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[Duuvian]

Corporate bribes

[SalmonGod]

Don't mean to make anyone feel bad about it.  It's just become a pet peeve of mine over the years, on top of plenty of shallow stereotypes anybody with a rebellious/societal angst/activist/anti-capitalist lean already has to deal with.

Speaking of which, here's an article thoroughly tearing to shreds one such stereotype that's been especially popular recently.

[Vector]

I triggered them 35 minutes ago.

I see what you did there

[Duuvian]

Anti-protest Propaganda explained and debunked

Propaganda in question:

Hint: It's not because we're lazy that people my age are angry. It's because of things like this that say or imply we are. How dare we demand equality?



Quoted from the article:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So what are the takeaways I hope you’ll get from this angrily, but earnestly written piece?

    If you went to college ten years ago, don’t pretend like you know what students face today.
    If your parents paid for some or all of your tuition don’t you EVER post condescending and ill-informed posts about how a college student just needs to drive an old car and rent a cheap apartment plus work hard at a minimum wage job to fund a college education. Students of today aren’t playing on the same field you played on, their terrain is much, much tougher.
    Whether Sally, who tells us that she’s not part of the 99, wants to be or not, she IS. Because, at minimum wage, she’s in the bottom percent of income earners. And however much she might want to protect or aspire to the top 1% of earners in this country; probability says she’ll never be part of the 1%. (Know where I learned about probabilities? In college.)
    That moronically glib lines like “whether or not you’re part of the 99% is your decision” are complete horse manure (and, as an aside, I highly doubt a college student with a 3.8 GPA would make such a stupid claim, so let’s just say I doubt this photo’s veracity a touch too).

Here are just a few things that are not your decision and are not within your exclusive or even direct control:

    How successful your parents are
    How good your teachers are
    Whether you will get a scholarship (though it is your decision to apply, so take on that onus)
    Whether you’ll get into the college of your choosing (admissions criteria is tougher than ever)
    How much rent will cost in the city in which you live
    How much the minimum wage will be in the state in which you live
    What kind of access you’ll have to low-interest loans
    Whether or not you’ll be able to get into the major of your choosing
    Whether you’ll have the aptitude to maintain a 3.8 while working 30 hours per week
    Whether you’ll be able to get into grad school (I mean, if you want to be a 1 percenter you should go, most of them went)
    Whether you’ll be able to afford grad school (most 1 percenters had their parents pay for theirs, ask Donald Trump about how much student loan money he borrowed – money trickles down… down to rich people’s heirs)
    Whether you’ll be able to get a high paying job after grad school
    Whether you’ll be able to get any job after grad school

Finally, the main takeaway:

This stupid little Facebook photo is not only ill-informed, it’s harmful. Nothing on it has anything to do with reality. It has everything to do with a false rhetoric that’s being promoted by people who either don’t know about the realities of higher education in this country, or don’t care.

By the way, in 2001, out-of-state tuition at University of Oregon School of Law was $18,000 a year; tuition has nearly DOUBLED in the last decade. Good luck doing that without loans and/or parents and/or lotto winnings.

Also there are plenty of reasonable numbers in the article that help to explain the likely falsehood presented by the anonymous (corporate?) picture taker.

EDIT2: Also I think I might have found this link here, my apologies to the OP of it if that is the case.

[Luke_Prowler]

I think it's obvious the whole "53%" group is just anti-Occupy propaganda funded by coperations who hate the movement and supported by people who really don't know how the economy and taxes work.

[Duuvian]

Let's play spot the difference between protest groups?
Protest organization 1:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Also:

And finally: http://helenair.com/news/article_f01b1b8a-4676-11e0-bbad-001cc4c002e0.html

Now, on to another group of protestors:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Perhaps the message the police want to send is that if you don't want to be arrested at a protest, you should bring your gun and imply armed revolution if your demands aren't met.

[Vector]

Writers for Occupy Wallstreet

[MetalSlimeHunt]

If the OWS people brought guns with them this would have turned into a slaughter of both police and protestors by now. The reason police presence is so prevalent in this is that the Tea Party tends to assemble in more rural (and thus more conservative) areas with little police presence and few gun restrictions. Occupy takes place in cities full of jittery cops and with enough regulations in place to arrest anyone for doing anything.

[Heron TSG]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Now how about that?

[kaijyuu]

The idea behind that is potentially violent crime> non-violent crime. Scamming someone carries less sentence than robbing them, as far as I know.


As for your examples, the bottom one's probably more racism than anything else.

[Duuvian]

If the OWS people brought guns with them this would have turned into a slaughter of both police and protestors by now. The reason police presence is so prevalent in this is that the Tea Party tends to assemble in more rural (and thus more conservative) areas with little police presence and few gun restrictions. Occupy takes place in cities full of jittery cops and with enough regulations in place to arrest anyone for doing anything.

True as this statement may be, there doesn't seem to be an issue with armed men attending occupy wallstreet. Except for the police.

From: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2496158/posts

Tally of MASSIVE Tea Party violence/destruction/arrests to date
Vanity ^ | Monday, 4/19/2010 | DTogo

Posted on 04/19/2010 10:43:43 AM PDT by DTogo

Tea Party rallies: thousands

Tea Party participants: millions

Tea Party squabbles with Law Enforcement: 0

Tea Parties confronted by riot police: 0

Tea Parties dispersed by tear gas: 0

Tea Party arrests: 0

Tea Parties causing violence/injuries: 0

Tea Parties causing property damage: 0

Tea Parties responsible for the death of anybody: 0

Note that a quick search for property damage relating to Occupy Wall Street only shows a man pooping on a police car (hehe). If anyone knows of worse damage than this and the estimated cost it would be helpful to compare it to the Tea party's bill for property damage (which was apparently 0$ as of 4/19/2010 according to what appears to be a more or less biased source.)

Also, here is an example of police being more reasonable and defying the arrest orders from a moneyed person in power:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

From the following link: It’s not just that Cuomo has taken big bucks from the Wall Street banksters… he’s pretty much a member of New York’s power elite himself. He’s refused to extend a millionaires tax - in a classic “let them eat cake” moment he responded to the 72% of New Yorkers who support an extension, “The fact that everybody wants it, that doesn’t mean all that much”. It’s a tone-deaf move which has earned him the nickname “Governor one percent“. And with them freaking out, I suppose it makes sense that he would freak out, too.

Cuomo put pressure on Jennings, and Friday night Jennings issued the order: Curfew would be enforced.

The occupiers helped out; at the 11 pm state park curfew, they moved across the line dividing the parks onto city land. The Times Union’s state police source says they had a civil disturbance unit standing by… but with that accomodation, they decided to stand down, rather than provoke a possible riot.

It also helped that the occupation was a mixed crowd of young people, elderly, and families with children.

The URL

[Zangi]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Now how about that?

Meh, I like how China handles their corporate fuck-ups.  They can be executed.

[ECrownofFire]

On a significantly lighter note:

[Heron TSG]

The idea behind that is potentially violent crime> non-violent crime. Scamming someone carries less sentence than robbing them, as far as I know.

The homeless man was unarmed during the robbery, scamming the teller into handing over money. He only took what he needed ($100). After that, he said he was sorry and surrendered to the police. The CEO scammed many people out of $3 Billion, didn't apologize, and defended himself in court instead of surrendering.

Armed robbery is weighted a lot heavier than unarmed robberies like this.

(But yeah, racism probably had something to do with it.)

[SalmonGod]

The idea behind that is potentially violent crime> non-violent crime. Scamming someone carries less sentence than robbing them, as far as I know.

Of course, this implies that no one gets hurt in a scam, which is false.  It still qualifies as a violent crime, in my opinion... especially if you consider that the former type of crime and its relatively light punishment is part of the problem that leads to the latter type of crime, being motivated by desperation...

Our culture really needs to think of the word "violence" in broader terms, since there are so many forms of violence that are legitimized in our society, but the indirect types don't get treated as such...