OCCUPY WALL STREET

[Linus]

Originally Posted by SoNotHer

Ah, as if I needed confirmation that the OWS movement was touching a nerve and on track:

From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/1..._n_999853.html

WASHINGTON -- Top House GOP leaders assured attendees at the 2011 Values Voter Summit Friday morning that despite all the attention on fixing the nation's economy, they remain committed to pushing the priorities of social conservatives, including defunding Planned Parenthood and defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in court.

Eric Cantor is a maroon. The fact that the Republicans are continuing business as usual (that is, there is no economic problem and that it's all about the "moral fabric") is not surprising.

His comments here are more telling:

"This administration's failed policies have resulted in an assault on many of our nation's bedrock principles," he said. "If you read the newspapers today, I, for one, am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country. And believe it or not, some in this town, have actually condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans. But you sent us here to fight for you and all Americans."

But when he spoke at the Values Voter Summit in 2009, Cantor expressed a very different sentiment toward another movement that was arguably "pitting Americans against Americans" -- the Tea Party.

At that time, Cantor praised those protesters as "fighting on the fighting lines of what we know is a battle for our democracy.”

"People are beginning to wake up and see a country they don’t really recognize," said Cantor.

[SoNotHer]

Originally Posted by Linus

Eric Cantor is a maroon. The fact that the Republicans are continuing business as usual (that is, there is no economic problem and that it's all about the "moral fabric") is not surprising.

His comments here are more telling:

I like your spelling, Linus. In fact he is a marooned moron. :-)

[SoNotHer]

Corny, faded, dated and more relevant than ever:

[SoNotHer]

The French have a gotten a few things right: cheese, wine, and a nice bloody revolution. They've also endured cycles of largesse and abject poverty. They've seen dynasties rise and fall, and they've said some of the most amazing things about this, namely, that all property is theft and that behind every fortune is a crime. Something to think about.

And then there are the scenarios given to us by writers like Orwell, Bradbury, Burgess and others who envisioned ruling empires like Britain or the US in the full hot mess of post-peak dystopia. Liberty is generally the first casualty. Civility, personal safety and anything like joy are not long behind it.

I posted a link earlier to the bumper sticker artwork that read: Fascism is Capitalism in Decay.

So while we debate who's responsible for what and who's involved and who isn't, and whether or not we want socialism, capitalism or communism, we need to realize, and quickly, that fascism is always the default, and it's ready to assume control in the absence of any other organized and cohesive movement.

Linus is right. It's time we started calling this a depression. And it's also time we started to realize that we may well be on the precipice of gaining or losing everything. Let us hope the unprovoked police brutality in the OWS NYC protest is not a sign of the latter.

[atomiczombie]

1. The Top 1 Percent of Americans Owns 40 Percent of the Nation’s Wealth
2. The Top 1 Percent of Americans Take Home 24 Percent of National Income
3. The Top 1 Percent Of Americans Own Half of the Country’s Stocks, Bonds and Mutual Funds
4. The Top 1 Percent Of Americans Have Only 5 Percent of the Nation’s Personal Debt
5. The Top 1 Percent are Taking In More of the Nation’s Income Than at Any Other Time Since the 1920s

Link:

http://www.alternet.org/economy/1526..._of_americans/

[Cin]

We have learned many variations of the meme that the U.S is a meritocracy and one’s future as well as one’s present situation is a direct result of the choices each individual makes. It has become something of a prayer that the working and middle classes, most especially the white working and middle classes, murmur over and over as they try to keep their heads above water. It’s becoming harder and harder to accept, but these kinds of purposely cultivated barriers are hard to break through. It is a part of our national psyche that the poor are somehow responsible for their plight. It has always been important to believe that. I think it is a defense mechanism that human beings have to keep themselves feeling safe, to ward off the bogeyman so to speak. If you are poor, unemployed, sick, without insurance, disabled or whatever difficult situation you find yourself in then you must, at least in part, be responsible for your own predicament. To believe otherwise is to believe it could happen to you. But as we begin to see it happen to so many this kind of thinking is becoming harder and harder to justify.

Here are some excerpts from this article

http://www.alternet.org/economy/1525..._people?page=1

six ways the rich are waging class warfare
1.Registering the Poor to Vote is 'UnAmerican'
2.Unemployment Benefits Have Created a 'Nation of Slackers'
3.You Can't Really Be Poor if You Have a Color TV!
4.Food-Stamps: 'A Fossil That Repeats All the Errors of the War on Poverty'
5.The Main Causes of Child Poverty Are Low Levels of Parental Work and the Absence of Fathers.'
6.Taxing Working People Less Than the Rich Is 'Perverse'

“class war”: habitually vilifying the unfortunate; claiming that their plight is a manifestation of some personal flaw or cultural deficiency. Conservatives wage this form of class warfare virtually every day, consigning millions of people who are down on their luck to some subhuman underclass.

"The belief that there exists a large pool of “undeserving poor” who suck the lifeblood out of the rest of society lies at the heart of the Right's demonstrably false “culture of poverty” narrative. It's a narrative that runs through Ayn Rand's works. It comes to us in bizarre spin that holds up the rich as “wealth producers” and “job creators.”

And it affects our public policies. In his classic book, Why Americans Hate Welfare, Martin Gilens found a striking disconnect: significant majorities of Americans told pollsters that they wanted public spending to fight poverty to be increased at the same time that similar majorities said they were opposed to welfare.

the United States is anything but a true meritocracy. What millions of white working-class Americans understand – intuitively, even if they can't articulate it – is that class still matters. And by erasing the very idea of class, of structural barriers to getting ahead in this economy, they are left with a nagging sense of grievance against those they perceive to be bringing them down: foreign powers, immigrants, people of color and liberals, with their “job-killing” regulations and the like."
End of excerpts from the article.

Apparently grievance against anything and anyone but the rich

But that is beginning to stop. The blinders are off. People are beginning to see through all the bull shit, deceit and slight of hand designed to keep us from understanding who is really standing on our backs and keeping us down.

[cuddlyfemme]

I'm going to Occupy Columbia on the 21st and can't wait!

[Kätzchen]

Originally Posted by atomiczombie

1. The Top 1 Percent of Americans Owns 40 Percent of the Nation’s Wealth
2. The Top 1 Percent of Americans Take Home 24 Percent of National Income
3. The Top 1 Percent Of Americans Own Half of the Country’s Stocks, Bonds and Mutual Funds
4. The Top 1 Percent Of Americans Have Only 5 Percent of the Nation’s Personal Debt
5. The Top 1 Percent are Taking In More of the Nation’s Income Than at Any Other Time Since the 1920s

Link:

http://www.alternet.org/economy/1526..._of_americans/

Thank you for this AtomicZombie!!!

I like how people often do not internalize the ramification of distribution of wealth as it occurs landlocked in the top 1% of those who earn this type of wealth. And that's just it: They didn't earn it all on their own merit.

I'll give everyone an example of what I am saying, in case it's not clear to others.

Let's take Steve Jobs.

People are deifying this man as if he accorded all his wealth on his own. Yes, he was a vehicle that changed technological use. Yes, his company Pixar produced stellar movies. Did he do that all on his own? No. I have a good friend, from years past (when I practiced hair in the Hawthorne dist of Portland) who drew, animated and provided the logisitical framework for the characters of that movie. Was he compensated for his tremendous talent? No. But Steve Jobs capitalized on it. I understand that many people revere this man for the landmark technology that revolutionized how users now communicate across the digital divide; and it's that particular division, fissure, in society and how people (Steve Jobs, in particular) have capitalized on it.


I know my statement is provocative by nature, but I have never cared for how Steve Jobs capitalized on social need (dare I say, dependency on technology) or failed to treat his collaborative business partners equitably, with what seems to me as an elitist mindset.

~D

[theoddz]

Gotta love Bernie Sanders!!!


and....


~Theo~

[Martina]

The prime mortgage market tanked too, folks. There was a bubble. People were encouraged to borrow and refinance. Money was cheap. Every trustworthy source encouraged it. When the bubble burst, responsible folks were put underwater.