Occupy Wallstreet?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Greg LeGore on October 25, 2011 at 11:50am

Park, as I was reading your post, I recalled a Polish proverb, "In capitalism, man exploits man; in communism, the reverse is true."

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Permalink Reply by Hiram on November 26, 2011 at 9:55am

I agree that the capitalism-vs-socialism, and either-or, paradigm will never again apply.  It's simplistic and we're not in the 20th century.  Every civilized and developed society has a balance of socialism and capitalism.

I think it's a matter of common sense: there are some things that should not be left to the markets to decide: I don't think the markets should decide if children can go to school, or if people get to eat or have health care.  Water, food, education, health care, are all things that are basic to human dignity and human civilization and they should be socialized.  This should be non-negotiable.

In Bolivia, when they tried to privatize water and the previous gov't sold ALL THE WATER IN THE COUNTRY to an American company, Bechtel, from San Francisco, the indigenous could not even gather rain water because it was illegal.  Children had to be put out of school because tuition was unaffordable, since so much money was needed to purchase water.  Retirees had to go back to work to purchase water.  Eventually, there were FOUR MONTHS OF RIOTS on the streets.  In the end, after deaths and violence, water was given back to the people, the people got scared of corporate appropriation and predation, the pendulum swung and Bolivia elected its first socialist and indigenous president ever, Evo Morales.

But this is an illustration of the extremes of American corporatocracy and its detrimental effects on the peoples of the world, not just on the U.S.

Leave computers, non-essentials, entertainment and the like to the free markets, that's acceptable.  But education, health care, water, food, are human rights and should be socialized, made public.

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Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on October 25, 2011 at 11:49am

So many of us are hesitant to even mention socialism and communism or to imply that capitalism has flaws.  The basic design of capitalism is of boom and bust, it can't function any other way without regulations that produce a fair and even playing field.  People who have access to monetary wealth hire and fire workers from a field overrun with unemployed potential workers, and countries that allow slave labor and unsafe working conditions.  The spread between rich and poor grows until the general public makes demands.  Those who do demand equity get labels such as "Pinko", "Commie", "Socialist", "Rabble" or "Fear monger".  No reasonable person wants to have reputations such as these so they self-monitor their thinking ... until things become obviously out of balance.    Such as now.

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Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on December 30, 2011 at 5:52pm

Greg, thank you for the lead to Joan Robinson.  Her list of books and articles boggles the imagination.  

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Permalink Reply by matt warren on October 25, 2011 at 2:16pm

go here for the straight info:

www.occupystream.com

all the live streams and info.

its about the world bankers (very few. in the U.S. its the FED bnk sys) controling, through money and power of election our polotics/poloticians for there own benifit and to the detriment of all those that are not "in the club".

this has, over the years/decades..etc.. resulted in the coruption and coersion of all governments and created a mear vener of democracy in the face of a "boom/war/bust/boom" cycle that has to stop.

and that is just the first step.

enjoy the revolution children.

I will also say that I am not prone to "consperacy theorys"(sick!) but just on observation the conclusion is prety clear.

its a socialogical/political disaster brought about by the corruption of a good (not perfect) system of money and government.

we may very well be in the midst of a real paradigm change.

 

"....the tree of freedom must, from time to time be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants which after all is its natural manure." t. jefferson

 

 

well....thats my $1.25....

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Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on November 25, 2011 at 11:46pm

My grandmother came to adulthood in the late 1890s, victim of the Great Depression of 1893 when Wall Street collapsed leaving bankruptcies, unemployment went over 25%, and some families starved and/or froze to death. 

Many U.S.A. citizens from the “comfortable class blamed the poor for not being willing to work, saying they were lazy, and many desperate people committed suicide while some killed their families to ease their pain. 

The privileged class feared violence and anarchy.  Bitter fights with unemployed farmers, railroaders, miners, and lumbering folk went on strike or formed resistance groups, such as the Grange movement.  The Homestead strike, Carnegie Steel Work, and the Pullman strike resulted in federal and state governments bowing to the power of moneyed interests sending troops in to stop the “Industrial Army”, even killing them.  Government’s function was to protect property.  Starving and homeless people became their enemy. 

Anyone who resisted conformity to powerful moneyed interests suffered not only abuse of bullets but of being accused of being anti-U.S.A. or “un-American”. 

My grandmother, forced out of her home in Pennsylvania as a teenager because of lack of food and shelter, made her way to north Idaho, alone, where she worked as a nurse in a lumbering town.  She worked hard her whole life, married an ambitious man, gave birth to five children and two were born in a tent, she cared for surviving orphaned children family members of the 1918 flu epidemic, gained respectability and status in her community and in her old age fell victim to the 1929 Crash.  She lost her home, their family business, and was left destitute.  Her grown children couldn’t find work and they all huddled with their families in a common house they hobbled together until F.D.R. and the New Deal began public work projects and the war industry created work for WW II.

One life, two Great Depressions!  The Boom/Bust of Capitalism at work in all its glory.  

 

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Permalink Reply by eric stone on November 26, 2011 at 3:15am

The present generation has not learned from history or denies it.  We have to continually remind them of what really took place then, otherwise have to fight the same battles all over. I blame our entertainment industry for not having the courage to tell it like it really was.  You can pierce the armor of right-wing propaganda with art, movies, novels, and dramas but I see a total lack of courage in the likes of the Spielberg's and Scorcese's to fight for the 99.9%.

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Permalink Reply by Greg LeGore on November 27, 2011 at 9:28am

Joan, thank you for sharing your family's story - it illuminates so much of our past while highlighting important societal issues.  Boom and bust forever seems to be the norm.

 

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Permalink Reply by George on December 2, 2011 at 10:24pm

The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy

by Naomi Wolf

The violent police assaults across the US are no coincidence. Occupy has touched the third rail of our political class's venality

 

'The National Union of Journalists issued a Freedom of Information Act request to investigate possible federal involvement with law enforcement practices that appeared to target journalists. The New York Times reported that "New York cops have arrested, punched, whacked, shoved to the ground and tossed a barrier at reporters and photographers" covering protests.

Reporters were asked by NYPD to raise their hands to prove they had credentials: when many dutifully did so, they were taken, upon threat of arrest, away from the story they were covering, and penned far from the site in which the news was unfolding. Other reporters wearing press passes were arrested and roughed up by cops, after being – falsely – informed by police that "It is illegal to take pictures on the sidewalk."'

'Journalist Chris Hayes reported on a leaked memo that revealed lobbyists vying for an $850,000 contract to smear Occupy. '

 

---

Naomi Wolf is author of The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot

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Permalink Reply by George on December 2, 2011 at 11:15pm

Wolf's assertion that Homeland Security was behind the crackdowns is controversial.

Naomi Wolf Versus Joshua Holland: Was There a Coordinated Federal Crackdown on Occupy Wall Street?

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Permalink Reply by Jedi Wanderer on December 30, 2011 at 5:10pm

bump

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Permalink Reply by Jedi Wanderer on December 30, 2011 at 5:48pm

Yeah I thought this was right on. See my discussion post The Unholy Alliance between the rich and the powerful here: http://www.atheistnexus.org/forum/topics/the-unholy-alliance-betwee...

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