm stumped, and quite curious to see if a solution emerge...

[Chaoswizkid]

Yes, part of the big problem in the US is that our party system is self-propagating. Everyone identifies with either the liberals or conservatives, Democrats or Republicans. The system is established such that the creation of another party or a lot of independent candidates is extremely difficult. There are some movements to sponsor a popular-nomination candidate to be put on the ballot in all 50 states, but I'm not sure how well they are working out. The Tea Party appears to be made up of the most ignorant bunch of Republicans possible, appealing to close-minded Americans, so they aren't actually another party. There are some parties, like the Green Party and Communist Party that I'm almost 100% positive will never get into office, and most Americans don't even know of their existence.

What this means is that every new generation just picks a side to identify with without ever figuring out that the entire set-up completely defeats the purpose of a true democracy, where anyone should have the ability to be elected (not taking into account their charisma, ideology, etc.).

[kaijyuu]

I'll just chime in and say the logical opposite (IE, no parties) would result in a whole lot of nothing being done, because no one would ever agree. The point and purpose of parties are to push through legislation with less impediment, though that obviously has a lot of consequences.

Not gonna say what's best here; more parties or no parties might be better, I dunno. Just saying political parties and partisanship aren't 100% bad, as they overcome some flaws of the system.

[Luke_Prowler]

There's also the fact that a "pure-democracy" simply does not work

[Lagslayer]

Political parties are unavoidable anyways because they are just a form of assembly. Banning them would be like banning a religion (don't draw too many parallels here or the thread will devolve into a bigotted monstrosity).

[SalmonGod]

Wasn't there supposed to be a big Anon hacking event yesterday?  Did that ever happen?

[Descan]

It was either today (11th), tomorrow, or the 15th. They were going to crash the New York Stock Exchange website, I think.

[mainiac]

Political parties are unavoidable anyways because they are just a form of assembly. Banning them would be like banning a religion (don't draw too many parallels here or the thread will devolve into a bigotted monstrosity).

The solution isn't to ban parties, the solution is a proportional representation with a unicameral partimentary system.  Dissatisfied with all the major parties?  Then vote for some obscure minor party you do like.  It's not throwing your vote away if there is proportional representation as parties getting less then a single percentage point can still get a seat or two.  Dissatisfied with all major and minor parties?  Then you are probably crazy.

This can be combined with a system that allows you to still express a first preference for an individual local candidate (such as what the UK liberal party proposed).  But it would help voter dissatisfaction immensely because your vote actually counts towards what you want.  No more of this uncompetative races and no more voting for the lesser of two evils.