Didn't you participate in a law suit against the NYC school system to provide more services to special needs students? What do you think pays for those services? Fairy dust?
"Work hard and prosper"---ha. "Bums better be employed soon! Oh wait, we have NEVER been a society based on full employment." America has a higher absolute poverty rate than most OCED countries, and one of the lowest poverty mobility rates.
The hatred to the poor is quite scary, but of course that's been a defining theme of America for something like forever. "Undeserving" bums vs. "deserving" poor, amirite? Well, all we ask is for equality. The same stigma---the "undeserving" rich, and the "deserving" rich. If you're developing life-saving technologies, no one will begrudge you your wealth. If you earned it by trashing the economy, well, hmm. Kick those undeserving corporate bums off the welfare dole---oil subsidies, sky-low capital gains tax, a bunch of corporate exceptions for companies busy trying to make Chinese workers race to the bottom in terms of s**t they're willing to deal with, huge military contracts that are unevenly distributed to Halliburton---end that crap. all OWS is askin for. Government is corrupt now. But it can be uncorrupted. And by and large, if government is the lazy shepherd, then corporations are the wolves. It's crazy to me that just because government might be corrupt now, people just want to abandon the whole thing and throw us to the wolves. Private prisons locking up illegal immigrants and truants are somehow more appealing than the judge who got bribed to throw kids in jail---by those same private prisons? hmm.
So why are the Occupy Wall St. people going to Rupert Murdoch's NYC apartment? How did he 'trash the economy'?
Nobody hates people for being "successful." There's no occupying Microsoft, Ford or GM, or picketing at Steve Jobs' funeral, or protests at Les Alexander's home or Yao Ming's home. We don't go around being angry at Johnny Depp or Jay Z or Kobe Bryant for making a lot of money. Hell, people don't even particularly hate Snookie and the Situation. Americans don't resent others for being rich or successful, and the protest is not about how some people are rich. The issue is the way certain of the big businesses, Wall Stree firms and executives have behaved-- taking massive risks resulting in the 2008 market crash and recession, requiring a the government to bail out the banks to prevent a collapse of global finance, and at the same time throwing money around to lobby for favorable treatments (tax exemptions, etc.) for themselves at the expense of the rest of the country, leading not only to widening income gap, but also to government budget deficits, cuts to education and basic services (like firefighting in Texas), etc.
Oh, I dunno, considering how he made money by setting up an organization who ultimately ended up hacking a dead girl's voice-mail, I'd say some people would think News Corp. is slimy and underhanded (don't forget the "suicides" of News Corp. employees!)
Seems like an applicable reply: <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/htX2usfqMEs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> It's not hatred to successful people, either. It's disgust at a financial system that is weighted in such a way that it's unfair to the middle/lower class. Banks are a great example. When they make huge profits, they pay little in taxes and pocket most of it. When they fail and f**k the economy up horribly, do they pay a penalty? No, taxpayers pay their penalty for them. It's like they're rolling a dice that's weighted in their favor; they don't lose, we (the 99%) lose every time. Don't misconstrue the message. Don't buy into the vitriol and the panic of the plutocrats.
Yes they do. So do many on this forum. http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/10/news/economy/occupy_wall_street_protest/index.htm by hoard they mean save their money. Those bastards.
Post of the thread. Obama deserves a lot of blame for extending those bush tax cuts. There was absolutely no reason to do that except to cater to the 1% when the cuts could have been extended for everyone but the 250k plus crowd. Hell, why not create a 500k + or/and $1mil + braket. Recall Goldman Sachs was Obama's second largest campaign contributor. He had a vested interest in keeping things just the way they were for the tycoons who bank rolled him.
great breakdown of economic collapse http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/meltdown/2011/09/2011914105518615434.html this is the kind of **** that people have been and are pissed about. we are just feeling it at home more and more, and people in the US are finally getting pissed off more and more. it is evident, people are not content with the way washington/wall street as it has had direct effects on people. thats when people start to get up is when there pocket book feels it. both the conservatives and liberals are starting to get up, in particular i think the tea party has the same frustration- i just think they are looking in the wrong directions. i think they should have not aligned themselves with the republicans so much, i remember for a time they were trying to pull some BS and claim they were neutral politically and that the tea party is for everyone and all this other BS. but eventually there true colors showed, as they had that tea party republican debate or w.e. i hope this wall street movement does not take a political parties side, it needs to remain neutral. but politics and politics and im sure sooner or later they will compromise to gain legitimacy. "its not you who will change the system, it is the system that will eventually change you" and thats why americans need to work outside the system to change it, through peaceful organization as not to get too much bad publicity. because the media can snap its fingers when it wants to and make anyone either a winner or a loser.
Personally, all I want out this is change in the trend of money controlling the narrative. Hired guns, lawyers, PR firms, PAC's FOX, lobbyist etc. are controlling the information as the organized Free Press depends more and more on commercial money and not retail consumers. The internet is a great antidote to this but it is so diffused that it doesn't match the clout of an organized campaign.
What I find more scary is how these successful people have programmed so many poor folks to believe that they will eventually be in that 1%. They've got you doing their bidding for them, sadly you care for their interests more than your own. Ownage.
Really? Anyone picketing Warren Buffet or Bill Gates or Mark Cuban or Steve Jobs for all the wealth they've "hoarded" or "saved"?
