Sunday, October 16, 2011

Protest

for Laci, 'homme et chien'.  (Looks like someone on the right was wrong about this movement going bust and going away.)  From MSNBC.com:
Image: Protesters fill Times Square in New York
Mary Altaffer  /  AP
Demonstrators affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street rally Saturday in New York's Times Square.
NBC News and news services
updated 1 hour 0 minutes ago

In its biggest day yet, thousands of anti-Wall Street protesters rallied in Times Square on Saturday, buoyed by a global day of demonstrations backing their month-long campaign against economic inequality.
"Banks got bailed out, we got sold out!" protesters chanted from within police barricades. Police, some in riot gear and mounted on horses, tried to push them out of the square and onto the sidewalks in an attempt to funnel the crowds away.
Sandy Peterson of Salt Lake City, who was in Times Square after seeing "The Book of Mormon" musical on Broadway, got caught up in the disorder.
"We're getting out of here before this gets ugly," she said.
The Occupy Wall Street demonstrators had marched north through Manhattan from Washington Square Park earlier in the afternoon. Once in Times Square, they held a rally for several hours before dispersing. Over the course of the day, more than 70 people were arrested.
Police spokesman Paul Browne said 42 of those were arrested in Times Square on Saturday night after being warned repeatedly to disperse, and three others were arrested while trying to take down police barriers.
Two police officers were injured during the protest and had to be hospitalized. One suffered a head injury, the other a foot injury, Browne said.
Protesters assembled at Washington Square Park for an after-party Saturday night, but as midnight park curfew fell, squads of police swept the park as demonstrators chanted and marched away. About a dozen who stayed behind were expected to be arrested, protest organizers said.
Over the past month, the protests have expanded from New York's financial district to cities across the United States and abroad. Demonstrations were called this weekend in the U.S., Canada and Europe, as well as in Asia and Africa.
In New York, where the movement began when protesters set up camp in a Lower Manhattan park on Sept. 17, organizers said the protest grew to at least 5,000 people as they marched to Times Square from their makeshift outdoor headquarters.

The Times Square mood was akin to New Year's Eve, when the famed "ball drop" occurs. In a festive mood, protesters were joined by throngs of tourists snapping pictures, together counting back from 10 and shouting, "Happy New Year."
The protest arrived in Times Square at a time when the area was crowded with tourists and Broadway theatergoers.
Sandra Fox, 69, of Baton Rouge, La., stood, confused, on 46th Street with a ticket for "Anything Goes" in her hand as riot police pushed a knot of about 200 shouting protesters toward her.
"I think it's horrible what they're doing," she said of the protesters. "These people need to go get jobs."
New York police said about 70 people had been arrested, including 24 at a Citibank branch in Manhattan's Greenwich Village neighborhood, mostly for trespassing. Protesters said those arrested were trying to close their accounts. A Reuters reporters saw another five people arrested as the protest neared Times Square.
"It's not every day that you get to be at the most significant uprising in a generation," Occupy Wall Street said on its Facebook page. Protesters said they did not have any police permits for the New York demonstrations.
Police were directing protesters to stay on the sidewalk, saying they would arrest anyone who did not keep moving.
The march came a day after protesters at the heart of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement in New York exulted Friday after beating back a plan they said was intended to clear them from the privately owned park where they have slept, eaten and protested for the past month. They said their victory will embolden the movement across the U.S. and abroad.
"We are going to piggy-back off the success of today, and it's going to be bigger than we ever imagined," said protester Daniel Zetah after Friday's announcement that protesters could remain in the park.
In the U.S., marches were planned in cities large and small from Providence, Rhode Island, to Little Rock, Arkansas; to Seattle. About 200 people camped overnight in Detroit, a group spokeswoman said.
How does a group like Occupy Wall Street get anything done?The U.S. protests were linking up with anti-austerity demonstrations that have raged across debt-ridden Europe for months.
A call for mass protests on Saturday originated a month ago from a meeting in Spain, where mostly young and unemployed people angry at the country's handling of the economic crisis have been demonstrating for months. It was reposted on the Occupy Wall Street website and has been further amplified through social media.
On Saturday, tens of thousands nicknamed "the indignant" marched in European cities from Sarajevo, Bosnia, to Stockholm.
In Toronto, about 2,000 people gathered peacefully and started to set up a camp in a park. Some of the protesters announced plans to camp out indefinitely in St. James Park and protests were also held in other cities across Canada from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Vancouver, British Columbia.
In Mexico City, a few hundred protesters gathered under the towering, stone Revolution Monument to protest "exploitation" by wealthy elites. In the border city of Tijuana, about 100 protesters gathered in the banking district, including many university students protesting against the lack of jobs for graduates.
Rallies across the USA Marchers throughout the U.S. ranged from about 50 people in Jackson, Miss., to about 2,000 in the larger city of Pittsburgh.
"I am going to start my life as an adult in debt and that's not fair," student Nathaniel Brown told Reuters Television. "Millions of teenagers across the country are going to start their futures in debt, while all of these corporations are getting money fed all the time and none of us can get any."
In Miami about 500 protesters turned out carrying posters that read "People not profits", "This is the 2nd American Revolution" and "Heal America, tax Wall Street."
Nearly 1,500 gathered Saturday for a march past banks in downtown Orlando.
About 50 people met in a park in downtown Jackson, Miss., carrying signs calling for "Health Care Not Warfare."
Some made more considerable commitments to try to get their voices heard. Nearly 200 spent a cold night in tents in Grand Circus Park in Detroit, donning gloves, scarves and heavy coats to keep warm, said Helen Stockton, a 34-year-old certified midwife from Ypsilanti, and plan to remain there "as long as it takes to effect change."
"It's easy to ignore us," Stockton said. Then she referred to the financial institutions, saying, "But we are not going to ignore them. Every shiver in our bones reminds us of why we are here."
Hundreds more converged near the Michigan's Capitol in Lansing with the same message, the Lansing State Journal reported.
Rallies drew young and old, laborers and retirees. In Pittsburgh, marchers also included parents with children in strollers and even a doctor. The peaceful crowd of 1,500 to 2,000 stretched for two or three blocks.
"I see our members losing jobs. People are angry," said Janet Hill, 49, who works for the United Steelworkers, which she said hosted a sign-making event before the march.
At least 2,000 Occupy Denver demonstrators marched peacefully through downtown Saturday afternoon, the Denver Post reported. Five hours later, police and dedicated protesters clashed after dining tents were pitched at Civic Center park. Officers arrested 24 people and knocked down the tents.
Chicago protesters moved to an area in Grant Park Saturday night after a crowd of about 2,000 people marched from LaSalle Street and Jackson to Congress Plaza, north of Congress Parkway and east of Michigan Avenue, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Bearing homemade signs, American flags and printed banners, the crowd settled in the plaza to listen to a variety of speakers, while some participants erected tents and set up sleeping bags.
"This is our Tahrir Square," said one speaker, comparing the demonstration to protests in Egypt as part of what has been called the Arab Spring. "We're not going to take it anymore! We're going to take these streets!"
Slideshow: Global Occupy protests begin (on this page) Another 5,000 marched through Los Angeles and gathered peacefully outside City Hall.
Michael Goodblatt, 29, a doctor at UCLA Medical Center, was at the protest with a group of doctors. He said they had all seen first hand how people had suffered during the recession.
"These are our people and we want to show our support because this affects everyone," Goodblatt said.
Rallies downtown, uptown Retired teacher Albert Siemsen of Milwaukee said at a demonstration in the Wisconsin city that he'd grown angry watching school funding get cut at the same time that banks and corporations gained more influence in government. The 81-year-old wants to see tighter Wall Street regulation.
Around him, protesters held signs reading, "Keep your corporate hands off my government," and "Mr. Obama, Tear Down That Wall Street."
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick visited protesters in Boston's Dewey Square for the first time. He said that after walking through the camp, he better understands the range of views and was sympathetic to concerns about unemployment, health care and the influence of money in politics.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, a prominent civil rights leader, led a march in Washington that was not affiliated with the Occupy movement but shared similar goals. His rally was aimed at drumming up support for President Barack Obama's jobs plan. Thousands of demonstrators packed the lawn in the shadow of the Washington Monument to hear labor, education and civil rights leaders speak, including Sharpton.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

56 comments:

  1. .....all those smelly hippies, took one piece of trash from "Poopinstock Park" and put it a city provided dumptster, there would not be a sanitation problem.......

    But that would require doing somthing.....

    ReplyDelete
  2. If, you must rely on Faux Nuissance instead of a real news source, or worse, Rush Limbaugh.

    You clearly missed that the supposed photo of someone with their pants down next to a cop car was not from the occupy protests, but turns out it was from a totally different demonstration years ago, pre-tea party, pre-occupy protest.

    There is also some serious indications that the fox news story about the coast guard officer in Boston being spit on by protesters is bogus as well. It is particularly significant given that only Fox news ran with the story, but all other media in Boston didn't touch it. There is a long pattern of fox running with single source allegations that later turn out not to be true - but Fox somehow never manages to update or correct the information. A perfect example of that was the snow plow slow down in NYC that turned out - after four investigations - to exist entirely in the mind of a publicity seeking city councilman. NONE of his claimed sources backed up his statements, nor did any other independent sources.

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  3. And FYI - in the instance of the allegation of protester misconduct in Boston, just to verify, I contacted the Boston Coast Guard PR department for a statement. Look for it to be published here. What I did find though in looking for alternate sources to confirm the story were reports that individuals in Coast Guard uniforms had previously harassed protesters in other pre-occupy demonstrations in Boston.

    You might also want to look at the boasts, backed up by photos, of right wingers trying to infiltrate the protests to behave badly in an attempt to discredit protesters who aren't behaving badly.

    Because unlike the right wing blogosphere, we fact check here. I know - it's not something you are used to, but hang around you might get used to it.

    You clearly must have gone out of your way to avoid seeing the vast group of diverse people with donated cleaning supplies not only picking up after themselves but on their hands and knees with buckets of soapy water and bristle brushes, scrubbing the pavement.

    Oh, wait -- that's right. You're part of the don't confuse me with the facts crowd who prefers their fanatasy world of ugly ideology to reality. Geeze, your crowd is so easy for the right to exploit and manipulate.

    Expect posts here on the Boston occupy incident after I hear back from the Boston coast guard.

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  4. dog gone:

    Let me see if I can help Mr. If.....said... (that name sounds a bit, arabofascist?).

    Iffy, you're a fucking liar. There, I hope that clears things up for you, you moron.

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  5. Let me see if I can help Mr. If.....said... (that name sounds a bit, arabofascist?).

    Iffy, you're a fucking liar. There, I hope that clears things up for you, you moron.


    so this guy is lying as well......

    http://info.publicintelligence.net/ZuccottiParkComplaint.pdf

    "After weeks of occupation, conditions at the Park have deteriorated to unsanitary and unsafe levels."

    Additionally, we have received hundreds of phone calls and e-mails from concerned citizens and
    office workers in the neighborhood. Complaints range from outrage over numerous laws being
    broken including but not limited to lewdness, groping, drinking and drug usc, to the lack of safe
    access to and usage of the Park, to ongoing noise at all hours, to unsanitary conditions and to
    offensive odors. We have received complaints of harassment, one woman stating that she was
    verbally abused in front of her 5-year-old child and complaining that she had a package stolen from
    her as she tried to cross the Park.


    Richard B. Clark
    Chief Executive Officer
    Brookfield Office Properties
    Brookfield Global Real Estate
    Three World Financial Center
    New York, NY 10281-1021


    Only after this letter did your drove of filthy hippies decide to try to clean up after themselves.....

    http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/told-to-leave-protesters-talk-pre-emptive-strategy/

    So right back at ya, fucknozzel.

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  6. First of all - IF, lose the f-bombs.

    Secondly, I appreciate what you have posted that is factual.

    However, I have a heckuva lot of skepticism for the position espoused by Brookfield when they have gone to such extreme lenghts NOT to cooperate with the efforts by the protesters to be clean. The protesters have had a committee to organize and perform DAILY cleaning since this all got started a month ago. The problems attendant on this many people in one place for this length of time are very difficult; and that is not the same thing as these people being slobs.

    Then there is the claim about the defecating on the police car...which is apparently a photo from some demonstration / protest back in March 2003, not this protest.

    And as to groping - I see public displays of affectoin in bad taste all over, and have since I was in high school, not just at this protest. So to act as if what is taking place at the protest is somehow different or more shocking than anywhere else on the streets of New York is disingenuous - have you ever been to NYC and seen what goes on?

    As to the other allegations, I'd like to see both sides of that story. So far consistently the protesters have been well behaved, and if in fact there has been an exception - and I do mean IF - then it IS an exception and has not typified the protest.

    There was a right wing reported incident involving a female member of the coast guard that is less than credible, btw. I have contacted the PR department of the Boston Coast Guard, and i'm waiting for a response back. It is worth noting that there is no reference anywhere on their website about it, which i would have expected if it were true.

    So be careful of the supposedly 'confirmed' nonsense. My fact checking so far has not shown those anti-protest stories to be very accurate. And none of the Boston papers or tv stations other than a single Fox news station have touched it. In my experience that is consistent with stories that turn out to be fakes by Fakes News, er, Fox Not-Really News.

    So, I'm big on fact checking and multi-sourcing, where more than one source confirms something independently, not one highly partisan source (any side) being repeated endlessly.

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  7. democommie said...

    dog gone:

    Let me see if I can help Mr. If.....said... (that name sounds a bit, arabofascist?).

    Iffy, you're a fucking liar. There, I hope that clears things up for you, you moron.


    he started it!!!!

    Stefan Jeremiah lays claim to the photo......

    I took a photograph this Friday gone at the Occupy Wall Street protest in downtown Manhattan that seems to have caused quite a stir. A number of questions and conspiracy theories have developed and I thought it might be useful if a put a few words out there, that are free from any slanted editorial or political bias. Twitter is great but still limited as a means of expression and communication........

    read the rest at.....

    http://bearwitnesspictures.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-protester-defecating_11.html

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  8. This could be like the build-up years to the French Revolution. Wasn't that one about the haves and the have-nots?

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  9. I bet the rightwing eejot hasn't been to one of these protests.

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  10. Let's see, we have a picture which purports to show an Occupy Wall Street Protester taking a shit next to a cop car.

    The problem is that it doen't look to me that it has anything to do with the protest.

    And it was posted all over the disreputable right wing media.

    I doubt our righties have been to one of these protests, but are quite willing to spread heresay from unreliable sources.

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  11. Again, the photo doesn't show anyone actually defecating, it shows someone with their pants down, which could be a person mooning cops. Mooning - dropping trou and waving one's backside in the general direction of the opposition - usually authority - is a juvenile thing to do, but not in any way something that has been charateristic of this protest. Of all the photos I've seen, and I've looked at many, this is not representative. Now if you want to do a survey of a lot of photographers, including very prestigious photographers and lets throw in videographers as well, this doesn't hold up well. Even IF - and I still say IF - this is a factual photo. Photographers take pictures to make money, and clearly this is a sensational photo which only has significance in a larger context where this is an exception not the rule.

    There have been a number of television shows that have done hours of live television from these protests, with photographers and video cameras recording more than one isolated shot. They do NOT substantiate your claims If/Three year old, about these protests.

    I do agree that the crowds are growing at such a rate, that these protests have exceeded the ability of the protests to keep up with needed sanitation availability. But that is not the same as the protesters being intentionally dirty. If we are going to look for the cause of the problem it is far more on the shoulders of those who will not cooperate with the protesters in allowing them to provide for keeping the area clean, as evidenced by their repeated non-cooperation. The protests have had ample grass roots - not astro-turf - funding to do so.

    And the reason that there has been such lack of cooperation, even obstruction has been because the people who are obstructing are the ones being protested against, who are trying to use it as a means to prevent these people from exercising their first amendment rights of free speech and freedom of assembly- PEACEFUL assembly.

    And THAT only exposes more blatantl the hypocrisy of the right that does not genuinely support the U.S. Constitution, but which selectively seeks rights and freedom for themselves but not others.

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  12. Again, the photo doesn't show anyone actually defecating, it shows someone with their pants down, which could be a person mooning cops. Mooning - dropping trou and waving one's backside in the general direction of the opposition - usually authority - is a juvenile thing to do, but not in any way something that has been charateristic of this protest. Of all the photos I've seen, and I've looked at many, this is not representative. Now if you want to do a survey of a lot of photographers, including very prestigious photographers and lets throw in videographers as well, this doesn't hold up well. Even IF - and I still say IF - this is a factual photo. Photographers take pictures to make money, and clearly this is a sensational photo which only has significance in a larger context where this is an exception not the rule.

    There have been a number of television shows that have done hours of live television from these protests, with photographers and video cameras recording more than one isolated shot. They do NOT substantiate your claims If/Three year old, about these protests.

    I do agree that the crowds are growing at such a rate, that these protests have exceeded the ability of the protests to keep up with needed sanitation availability. But that is not the same as the protesters being intentionally dirty. If we are going to look for the cause of the problem it is far more on the shoulders of those who will not cooperate with the protesters in allowing them to provide for keeping the area clean, as evidenced by their repeated non-cooperation. The protests have had ample grass roots - not astro-turf - funding to do so.

    And the reason that there has been such lack of cooperation, even obstruction has been because the people who are obstructing are the ones being protested against, who are trying to use it as a means to prevent these people from exercising their first amendment rights of free speech and freedom of assembly- PEACEFUL assembly.

    And THAT only exposes more blatantl the hypocrisy of the right that does not genuinely support the U.S. Constitution, but which selectively seeks rights and freedom for themselves but not others.

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  13. I doubt our righties have been to one of these protests, but are quite willing to spread heresay from unreliable sources.

    So did they ever find the video of that protestor spitting on Rep. John Lewis......

    mikeb302000 said...

    This could be like the build-up years to the French Revolution. Wasn't that one about the haves and the have-nots?



    So you are would be cool with this being a French style revolution, the willy-nilly executing of intellectuals....

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Tribunal

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Lavoisier

    Nice to see the flea-ridden bed where you lie....

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  14. This is your best argument.....October 18, 2011 at 5:27 PM

    Really, the guy was mooning someone...

    Mooning - dropping trou and waving one's backside in the general direction of the opposition - usually authority - is a juvenile thing to do, but not in any way something that has been charateristic of this protest.


    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8P2zpbtwXag/R_JCOULtW6I/AAAAAAAAAs0/QW6_OPyv7So/s320/moonshot.jpg

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  15. Waiting, yes there is video of the tea party protesters being hostile to the black members of Congress, and there were multiple people in the party of congressmembers who witnessed the event.

    Multiple. Not single source.

    As to the incident in Boston, here is the text I received back just this morning from the Coast Guard, which confirms an incident occurred but does NOT confirm this was an act by a protester:

    "The following inquiry was submitted to 1st District USCG Boston PublicAffairs on 10/15/11 19:43 (786031):
    From : Luke Clayton
    Date : 10/18/11 08:50

    The incident did occur. The member filed a report with Boston PoliceDepartment and the Coast Guard has the utmost confidence that they willconduct a thorough investigation.

    To clarify, the incident occurred by the protest, but is undetermined who assaulted the officer. Coast Guard members are advised to take precaution near the protest,but will continue to wear uniforms with pride."

    The protesters denied that this was an act by one of their members, and repudiated and condemned such actoins as contrary to their stated goals and agreed rules of conduct.

    I look forward to posting the results of the police investigation, but I doubt very much that this will be linked to a participant of the protests, and I would call your attention to the protesters condemnation as the significant part of this story. Also I would point out that this has not been a pattern of complaints of misconduct, but rather has been given undue importance as the exception, not the usual with these protests, which have been repeatedly remarked on for being non-violent. Noisy yes. But not violent, and not assaulting anyone, just being assaulted.

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  16. Waiting for wrote:
    "So you are would be cool with this being a French style revolution, the willy-nilly executing of intellectuals...."

    Wasn't it the tea party that had all the rhetoric about watering the tree of liberty with blood?

    No one is advocating for a revolution with executions; or bringing back the guillotine. Or do you miss the repeated over and over and over and over identification of this revolution being peaceful and non-violent?

    It is consistently the right wing that has been anti-science, and anti-intellectual, so I'm not sure where you got the mistaken notion that bringing up LaVoisier was appropriate.

    And flea-ridden? Can't you come up with more witty and accurate snark than that? It is so off the mark that it has not sting, no substance, it is like a small child claiming the other person has cooties.

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  17. Sticks and stones.......October 18, 2011 at 5:40 PM

    But words.......

    Waiting, yes there is video of the tea party protesters being "hostile" to the black members of Congress, and there were multiple people in the party of congressmembers who witnessed the event.

    Hostile yeah I'll give you that there has been plenty of hostile words from TPr's and OWSr's, but video of someone spitting on the Congressman?

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  18. I don't care if the guy who dropped his pants next to a cop car was mooning someone or not. If he was publicly defecating he should be arrested. If he was moooning police....it's in the same category as the photo linked.

    Care to identify that photo?

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  19. The video showed the congressman reacting, pulling away, and wiping something off, but the video was from behind the protesters who were doing the spitting, so you can only see the response, not the action which is blocked by their bodies.

    There was no video from the opposite side which would have caught the person doing the spitting from the front.

    However, I would point out that there were multiple people in the group who confirmed it happened, unlike my understanding of the Boston incident. In the Boston event, I've very much hoping that there will be someting caught on closed circuit cameras that reveal something, one way or the other.

    Whoever did that, if it is shown to be an actual event, should be held accountable no matter who it is - regardless if they were a protester or not a protester.

    The Tea Party demonstrably has some racist elements, although I would not go so far as to assert that it is the entire group. But it does appear to be more endemic a problem than spitting or assaulting people is among the Occupy movement.

    What I believe is the important piece of information is that contrary to fox news and contrary to the accounts in the right wing blogosphere, the Coast Guard did NOT confirm that a protester spit on the female coast guard member.

    And let us not forget the role of the would be agent provocateurs on the right that have been trying to make the protests look bad, to alter their perceived image.

    THAT is conduct that is specific to the right regarding these protests.

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  20. Hey, you can blather all you want, Merkin, but I know you wouldn't go near one of these protests.

    That means you will keep saying the same old BS over and over.

    But, I've actually BEEN to one of the official rallies. Hell, I walk by it pretty much every day.

    I can say you are spouting crap.

    And you know you're going to be safe if they are executing intellectuals.

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  21. It is consistently the right wing that has been anti-science, and anti-intellectual, so I'm not sure where you got the mistaken notion that bringing up LaVoisier was appropriate.

    LaVoisier was the tragic end result of a revolution that became violent and was executed for selling watered down tobacco.

    It only stopped after throwing plenty of their own under the "National Razor"

    And their are plenty of videos of individuals in the movement advocating violence.....

    OWSr's discount them as fringe/infiltrators just like the TPr's

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  22. You are misrepresenting history here about LaVoisier. He was a tax collector, and the Tax Collectors at the time of the French revolution were notoriously corrupt - not unlike any number of those on wall street - resulting in the accumulation of corrupt wealth. You also leave out certain personal conflicts in the French Revolution which resulted in the execution as a kind of very personal payback, rather than as an example of generic violence. LaVoisier had been the target of opposition for a long time, some of it deserved as with the issues of legitimate versus corrupt tax collection, and some of it not, as with him being the victim of the personal vendetta. He was not executed because of being an intellectual, and indeed there was a great deal of effort expended on his behalf precisely because he was such a significant intellectual. The watered down tobacco was the last of a series of accusations, and you demonstrate as Laci noted, too much reliance on the superficial history of wikipedia, rather than a real understanding of it in any depth.

    As to the tea party - the tea party leaders were on record calling for violence, to cheers from the audience, showing a more fair representation of calls for violence. May I point out the number of times tea party candidates threatened bullets if they didn't get their way at the ballot box. I haven't gotten into this topic for years, not since back when I wrote a school paper on the topic. But at least when I did research the French Revolution I was competent enough in the language to read primary sources in their original french along with scholarly papers and books on the subject. You don't seem to have that depth, to put it mildly.

    The Occupy movement does not have any leaders comparable to the candidates I've mentioned above. And their official positions have concistently been non-violent, and they have acted consistently non-violently with the exception of the anarchists who joined the protests in Rome who acted badly - and have been denounced and condemned for it.

    The two groups, the tea party and the occupy group, do not equate on the subject of professing violence, not even close.

    Be intellectually honest and do a fair cross section sampling of the occupy groups and you will see what I mean. Then go look at oh, say the militia groups that supported the tea party or any number of candidates and supporters of candidates. You'll see what I mean.

    And Michele Bachmann's call for looking into who is pro americn and who is anti- american is the closest thing I've seen so far to the excesses of purity testing done in the French Revolution.

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  23. And you've been to a rally???

    In French history, this period is known as "la Grande Terreur".

    This quote from Robespierre pretty much sums it up:
    "The government in a revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny."

    And Ihave to agree with Dog Gone that the sort of excess seen in the French Revolution (and the US War for Independence) is closer to that expoused by the Tea Party crowd.

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  24. Among people who were condemned by the revolutionary tribunals, about 8 percent were aristocrats, 6 percent clergy, 14 percent middle class, and 72 percent were workers or peasants accused of hoarding, evading the draft, desertion, rebellion, and other purported minimal crimes.

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  25. I haven't seen the tea party or the occupy movement eating their own in the sense you mean.

    Clearly the proces of change, even when it is overwhelmingly significant change, is not the same, and has not been the same since the era of the U.S. civil rights movement.

    I'm not worried about executions, nor is Laci. You are fear mongering and inaccurately hyping, in other words, propagandizing.

    Like the righties have taken to doing to their own detriment.

    Why is it that the right seems unable to field a sane and competent candidate? It is because they don't value sanity or accuracy or competence. They value fear mongering, propaganda, and factual inaccuracy that tells them what they want to believe, not what really is true or factual.

    You illustrate my point.

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  26. So far,he hasn't said anything worth hearing.

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  27. the FR being a revolution of the people, were the 72 percent that were workers or peasants predominantly republicans or revolutionaries.....

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  28. How about the French Revolution is pretty irrelevant to the Occupy Wall Street movement? The fact that MikeB happened to quip something about People's Tribunals has gotten you off on a tangent.

    So far, I see a lot more talk about violence from the right, especially the Tea Party and the gun loon fraternity.

    If anything, you come off as truly hysterical by this digression.

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  29. I saw in the paper where the Occupy Wall Street group had raised about $300,000 plus alot of supplies for their demonstration. Do you know if the group has formed some sort of non profit organization to accept donations? If not, isn't all of this taxable income to someone who is now part of the 1% by having an annual income of over $250,000? Shouldn't this all be taxed so that they pay their fair share?

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  30. Good question, Jim.

    I'm not sure how they would handle this. From what I know about the movement, it's is pretty unorganised.

    But it isn't one person that the money is going to, but the movement for what that is worth.

    I found this:
    The Alliance for Global Justice, a nonprofit with 501c3 status, helped Occupy Wall Street to collect tax-exempt donations and open a credit union account to centralize funds.

    But, I am not sure if that only covers the NYC protest, or the whole shebang since there are similar protests all over.

    How long can anarchy prevail?

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  31. Laci - I understand that it is not one person getting the money, but if it is being deposited into a bank than there are only a few people that would have access to withdraw that money. It is only $300,000 now, but I expect pretty soon that this will be a lot of money being handled and there are alot of safeguards that a true non profit needs to have in place to avoid illegal or unethical use of the money collected. Since there are no formal leaders, it seems to me that this is a sitaution ripe for fraud.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Point taken, Jim, and they are good ones.

    It's hard for a group with no leader (aka an anarchy). Or as they call it, a horizontal leadership structure, to function.

    Eventually, this is going to have to become much more formal.

    ReplyDelete
  33. How about the French Revolution is pretty irrelevant to the Occupy Wall Street movement? The fact that MikeB happened to quip something about People's Tribunals has gotten you off on a tangent.

    actually Mike brought up how he thought that the movement was more like the French than the American, I just remarked that if it was a FR then I hope that he understood the potential for violence....

    So far, I see a lot more talk about violence from the right, especially the Tea Party and the gun loon fraternity.

    So you are saying that it's just a matter of time till this spore of a movement gets some organization and starts forming tribunals to punish the 1%

    If anything, you come off as truly hysterical by this digression.


    Please, I certainly hope that the OWS manages to place blame exactly where it belongs, but I do wonder why the OWS only marched on the homes of the rich that were majority "R" contributors....

    ReplyDelete
  34. So you are saying that it's just a matter of time till this spore of a movement gets some organization and starts forming tribunals to punish the 1%

    I seriously doubt that.

    I do wonder why the OWS only marched on the homes of the rich that were majority "R" contributors..

    Which happened where? Ah, only in NYC.

    Anyway:
    the homes of JP Morgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) CEO Jamie Dimon
    billionaire David Koch,
    hedge fund honcho John Paulson,
    Howard Milstein,
    and News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch.

    I can come up with non-partisan reasons to march on Jamie Dimon, David Koch, and Rupert Murdoch.

    You are aware that JP Morgan Chase was one of the recipients of the bank bailouts? You might want to look into how they spent the money!

    The Kochs are bogeymen for their funding of right wing and antidemocratic causes.

    Same goes for Murdoch--the man without a country. Or a conscience for that matter.

    ReplyDelete
  35. I should add that our local protest hasn't been as disruptive to the stock exchange as the NYC protests. I'm finding that to be quite surprising.

    ReplyDelete
  36. The root of all evil.....October 19, 2011 at 12:29 AM

    You are aware that JP Morgan Chase was one of the recipients of the bank bailouts? You might want to look into how they spent the money!

    The big banks some of which did not need the money and were forced to borrow have repaid the TARP loans.

    ReplyDelete
  37. They "did not need the money"? Why did they take it in the first place then?

    BTW, Most banks repaid TARP funds using capital raised from the issuance of equity securities and debt not guaranteed by the federal government.

    PNC Financial Services, one of the few profitable banks without TARP money, planned on paying their share back by January 2011, by building up its cash reserves instead of issuing equity securities. However, PNC reversed course on February 2, 2010, by issuing $3 billion in shares and $1.5-2 billion in senior notes in order to pay its TARP funds back.

    I'm sure that economic language flies over your head--they went and issued more debt. Securities, share, and all that is a fancy term for debt.

    I hope you will take my economics quiz since I am sure you will probably get a zero grade.

    And I have posted a couple of videos which might be at your level of intelligence on how the current economic system works.

    If you don't know how the economy functions, then you are prime for being taken to the cleaners.

    ReplyDelete
  38. Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis testified before Congress[10] that he had some misgivings about the acquisition of Merrill Lynch, and that federal officials pressured him to proceed with the deal or face losing his job and endangering the bank's relationship with federal regulators.

    This was tied to the TARP program.....

    Bank of America received $20 billion in the federal bailout from the U.S. government through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) on January 16, 2009, and also got a guarantee of $118 billion in potential losses at the company.[72] This was in addition to the $25 billion given to them in the Fall of 2008 through TARP. The additional payment was part of a deal with the US government to preserve Bank of America's merger with the troubled investment firm Merrill Lynch.

    So .gov says buy ML or we are going to shut you down and here is another $25BIL to do it, BoA does what they are forced to do, and then repays the money....

    Banks lend money that is what they do, granted some better than other.....

    But why force money on small banks, that now have to struggle to pay back the debt, unless damaging the banking system is what BO had in mind in the first by forcing debt on all of the small banks?

    ReplyDelete
  39. How much do you know about economics?

    What is the fractional reserve system of banking?

    Please take my economics quiz, or are you too ignorant on this topic and afraid of showing that you have no idea of what you are talking about (in that case,, why do you leave comments?)?

    I could do with a laugh reading your answers!

    ReplyDelete
  40. what BO had in mind
    Body Odour?

    Are you referring to Barack Obama? How well do you uderstand how the US government works? Which body has power over budgetary decisions?

    I will say that my question which is economically related on the quiz relates to this: In the the Westminster, or Parliamentary, system, the defeat of an appropriations bill (a bill that solely concerns taxation or government spending) has what result?

    If the executive wanted to spend money, Congress would have to write a bill, pass that bill into law, and appropriate the funds for it.

    Can't blame Obama unless you are in a Parliamentary system. Please explain why?

    ReplyDelete
  41. ......so what,

    BTW, Most banks repaid TARP funds using capital raised from the issuance of equity securities and debt not guaranteed by the federal government.

    Unlike GM that paid back TARP money with..........MORE TARP MONEY!

    ReplyDelete
  42. SO, you would prefer to see a segment of the economy collapse?

    You have no problem with a trade deficit?

    As I said, take my quiz.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Someone would have bought GM's assetsOctober 19, 2011 at 1:54 AM

    Some would have failed and some would not..... playing favorites, crony-capitalism is not right if you do it for a bank or a union.

    So, you would prefer to see a segment of the economy collapse?

    You have no problem with a trade deficit?


    You have no problem with the Government screwing retirees.....

    “As fiduciaries, we can’t allow our retired police officers and teachers to be ripped off by the federal government. The Indiana state funds suffered losses when the Obama administration overturned more than 100 years of established law by redefining ‘secured creditors’ to mean something less,” explained Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock. “The court filing is aimed not only at recouping those losses but also reasserting the rule of law and preventing the federal government from pursuing policies that strike at the heart of the capital system."

    http://www.munciefreepress.com/node/20231

    Or GM employees as long as they are not union?

    ReplyDelete
  44. Can't blame Obama unless you are in a Parliamentary system. Please explain why?

    I can blame Obama when he appoints people that favor one company over another based on their political contributions.

    And saying that Solyndra was not a crony capitalism at its worst is just disingenuous, Bush allowed the Department of energy to quash the Loan to Solyndra, Obama takes office and, TaDaha..... loan approved and all the connected investors move to the front of the line.

    I can complain when people Obama appoints make TARP money loans to foreign banks.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Wow, you are economically ignorant!

    So, you want a Chinese boss? A Russian one? An Indian one?

    As ranked by total assets, GM's bankruptcy marks one of the largest corporate Chapter 11 bankruptcies in U.S. history. The Chapter 11 filing was the fourth-largest in U.S. history, following Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Washington Mutual and WorldCom Inc.

    I should add that GM received loans from European governments in 2009, and has reduced its ownership stake in European operations as part of its reorganization in addition to the assistance from the US Government. Given that the banking system is crippled, the government had to help organise and pay for the bankruptcy through loans.

    Define foreign bank? Does a foreign large bank that has a significant presence in the US count as foreign? Didn't large US banks with foreign presence also receive money from other governments?

    I note that your sources for repayment are pretty much from the Republican party, which opposes everything Obama suggests--even if it originated from the Republicans.

    Yeah,pull the quote from a Tea Party Repubican to back you up Richard Mourdock.

    I hate telling you this, but Mourdock is blaming Obama (APU) for changing the definition of secured creditor is crap. During bankruptcy, even secured creditors are offered pennies on the dollar.

    Unsecured get bupkus.

    You might want to learn about the bankruptcy process before you keep making idiotic comments.

    No one wins when someone declares bankruptcy.

    I also think you need to learn how the US government works: Obama isn't the one handing out the money, it's the congress.

    You're too dim to understand:
    If the executive wanted to spend money, Congress would have to write a bill, pass that bill into law, and appropriate the funds for it.

    ReplyDelete
  46. I notice that you haven't taken my Economics Quiz, Merkin.

    You're already showing you know dick about the economy.

    And even worse, you know less about how the US Government works than I do: which is pretty minimal.

    That's BAADDDD. That's really BAADDDD.

    Now wonder you find Faux News so informative.

    But, it's a sad statement that a Comedy Channel has more informative programmes.

    ReplyDelete
  47. I can tell you have no idea of how TARP actually functioned.

    Let’s assume that the Treasury allows the banks to pay back the money. What happens then? One would assume that since the government had to borrow money to fund the TARP fund, they would retire the debt. One would of course be wrong, one is an idiot for making such an assumption.

    Imagine the banks are one person, and TARP is a credit card with a $700 billion limit. When you pay off your card every month (as you should), does your bank close down your card? Or do you just have that much more to borrow again?

    That’s right, TARP is not a loan, it’s a line of credit.

    You seem to miss all my comments about the economy being based upon DEBT--That's a really key idea to understanding how the economy functions.

    Anyway, say Goldman Sachs were to pay off the $10 billion they borrowed, it would simply become another $10 billion the government can loan out again. As it stands right now the Treasury has about $135 billion left, so this would just make it $145 billion.

    Well, that is okay so long as the debts are paid off once the TARP shuts down for good. That’s not going to happen either (what’s with your bad assumptions?). The way the law is written now, that money will simply be treated as normal income by the Treasury and go into the big pool of the federal budget.

    It’s possibly that TARP money won’t find it’s way into the normal budget. Congress wrote the rules and they sure can change them if they want. Perhaps the money will go towards setting up a new agency that will lend money to the banks if needed in the future.

    Did you understand that, or do I need to dumb it down further for you?

    ReplyDelete
  48. Are you talking to your self?October 19, 2011 at 5:46 PM

    Or did I hurt your feelings with my intervening post.....

    Yes I get that it is a line of credit never said it was not....

    You never addressed my point why the banks paying off debt with debt was bad yet UAW/GM paying off debt with debt is good.

    did I ask you too many questions, should I ask you one at a time......

    and wait to see what you do not answer to find out what you really think?



    During bankruptcy, even secured creditors are offered pennies on the dollar.

    Unsecured get bupkus.


    So are Union members/retirees secured or secured?

    Why was restructuring so very favorable to the Union/retirees and everyone else got bupkis?

    Why not share the bankrupcy pain and everyone gets bupkis and the company moves on?

    Look I think this stinks from all angles but you being an insulting git.... does not make anyone want to listen.

    ReplyDelete
  49. A lick and a promise.....October 19, 2011 at 6:00 PM

    That is what GM gave US.gov, by paying back TARP funds with GM stock rather than money raised by selling stock to the public.

    ReplyDelete
  50. How about because you are too dim to understand what I am writing.

    I never said that paying off the debt with more debt was good for anyone.

    And what's good for GM is good for the country. But, better stated, all should indeed be treated equally.

    You usually spend your time making up shit that I didn't say.

    The whole bailout was created so that people would get more in debt--and don't pin it on one party or the other since they are both equally culpable. The democrats are just better at playing they are the popular party.

    You neglect that most of this began under the Bush regime as well.

    So are Union members/retirees secured or secured?

    They are unsecured even though they paid into a pension plan.

    Restructuring--it's like it sounds--the company is restructured. That's a pretty good argument for Unions if they protected their members' interests. They could have lost everything otherwise.

    Why should retirees get the shaft when they paid into a pension fund that was robbed by the bosses?

    does not make anyone want to listen.

    You tend to not listen anyway.

    Unless, it's what you want to hear.

    ReplyDelete
  51. That is what GM gave US.gov, by paying back TARP funds with GM stock rather than money raised by selling stock to the public.

    Hunh?

    Have you been paying attention to all the things I have posted about fractional reserve banking?

    You might want to.

    Unless you are saying that debt is bad.

    If that is the case, then you need a drastic rethink of your beliefs regarding capitalism--its name signifies that it requires debt.

    ReplyDelete
  52. In fact, you should probably look at the Occupy movement with a more open mind if you have a problem with how TARP functioned.

    The level of indebtedness v. savings.

    And other economic disparities.

    And don't try to pin the blame on one US party since they have pretty much been culpable in creating this mess through dismantling the New Deal Safeguards.

    ReplyDelete
  53. is not paid back.......

    GM effectively handed US.gov a love note, that has lost half its value at $23 a share Treasury cannot recoup TARP money from GM.

    And if GM goes tits up again Treasury is left holding itself....

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  54. Wow, have you been reading what I have written?

    More importantly have you understood what I have written?

    You don't need to take the quiz--you've failed to begin with.

    ReplyDelete
  55. Look, if you can't demonstrate a basic understanding of economics, I will delete your comments.

    ReplyDelete
  56. The major problem is that you have too much of an Us-Them mindset where you identify with the wrong people.

    You would find that you have far more in common with the Occpation than you know if you looked at them with an open mind.

    ReplyDelete