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[Siquo]

Yeah, it's all about the ideas, man!

This is also a reason I'm not too fond of the occupation-movement: there is no message. Everyone is just unsatisfied for different reasons, and they all want different solutions. Also, Ralph Wiggums is so hipster.

[Nadaka]

Yeah, it's all about the ideas, man!

This is also a reason I'm not too fond of the occupation-movement: there is no message. Everyone is just unsatisfied for different reasons, and they all want different solutions. Also, Ralph Wiggums is so hipster.

Its an organic populist movement that has not yet been corrupted by monied interests to steer it towards a specific agenda. Everyone is going to have their own problems and their own ideas for solutions. America has a huge number of massive problems and ALL of them need to be addressed. It can't be boiled down to a single issue and its single obvious solution.

Unless you are being willfully ignorant:
The overarching theme is that the wealthiest people in the world are using corporations to disenfranchise the people for profit and starve the government of revenue.

The most popular suggested solution is to raise taxes on the rich, end tax loophole exploitation in order to fund the government while increasing the regulations in the financial industry to prevent exploitation. The government should also stimulate the economy by creating jobs directly or indirectly and provide a basic safety net for the disenfranchised.

[Siquo]

See, there you go. The problem is that everyone thinks that their issue is actually the overarching theme.
The wealthy are already taxed quite heavily overhere, and we've got jobs and a basic safety net, and still over here people are "occupying" in the pouring rain. So, no, your theme is not the theme. But as long as everybody thinks everyone else is with them and nobody really thinks about it too much, there's bound to be solidarity As long as there's a common enemy they can all despise.

Look, I'm all in favour of financial transparency, taxing in order to nivellate, personal responsibility, and my ultimate dream is to abolish the "Legal personality" that companies are. I just disagree on who the culprits are, who the saviours, and the path to walk.

[Aqizzar]

I just disagree on who the culprits are, who the saviours, and the path to walk.

Tell us who you think the culprits are then.  I haven't heard anything from you yet except bashing the people who are incoherently mad about these same things.  Because I can tell you, nobody out there ever asked for corporate personhood, unaccountable commodities trading, unlimited anonymous campaign donations, or a slate of Treasury policy that gives an exclusive list of banks a 3% return on loaning the Federal Reserve its own money back to itself.

[Vector]

They aren't regular joes, like you and me, and the reason why is that where we would have to spend assloads of time figuring out which companies are okay and which aren't, they own the fucking companies.  They could make it better for everyone, insanely easily, but they're not doing that.  They're too busy buying conservative politicians.

And before you say "but you're the ones that vote for them, hoho," well, there's also that little problem with people screwing with the voting system itself.

[squeakyReaper]

I had a collection of these, but I lost them.

[RedKing]

Okay, this dude perks my spirit up a little more. We need more vets in the crowd, cause gods know they're getting shafted good and hard by the VA system and by the private sector that fails to hire them when they come home and muster out.

EDIT: Not to mention it becomes a lot more problematic for the douchebags like Limbaugh and Beck to tar and feather the movement if you have prominent war verterans as public faces.

[Siquo]

Tell us who you think the culprits are then.

You have not been reading, because I did mention them: We all are. We're all regular joes. We all let it happen, so we can have our cheapcheap iPods. Top to bottom.

We've all been eating the Soylent Green.

[Aqizzar]

Tell us who you think the culprits are then.

You have not been reading, because I did mention them: We all are. We're all regular joes. We all let it happen, so we can have our cheapcheap iPods. Top to bottom.

That is a weaksauce answer and you know it.  Oh aren't we all terrible, because we were blind to systemic problems in the financial industry that the FTC didn't learn about until the economy was melting down, and we didn't think to recall every single state legislature before they could pass new voting restrictions in three weeks, and we didn't petition a presidential administration that was already in its second term not to rewrite banking policy on its way out the door without telling anyone.

You think you're being the intelligent and reasonable party by being will to blame yourself.  You're really not blaming yourself, and it certainly doesn't make you magnanimous.  You want to make the world a better place as much as you claim?  Quit sitting in the spitball row telling everyone else to feel sorry for themselves about problems you know damn well they did not cause, and do something constructive.  At this point, having a constructive attitude counts as doing something.

[DJ]

It's basically equivalent of "you can't sue your doctor for malpractice because you should've known what kind of treatment you need".

[SalmonGod]

Okay, this dude perks my spirit up a little more. We need more vets in the crowd, cause gods know they're getting shafted good and hard by the VA system and by the private sector that fails to hire them when they come home and muster out.

EDIT: Not to mention it becomes a lot more problematic for the douchebags like Limbaugh and Beck to tar and feather the movement if you have prominent war verterans as public faces.

I posted that guy a few pages back.  Made me quite happy as well. 

The problem isn't having enough veterans, though, it's just that not so many of them stick out from the crowd the way that one does.  Seriously, a very large portion of the protestors are veterans or have family in the military, and there have been winter soldier testimonies and Iraq Veterans Against the War marches and protests on many issues that have been ignored and brutalized as if they were ordinary civilians for years.

And just for the record, I love the new Batman films as well.  The second one is one of my top favorite movies.

[Siquo]

That is a weaksauce answer and you know it.

Not really, no. You think the guys at the top had a clue what they were doing? If they did, this isn't going to change anything since it was planned from the beginning by some kind of conspiracy and if they didn't, I am right and they're clueless fucks like the rest of us. I'm not sure where your agression comes from, but I can only assume that deep down you know this is true, and you've been sucking off of the same teat we all did, and now that the milk is turning sour people are looking for a scapegoat.

You want constructive? Start with turning everyone around instead of blaming just a few people for the shit we all caused. Start buying produce from your organic farmer next door even though he's twice as expensive as the imported shit from Mexico, even if your neighbour doesn't "so-why-should-you-pay-for-a-better-world". And stop feeling so fucking sorry for yourself, that "they" did this to you. You did this to you. Now go and fix it instead of clamouring for others to do it for you. (The "you" here is a more general "we all", not you personally in particular, Aq )

It's basically equivalent of "you can't sue your doctor for malpractice because you should've known what kind of treatment you need".

Yep. Take some fucking responsibility already. If he fucks up and has been cutting you apart slowly, day by day, why haven't you been paying attention? It's not like this all happened overnight. This crisis, and worse, has been coming for decades. But as long as we're all getting rich, why bother?

[Aqizzar]

You did this to you. Now go and fix it instead of clamouring for others to do it for you.

No, I did not do this to me.  I did not appoint the general manager of Goldman Sachs.  I did not make it legal for corporations to take out insurance policies on each other's existence, giving stock traders a financial incentive to destroy the stock average.  I did not set the Treasury policies that now give banks an incentive to sit on their money instead of lending it, among the prime causes of the hiring crunch in the country.  And I do not have the power to remove the chairman of the Federal Reserve.

I did not cause these problems, nobody I voted for caused these problems, because nobody I voted for ever won except President Obama, and if you don't think I'm mad at him, you've got another thing coming.  And before you pipe up about a cult of personality or some shit, don't assume everybody is as brainless as you seem to think the average Facebook campaigner is.  But I don't have a lot of power over Obama's decisions either, do I?  Let alone that he was the first President I was old enough to vote for.

As a matter of fact, I don't have the power to do much of anything, except find out who's to blame for what problem and then say so.  And I'm not about to blame myself for this shit.  You can if you want, lemme know how much good that does you.

[DJ]

Ah yes, screw that fancy concept of specialization, we were so much better off back in the palaeolithic when everyone was a jack of all trades.

Next up, airplane crash victims only have themselves to blame because they should've seen the plane is not airworthy.

[Chaoswizkid]

More and better charts. Wow, your government really fucked up.

Someone forwarded me some handy-dandy graphs that help explain why a lot of Americans have good reason to be upset: http://www.businessinsider.com/what-wall-street-protesters-are-so-angry-about-2011-10?op=1

>.>

You think the guys at the top had a clue what they were doing? If they did, this isn't going to change anything since it was planned from the beginning by some kind of conspiracy and if they didn't, I am right and they're clueless fucks like the rest of us. I'm not sure where your agression comes from, but I can only assume that deep down you know this is true, and you've been sucking off of the same teat we all did, and now that the milk is turning sour people are looking for a scapegoat.

It's pretty evident who is at fault in this crisis, and it's not us

That's what we all say. Who took out those mortgages? Wanted to live big for little money? We all do, that's who.

Who took out those mortgages? People who went to the banks and were told that, after a financial assessment, it'd be perfectly okay for them to borrow money to pay for a home that's worth 200%+ of the cost of construction. Considering that they did not have a degree in economics, and that "This guy telling me this is just like any other guy, getting paid to do a good job", they took out the loan.

We all want to live big for little money, but don't you think it's a bit wrong to blame mass ignorance when the trust was placed in the people who supposedly knew what they were doing? Wait, they did know what they were doing. They did exactly what they wanted to do. So now you're saying that, in order to not be deceived, everyone must be made acutely aware of how exactly economics works, the fluctuations and factors of the housing market, as well as how the entire banking system operates? Must we all become bankers in addition to whatever actual profession we choose, just to make sure that no banker will actively lie to us since they'd lose every ounce of business?

It's unreasonable for each individual person to try to hold accountable the source of every thing they use and consume on a daily basis in this culture. That's why we have governments and regulatory agencies.

Impractical, yes, but not unreasonable. It's still your fucking responsibility. If we'd all just try a little harder to at least find out where the lettuce is from? I blame nobody taking responsibility for anything anymore. I caused this crisis.

My bad, I didn't include an intense study of agriculture with economics. However, you're going beyond agriculture and into geopolitics with your implications, yes? You're probably not even talking about agriculture either, but with how agricultural products are produced under what worker conditions and with what chemicals.
So what you're saying is that the other guy, who is just like us and is working just as hard to keep up his lifestyle, is doing his job in the FDA and in the DoA and in the State Department? I thought their job was to figure those things out so we didn't all have to constantly keep up with it. They're elected and hired for that, after all. But you've got to be saying he's doing his job somehow, and simultaneously not. You can't say you can't blame them when you're saying that it's our collective responsibility to do their job for them. Especially not if we're paying them to do it.

I've already posted a counterargument that you haven't addressed, Siquo.