Ok, I just came back from it, I took some photos. Felt kinda weak. Some lame looking hipster dude in a suit was starting chants. Houston's just not a riot city.
ive seen plenty of interviews now w/ protesters very eloquently stating what the problems are. if yall want them to have some kind of centralized, unified message at this point you are not going to find it, but if you are accusing these people of not having any actual legitimate complaints than you are not paying attention.
find it hilarious how the same tea party cheerleaders are terrified of this movement. It has always been fallacious to think that the market is somehow better than government. Some of the traders at GS/Morgan Stanley etc. would not think twice of betting against Grandma's pension, short selling and CDSing their own ******* countries, manipulating asset bubbles that cause food prices to inflate out of the reach of Third World citizens etc. And for all the talk about political corruption, market corruption due to agent/principal conflict seems to escape the focus of free market fundamentals.
I don't give two flying f**ks if they can tell me what the problem is. I want to know what their solution is, and it ain't standing and shouting outside of Chase in Houston with seven hundred of their facebook friends. Tell me, is the 1% afraid yet?
Sorry, the women appeared too smart for your tastes. Just got back. Several hundred there. No violence. One counter demonstrator yelling nearly incoherently about "get a job" and something about capitalism and free enterprise. The cops led him away till he calmed down. Had my picture taken with him later. It will be going on tonight after work and hopefully for weeks and months to come.
Time to occupy the Toyota Center. Daryl Morey is precisely the kind of Wall Street ******* running around telling people what to do and treating humans like assets. Lets make Rick Adelman signs and chant "This is what basketball looks like."
Well elect somebody better than Obama or have enough of a movement to get Obama to pay attention to the lower 99% even though most of his money comes from the top 1%. Good idea for the boys. How old are they? Even better if they do something like go for a summer to something like http://www.amigoslink.org/ We sent our son there and so did several of our friends.
I believe that I'm on the same side of the issues as most of these protestors. I do believe that the unfocused or diffused focus of the protests make them less effective. I understand that the unfair and unethical distribution of wealth involves multiple issues. I think the best way to handle it would be to prioritize the issues and protest one at a time. I tend to place campaign finance at the top of the list. Get the lobbyists in check, and then real reform should come rather quickly after that.
Crap, I'm out of town. I would want to say something like: CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PEOPLE THEY HAVE NO SOUL
Here is what I would hope comes out of this. ACCOUNTABILITY & TRANSPARENCY for our elected officials. Every penny they spend or that is donated is accounted for and online with documentation for any citizen to review. Any meeting with lobbyists is accounted for with minutes from said meeting. All entitlements to end, no hiding money in bills that are unrelated... A repeal of all tax cuts post Reagan, I want to go back to tax rates that were good enough under RR. Stop bailing out the banks, legislate them if they are sitting on piles of cash and not investing, tax the **** out of them if they are holding too much money. Just for starters....anyway. DD
