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[Aqizzar]

Hey guys, the energy thing?  This thread has been there and done that, remember?


News from my neck of the woods: Occupy Dallas hit its deadline today (er, Sunday) to put up an insurance bond, and failed.  The police gave them until 5PM today to vacate Pioneer Park, where they were camped.  Some people refused to leave, and as far as I know from now 1AM, there were no arrests.  Most of the people did move though... two blocks down the street to the plaza in front of the City Hall.  You may know the Dallas city hall as the OCP head offices, which gives you an idea of the character of the place.  It was chosen for the movie precisely for its foreboding architecture, specifically designed to thwart protest gatherings by hiding them from street view and looming overhead.  Not to mention they'll probably get mugged.

Unbeknownst to me until today, Occupy Fort Worth was under some similar order to disperse from the "public" park they were camped on (there's really no such thing as "public" space in Fort Worth, since the entire city is private property of the Bass Family, legally or otherwise).  Five arrests and counting.

[ECrownofFire]

Interesting bit here: http://www.cracked.com/blog/3-types-wall-street-protesters-hurting-their-own-cause/

Anyway, I think a good portion of what fucks the economy so often is fractional-reserve banking. No more banks that are "too big to fail" and no more bank runs if it gets removed.

[Osmosis Jones]

Interesting bit here: http://www.cracked.com/blog/3-types-wall-street-protesters-hurting-their-own-cause/

Anyway, I think a good portion of what fucks the economy so often is fractional-reserve banking. No more banks that are "too big to fail" and no more bank runs if it gets removed.

One of the best Cracked articles I've ever read :O

[SalmonGod]

There's really nothing inherent in capitalism that says workers can't own the means of production. The trick is, those workers have to really understand what they're doing on a far higher level than "I punch a timeclock."

True, but then they will inevitably have to compete with other businesses that are centrally owned by people who own more than just that business.  It's unsustainable.

And it does demand more presence of mind from people, but then so does asking them to be eternally vigilant against the monopolies, corporate misbehavior, and the mixing of money and politics.  I also don't like that regulation of capitalism is an internal contradiction.  You have all these rights to your property and you're encouraged to expand your wealth and influence through transactions... until you're too successful or make the wrong transactions with the wrong people and then we have to violate your property rights for the good of society.

[Truean]

Interesting bit here: http://www.cracked.com/blog/3-types-wall-street-protesters-hurting-their-own-cause/

Anyway, I think a good portion of what fucks the economy so often is fractional-reserve banking. No more banks that are "too big to fail" and no more bank runs if it gets removed.

One of the best Cracked articles I've ever read :O

I really liked that article, a lot.

[Heron TSG]

You mean fusion, fission is the current generation of uranium splitters. Also, look into thorium reactors; they're fission, but a lot safer and cleaner than uranium ones.

Yeah, that'd be a typo. Breeder reactors are neat, but their radioactive byproduct is a bit harder to dispose of. But yeah, wrong thread for this.

I heard a whole boatload of people were withdrawing all of their money from Chase and a few other banks to put into credit unions. With how many credit unions there are, as well as their widespread use, this could be a pretty good alternative. Instead of three banks that have to be kept alive at all costs, there could be a thousand smaller credit unions, no one of which has to have money shoveled into the boiler to keep our economy running.

[Aqizzar]

I like attitude and sentiment of the Cracked article, it's what I've been saying from the beginning.  But it has one fundamental flaw-

In the America I thought I lived in, we expect business-people to be driven by profit, but we rely on our Government to protect us from those abuses. We expect Government to set laws to govern what a business can and cannot do. Government can establish a minimum wage, ban child labor, and tax imports. Government can enact rules against predatory lending or . .. anything if it has the support of the people. And we expect our government to keep us safe from this cold unfeeling beast we call capitalism with things like food stamps, Medicaid, unemployment benefits, and social security.

Isn't that the relationship we've all agreed on because it makes sense?

As a matter of fact, no.  It would be, if "we" referred only to people who were already at least well-wishers of the "Occupy".  But that's not the country; a lot of it maybe (substantially so, varying only slightly depending on what issue you want to see in Occupy), but not all of it.  There is a substantial if minority bloc in the country (see same poll) that gets as far as "we expect business-people to be driven by profit" and considers the rest of the paragraph inherently evil, whether they fully understand it or not.

The problem is, that substantially smaller portion of the electorate gets a lot more positive attention than the other one, mainly because of exactly the people Cracked talks about.  Not even really specifically to this event, it's just that "hippies" in general kinda discredited the entire notion of "public protest" as a valid American activity for the last two generations.  I was honestly convinced you'd never again see large crowds milling about American streets who weren't either paid to be there or very very single-issue.

[SalmonGod]

Interesting bit here: http://www.cracked.com/blog/3-types-wall-street-protesters-hurting-their-own-cause/

Anyway, I think a good portion of what fucks the economy so often is fractional-reserve banking. No more banks that are "too big to fail" and no more bank runs if it gets removed.

One of the best Cracked articles I've ever read :O

I really liked that article, a lot.

If he really believes what he's saying, then he should be saying it at his local Occupation's general assembly instead of to a comedy website as if he's making fun of us to the world... he's diminishing the efforts of people who are actually making effort under the facade of constructive criticism. 

The comment currently at the top of the stack nailed it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

At least they're doing something.It's a start to some type of change. Us sitting here picking at every group won't accomplish anything either.

The problem with us(including me) is that we let the people who ,according to the author, don't exactly know all the facts lead large groups of people, while we the "know it alls" sit and talk to each other about how silly each group in America is, yet we don't stage anything.Nobody knows who we are.

You can't win or change anything on intellect alone, and since some people have the knowledge, why not give it to the people with the anger, so they can help actually change something.

Good article, and it helped point a good number of things out, so can we take the things we now know and actually do something, instead of slamming the people taking action?

"Speeches only reaches those who already know about it" Andre 3000

Edit: 

Also, the tiger analogy is incredibly stupid, in my opinion.  It talks as if the wealthy have no power in our society, especially in relation to their "zookeepers", the government.

[Jake]

It's easier, but the majority of people don't own firearms, it's just that the ones who do usually have a few of them.

I'm sure they don't, but that can change rapidly with sufficient incentive. A used shotgun or pocket revolver costs what, a couple of hundred bucks? Probably under a hundred and fifty if you know the right people and don't care if it's stolen. And if a riot breaks out and the cops have to pull back and call in the riot squad, any gun stores in the areas controlled by the rioters are going to be targeted by looters almost immediately. There's plenty of historical precedent for this.

[Aqizzar]

Aaand, the thread just took a turn for the >:|

[Luke_Prowler]

I was under the impression that we're already established that violent protest will only hurt the cause as a whole and give the other guys easy ammo to demonize.

[Osmosis Jones]

If he really believes what he's saying, then he should be saying it at his local Occupation's general assembly instead of to a comedy website as if he's making fun of us to the world... he's diminishing the efforts of people who are actually making effort under the facade of constructive criticism. 

Yes and no. Saying at his local assembly would help that particular assembly, but it is debatable how far it would reach beyond that. By contrast, Cracked is an extremely popular site. It may not go directly to those who would be best to hear it, but it will reach a wider audience. As it is for the most part well written, it's likely that it will get shared around to where it needs to go eventually. Further, it has a chance of sinking into the minds of the disaffected etc who would completely ignore a message from a protester, and possibly stir some small kernel of interest.

[Pnx]

1.) Great job working hard, now we're assigning you MORE shit as a reward for working hard.... Same pay though....

I just read a book that had the in universe quotation of: "The reward you get for digging holes is a bigger shovel."

Terry Pratchett is full of odd little wisdoms. I can't seem to shut up about him right now.

[Jake]

Aaand, the thread just took a turn for the >:|

I have absolutely no idea what that emoticon is supposed to signify, but for what it's worth, I'm not arguing that a rerun of Detroit in 1967 or LA in 1992 would be a good thing. I'm pointing out that if non-violent protests are met with no official reaction besides a few condescending soundbites, the protests will stop being non-violent.
I don't know, maybe Congress are smart enough to offer half a loaf before it gets to that stage; most of the people attending the protests do vote after all. But I'm not holding my breath.

[Montague]

I doubt these protests will turn violent. Maybe a few troublemakers in the crowd from time to time, but it'll never turn into a riot.

The protests will just die out once people stop paying attention to them, like every other protest movement in recent years.