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Frazzled wrote:Well the big Houston protest just went by.
LAME!
It was like two park and ride buses full. Thats it? Come on the weekly marches at my college had ten times that, and 3/4 were fine California numphs. This was sad. I did like the guy on stilts dressed as Uncle Sam though. A brave man to try to walk on stilts through all the construction and normal Houston downtown potholes.
Melissia if you were there I was the guy drinking coffee and giving the protesters the finger. Sorry...

lolno. I was busy trying to be a productive student.

And as I stated before, if all your demands start with "CONGRESS", New York, or any city other than DC may be the wrong place to protest.

So are these "Occupy X" popping up all over and are they copycats or are they part of some organized group (possibly being funded by another more well financed organized group)? It was in an email with links to the event and I couldn't find a list of grievances, well at least a cohesive one. There was a video of a guy in a Guy Fawkes mask I didn't watch and something about how we are the 99% taking on the 1%. It wasn't clear exactly who that 1% was, but that it was 'us' and they were 'them'.

I'm pretty sure I am one of the "them".

Melissia wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Well the big Houston protest just went by.
LAME!
It was like two park and ride buses full. Thats it? Come on the weekly marches at my college had ten times that, and 3/4 were fine California numphs. This was sad. I did like the guy on stilts dressed as Uncle Sam though. A brave man to try to walk on stilts through all the construction and normal Houston downtown potholes.
Melissia if you were there I was the guy drinking coffee and giving the protesters the finger. Sorry...

lolno. I was busy trying to be a productive student.

Excellent. Once you're a productive student you can work a little bit and become an unproductive employee.

[edit: whoops, wrong thread...]

Ahtman wrote:So are these "Occupy X" popping up all over and are they copycats or are they part of some organized group (possibly being funded by another more well financed organized group)? It was in an email with links to the event and I couldn't find a list of grievances, well at least a cohesive one. There was a video of a guy in a Guy Fawkes mask I didn't watch and something about how we are the 99% taking on the 1%. It wasn't clear exactly who that 1% was, but that it was 'us' and they were 'them'.

Well unions and Moveon.org are now supporting so....


RNC?

Ahtman wrote:It wasn't clear exactly who that 1% was, but that it was 'us' and they were 'them'.

I don't know about you guys, but it seems that a lot of my friends that are really into this aren't really the most industrious or responsible people that I know.

Honey, it's not JP Morgan's fault that you've quit 4 jobs in the last three years.

I'm, of course, only speaking about those people. I'm not generalizing about the majority of unemployed/underemployed people.

Mn, Dunno about those guys-- but I do know that many polls of households (example) have repeatedly shown anywhere from 20% to 26% unemployment numbers, and that I think would be unfair to blame purely on supposed laziness.

There are definitely some lazy people out there though...

I'm a white collar, corporate wage slave who makes well over the national average in my field. I am into this.

Anybody with even a smidge of empathy and EQ knows that something important is going on. You know Emotional Intelligence, things that can't be measured on a graph.

It isn't left/right, Dem/Rep, Boomer/Gen Y, Male/Female or Lib/Con. It is something else, something that will defy a strong label until historians have enough time to be seperated from it in the arc of history.

I don't know exactly what it is, but it is big and it is building all over the Western World.

All of this has happened before, and will happen again.

Easy E wrote:It isn't left/right, Dem/Rep, Boomer/Gen Y, Male/Female or Lib/Con. It is something else, something that will defy a strong label until historians have enough time to be seperated from it in the arc of history.

Yet what are the odds it will be almost entirely made up of left, Dem, libs? Historians love nothing more than coming up with labels for movements and groups so I doubt it will be a problem this time.

I emailed the people about the one this weekend and they admitted that what was being extremely vague but that hoped that over time it would coalesce into something that would be able to appeal to others and generate awareness.

Ahtman wrote:Yet what are the odds it will be almost entirely made up of left, Dem, libs?

All that scorn they heaped on the Tea Party is going to be returned with interest.

I think both groups are silly, tbh, but I'm not really emotionally invested.

Monster Rain wrote:

Ahtman wrote:Yet what are the odds it will be almost entirely made up of left, Dem, libs?

All that scorn they heaped on the Tea Party is going to be returned with interest.

Or this is the returns the Tea Party is due for all the scorn they heaped on others, especially left/dem/libs.

Monster Rain wrote:I think both groups are silly, tbh, but I'm not really emotionally invested.

Ditto

Ahtman wrote:Or this is the returns the Tea Party is due for all the scorn they heaped on others, especially left/dem/libs.

Oh sure, it's all going back and forth. I'm just referring to the most recent cycle.

Ahtman wrote:

Easy E wrote:It isn't left/right, Dem/Rep, Boomer/Gen Y, Male/Female or Lib/Con. It is something else, something that will defy a strong label until historians have enough time to be seperated from it in the arc of history.

Yet what are the odds it will be almost entirely made up of left, Dem, libs? Historians love nothing more than coming up with labels for movements and groups so I doubt it will be a problem this time.

I emailed the people about the one this weekend and they admitted that what was being extremely vague but that hoped that over time it would coalesce into something that would be able to appeal to others and generate awareness.

The people marching down the street in Houston were left/smelly/commies.

On the positive the Tea Party rally here some time ago was more lame, but better organized and certainly more hygienic.

Frazzled wrote:

Ahtman wrote:

Easy E wrote:It isn't left/right, Dem/Rep, Boomer/Gen Y, Male/Female or Lib/Con. It is something else, something that will defy a strong label until historians have enough time to be seperated from it in the arc of history.

Yet what are the odds it will be almost entirely made up of left, Dem, libs? Historians love nothing more than coming up with labels for movements and groups so I doubt it will be a problem this time.

I emailed the people about the one this weekend and they admitted that what was being extremely vague but that hoped that over time it would coalesce into something that would be able to appeal to others and generate awareness.

The people marching down the street in Houston were left/smelly/commies.

On the positive the Tea Party rally here some time ago was more lame, but better organized and certainly more hygienic.

Did they manage to avoid assaulting anyone this time?

Tea party or lefties?

Have any tea party folks been arrested at their rallies? How about arrests in mass like this current group seems to enjoy?

Honest qustion.

biccat wrote:First, your chart starts in 1989 (end of a boom cycle) and ends in 2010, the depths of the latest recession. Second, 1989 - 2011 is less than 40 years. If you go back to 1971 (40 years ago), the median (inflation-adjusted) income was ~$42,000. Today it's $49,777.

This is gak. Not your figure, that is, which is entirely correct, but the level of growth shown. It is an absolute failure of an economic system to deliver 19% wages growth over 40 years.

If you look at Australia over the same period of time, we delivered growth of a tick under 64% after inflation, and we had an entirely mediocre 80s and absolutely terrible early 90s in terms of economic growth. But at the end of the day, the average guy drawing the average wage today is more than 50% better off than his Dad was, and that's about how it is across the board.

Except the US, where despite having economic growth on par with the rest of the world, the average guy earning the average wage has only seen it grow by 19% - because most of the growth has gone to the guy at the top end of town.


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Ahtman wrote:So are these "Occupy X" popping up all over and are they copycats or are they part of some organized group (possibly being funded by another more well financed organized group)? It was in an email with links to the event and I couldn't find a list of grievances, well at least a cohesive one. There was a video of a guy in a Guy Fawkes mask I didn't watch and something about how we are the 99% taking on the 1%. It wasn't clear exactly who that 1% was, but that it was 'us' and they were 'them'.

Real Americans?


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Easy E wrote:It isn't left/right, Dem/Rep, Boomer/Gen Y, Male/Female or Lib/Con. It is something else, something that will defy a strong label until historians have enough time to be seperated from it in the arc of history.

That's what they said about the Tea Party as well. It wasn't true then, and I doubt it's true now.

Movements like this don't get mainstream media coverage from the get-go unless they've got inside players pulling the strings for them. Inside players means connections to one of the two big political establishments, either the Democrats or the Republicans.

Actual, real grassroots movements get sidelined by the media. Look at the protests against the Iraq war, they had incredible numbers in cities across the globe, but the media coverage was less than we have for these very small turnouts.

It really, really wouldn't surprise me if there were Democrat groups at the core of this, either looking to build base enthusiasm for the party, or force the party as a whole to move further to the left.

mattyrm wrote:

Zing!

Ive always hated how arrogant middle class arseholes look down on people with gak jobs.

In the UK they are far more generous with social programmes than in the US, you can live on the dole. Im talking 30 years without a job, its not hard to do. They pay your council tax and your rent and give you money, sure your not gonna be wadded, but its comfortable enough. Thats why so many fething people do it.

For that reason, I dont merely appreciate people with gakky jobs, I really fething respect them. People look at a street sweeper and think they guy has no self respect, its the exact fething opposite.

If your a bus driver or a street sweeper or a toilet cleaner, you get your ass out of bed on a morning to do a job you don't enjoy, and you do it BECAUSE you have too much self respect to sit on your ass and live off fething wellfare like so many parasites do.

I will bro fist a toilet cleaner.

I will chainfist a pretentious English literature student who wears a beret.

That is an awesome post, man. I really like you attitude, if only more people had that amount of respect for those of us with hard/unrewarding jobs, the world would be a better place.

CptJake wrote:Have any tea party folks been arrested at their rallies? How about arrests in mass like this current group seems to enjoy?

Honest qustion.

Aside from one whom was arrested for soliciting prostitution, I can't find any google hits.

Melissia wrote:

CptJake wrote:Have any tea party folks been arrested at their rallies? How about arrests in mass like this current group seems to enjoy?

Honest qustion.

Aside from one whom was arrested for soliciting prostitution, I can't find any google hits.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/25/rand-paul-supporter-stomps-head_n_773857.html

Okay, so a couple arrests, one a Ron Paul supporter not at a Tea Party event who subdued someone looking to cause trouble by running at a candidate, someone NOT involved in the rally but inserting themself (unless you consider Moveon.org part of the TeaParty). But we'll give you two arrests, one for a non-violent act (soliciting sex) and one for a violent act.

So, to compare the Tea Party to these guys and be fair, one must note that their behavior and tactics are quite different (the victim in one of the arrests above is actually an example of poor behavior we are seeing from the Occupy Wall Street crowd. She did not deserve to get thrown to the ground, but runnng and yelling at a candidate sure could be considered a threat and she was inserting herself into a rally for a candidate she was opposed to).

Which set of behaviors and the values they indicate do you think is going to be appreciated by the independent and moderate voters that decide every election? Which message will actually get listened to by those deciding votes? I'm guessing the typical American won't sympathize nor empathize with thuggery.

mattyrm wrote:

Zing!

Ive always hated how arrogant middle class arseholes look down on people with gak jobs.

In the UK they are far more generous with social programmes than in the US, you can live on the dole. Im talking 30 years without a job, its not hard to do. They pay your council tax and your rent and give you money, sure your not gonna be wadded, but its comfortable enough. Thats why so many fething people do it.

For that reason, I dont merely appreciate people with gakky jobs, I really fething respect them. People look at a street sweeper and think they guy has no self respect, its the exact fething opposite.

If your a bus driver or a street sweeper or a toilet cleaner, you get your ass out of bed on a morning to do a job you don't enjoy, and you do it BECAUSE you have too much self respect to sit on your ass and live off fething wellfare like so many parasites do.

I will bro fist a toilet cleaner.

I will chainfist a pretentious English literature student who wears a beret.

Let's see - in southampton the bin men made more than I did as a forensic scientist with an honours degree working long shifts and having legal responsiblities. My wife earned 2/3s of that (approx) working even longer hours as a deputy nursery manager. So don't tell me a street sweeper or bus driver is a poorly paid job. It is highly paid for what it is. Its certainly valuable and necessary (ut so is childcare!) It didn't help that they went on strike wanting more pay either....

English lit student with beret is fine, said pretentious student not fine. But you find pretentious people everywhere in all walks of life.

Tube train drivers are going to be on £52,000 a year soon.

Goes some way to explaining the price of an Underground ticket...

CptJake wrote:Which set of behaviors and the values they indicate do you think is going to be appreciated by the independent and moderate voters that decide every election? Which message will actually get listened to by those deciding votes?

That depends on how desparate said independent is. In fact, from what I've read... for independents, it looks like the average unemployment rate is actually higher than for members of either party. So they could very well side with whoever has the most appealing job plan for them. What exactly that is I would not offer a prediction for.

I don't know if either movement has a real plan. Certainly the Tea Party doesn't, it's more concerned with a somewhat irrelevant budget issue than it is with job creation (its desire to fix the former harms any attempts to fix the latter anyway). Hell, neither party really has a coherent plan for this-- republicans because they're riding high on tea party (which as mentioned before don't really care that much about the issue), the democrats because they're so disorganized they're not really riding on anything right now.

Organized violence, which then turns unorganized is not going to win over moderates and independants. And when the less than coherent message seems to be 'More Big Gov't' and this message is emphasized by these tools (as in they are being used) in the way it is, that message is not going to resonate they way they want it to.

This was a mistake for their cause.

CptJake wrote:Have any tea party folks been arrested at their rallies? How about arrests in mass like this current group seems to enjoy?

Honest qustion.

No tea party activists almost never get arrested. They're not teenagers and have been there/done that with the whole spending the night in jail thing.


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Melissia wrote:

CptJake wrote:Which set of behaviors and the values they indicate do you think is going to be appreciated by the independent and moderate voters that decide every election? Which message will actually get listened to by those deciding votes?

That depends on how desparate said independent is. In fact, from what I've read... for independents, it looks like the average unemployment rate is actually higher than for members of either party. So they could very well side with whoever has the most appealing job plan for them. What exactly that is I would not offer a prediction for.

I don't know if either movement has a real plan. Certainly the Tea Party doesn't, it's more concerned with a somewhat irrelevant budget issue than it is with job creation (its desire to fix the former harms any attempts to fix the latter anyway). Hell, neither party really has a coherent plan for this-- republicans because they're riding high on tea party (which as mentioned before don't really care that much about the issue), the democrats because they're so disorganized they're not really riding on anything right now.

if you think the budget is not relevant you have no conception of what has happened in the world in the past 50 years.

I guess if there is any positive you're seeing it play out now in real time. The pending destruction in Europe has been hammering the global economy for some time, and boys its just starting. All this evil banker thing may be a moot point in a year. We'll see how many big banks are left.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8812260/World-facing-worst-financial-crisis-in-history-Bank-of-England-Governor-says.html