Occupy

[Cain]

Sure, just use the link above, as they did all the hard work.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

Upon reconsidering, although I dislike the elitist attitude against so called hippies, the Occupy protesters are claiming to represent hundreds of millions of people, and not just a subset. To engage in "hippy culture" and have that be the main thing the rest of the country is seeing /is/ alienating to people who aren't part of that subset. And I guess it just is common courtesy to keep a neat and well groomed appearance with clean and current attire, whether I be protesting or working. While a suit doesn't seem necessary to me, at least not clothing that would endorse only hippy culture and alienate the rest. And I'm sorry for the sarcastic comments and suggestion you were a douche, Net.

Apology accepted. Thank you.

I should have been more clear what I was agreeing to.

[Golden Applesauce]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/11/22/pregnant-seattle-protester-miscarries-after-being-kicked-pepper-sprayed/

Is this for real?

Because this is exactly the government-mandated abortion, paid for with taxpayer dollars, that every conservative group in America has been using as a bogeyman.  If there's anything powerful enough to overcome conservative's distaste for hippies and drum circles, it's government-mandated abortion.

[maphdet]

Thanks, will do.

[Cain]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/11/22/pregnant-seattle-protester-miscarries-after-being-kicked-pepper-sprayed/

Is this for real?

Possibly not

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/11/22/questioning-the-accuracy-of-jennifer-foxs-miscarriage-claim

[Placid Dingo]

Where Does Occupy Wall Street Go From Here? ...a proposal from Michael Moore

Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011

Friends,

This past weekend I participated in a four-hour meeting of Occupy Wall Street activists whose job it is to come up with the vision and goals of the movement. It was attended by 40+ people and the discussion was both inspiring and invigorating. Here is what we ended up proposing as the movement's "vision statement" to the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street:

We Envision: [1] a truly free, democratic, and just society; [2] where we, the people, come together and solve our problems by consensus; [3] where people are encouraged to take personal and collective responsibility and participate in decision making; [4] where we learn to live in harmony and embrace principles of toleration and respect for diversity and the differing views of others; [5] where we secure the civil and human rights of all from violation by tyrannical forces and unjust governments; [6] where political and economic institutions work to benefit all, not just the privileged few; [7] where we provide full and free education to everyone, not merely to get jobs but to grow and flourish as human beings; [8] where we value human needs over monetary gain, to ensure decent standards of living without which effective democracy is impossible; [9] where we work together to protect the global environment to ensure that future generations will have safe and clean air, water and food supplies, and will be able to enjoy the beauty and bounty of nature that past generations have enjoyed.

The next step will be to develop a specific list of goals and demands. As one of the millions of people who are participating in the Occupy Wall Street movement, I would like to respectfully offer my suggestions of what we can all get behind now to wrestle the control of our country out of the hands of the 1% and place it squarely with the 99% majority.

Here is what I will propose to the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street:

10 Things We Want
A Proposal for Occupy Wall Street
Submitted by Michael Moore
1. Eradicate the Bush tax cuts for the rich and institute new taxes on the wealthiest Americans and on corporations, including a tax on all trading on Wall Street (where they currently pay 0%).

2. Assess a penalty tax on any corporation that moves American jobs to other countries when that company is already making profits in America. Our jobs are the most important national treasure and they cannot be removed from the country simply because someone wants to make more money.

3. Require that all Americans pay the same Social Security tax on all of their earnings (normally, the middle class pays about 6% of their income to Social Security; someone making $1 million a year pays about 0.6% (or 90% less than the average person). This law would simply make the rich pay what everyone else pays.

4. Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, placing serious regulations on how business is conducted by Wall Street and the banks.

5. Investigate the Crash of 2008, and bring to justice those who committed any crimes.

6. Reorder our nation's spending priorities (including the ending of all foreign wars and their cost of over $2 billion a week). This will re-open libraries, reinstate band and art and civics classes in our schools, fix our roads and bridges and infrastructure, wire the entire country for 21st century internet, and support scientific research that improves our lives.

7. Join the rest of the free world and create a single-payer, free and universal health care system that covers all Americans all of the time.

8. Immediately reduce carbon emissions that are destroying the planet and discover ways to live without the oil that will be depleted and gone by the end of this century.

9. Require corporations with more than 10,000 employees to restructure their board of directors so that 50% of its members are elected by the company's workers. We can never have a real democracy as long as most people have no say in what happens at the place they spend most of their time: their job. (For any U.S. businesspeople freaking out at this idea because you think workers can't run a successful company: Germany has a law like this and it has helped to make Germany the world's leading manufacturing exporter.)

10. We, the people, must pass three constitutional amendments that will go a long way toward fixing the core problems we now have. These include:

a) A constitutional amendment that fixes our broken electoral system by 1) completely removing campaign contributions from the political process; 2) requiring all elections to be publicly financed; 3) moving election day to the weekend to increase voter turnout; 4) making all Americans registered voters at the moment of their birth; 5) banning computerized voting and requiring that all elections take place on paper ballots.

b) A constitutional amendment declaring that corporations are not people and do not have the constitutional rights of citizens. This amendment should also state that the interests of the general public and society must always come before the interests of corporations.

c) A constitutional amendment that will act as a "second bill of rights" as proposed by President Frankin D. Roosevelt: that every American has a human right to employment, to health care, to a free and full education, to breathe clean air, drink clean water and eat safe food, and to be cared for with dignity and respect in their old age.

I don't THINK i disagree with any point, but I kind of hope OWS avoids the temptation to start making specific demands.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

That lady's pic I posted?

Turns out she's 85, and has been hospitalized for severe respiratory problems.

[Freeky]

That lady's pic I posted?

Turns out she's 85, and has been hospitalized for severe respiratory problems.

I would ask why people with power are such shitnecks, but I really don't think i have to.  Its because we're monkeys, or because we can, or something.

[Precious Moments Zalgo]

10 Things We Want
A Proposal for Occupy Wall Street
Submitted by Michael Moore
1. Eradicate the Bush tax cuts for the rich and institute new taxes on the wealthiest Americans and on corporations, including a tax on all trading on Wall Street (where they currently pay 0%).

I don't THINK i disagree with any point, but I kind of hope OWS avoids the temptation to start making specific demands.

I disagree with what I bolded.  I would support taxing profits from trades at regular income rates, instead of at the lower capital gains rate, but I would oppose taxing all trades.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Well, you knew Michael Moore was going to shove his fat fucking ass onto the bench.

The attention-whoring has officially begun. 

[Freeky]

Well, you knew Michael Moore was going to shove his fat fucking ass onto the bench.

I was expecting him like a month ago. 

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

Seems like the dialogue between police and protesters can go three ways:

1) Become more confrontational: riots start, and someone 'wins'. If we assume that there is a rationale behind the pepper spray incidents, it's probably that the Powers That Be think that they can win this round handily if it turns to violence, and are trying to spark riots while retaining plausible deniability about who shot the first bullet (if I recall, Cain suggested this earlier in the thread -- though I might be misremembering)

2) Become less confrontational: the tent cities stay up and the communities that formed around the protests become semi-permanent. This is slightly less ridiculous than it might first seem because a certain portion of occupiers are probably homeless hangers-on, a certain portion anarchists of various pacifistic stripes that really just want an intentional community anyhow, and a certain portion impressionable upper-middle-class or even lower-upper-class twenty-somethings willing to grease the wheels and keep things going out of altruism. In the protests that haven't had any police trouble (more or less any of them that nobody has been ranting about on the internet lately) this is more likely.

3) Stays the same: this is the worst outcome, because if things stay at this liminal level of outrage they merely become tiresome. Violence has its own inertia, and settling down is the easiest response to having no push, but any revolt right now would be put down without enough public support to support a full-scale revolution, and settling down is too dangerous when there's pepper spray in the air.


With (2) we at least get to see a bunch of communes pop up in town greens and city parks, which will be great for academics (who can go watch the progress of the creation of a new society and system of government unfold without leaving campus) and for anarchists (who will say "hey, look, anarchy is sustainable! Look at all those protesters who don't even realize they are anarchists!")

With (1) we have entertaining television and an enormous death count, and if we get lucky there are even more revolutions going on (probably mostly in Europe -- my eye is on Greece -- rather than the US due to a core contingent of heavily armed people instructed to be opposed to what these particular riots are on about), and if they succeed a certain number of the established states will then fail miserably quite quickly, making for several decades of unrest but also a potential for a big restructuring of powers. Think of large chunks of Europe as being like Russia just after the fall of the USSR, except with even more malware and a larger variety of organized crime syndicates.

With (3), all we get is yet another failed protest movement, to be stuck in the history books in a footnote sandwiched between the Barbie Liberation Organization and the Unabomber for President campaign. At best, it heavily informs later movements, like '68 did.

[BabylonHoruv]

10 Things We Want
A Proposal for Occupy Wall Street
Submitted by Michael Moore
1. Eradicate the Bush tax cuts for the rich and institute new taxes on the wealthiest Americans and on corporations, including a tax on all trading on Wall Street (where they currently pay 0%).

I don't THINK i disagree with any point, but I kind of hope OWS avoids the temptation to start making specific demands.

I disagree with what I bolded.  I would support taxing profits from trades at regular income rates, instead of at the lower capital gains rate, but I would oppose taxing all trades.

I dunno, a small tax on all trades would kill the microtrade bots, which have already caused one major crash.

[Elder Iptuous]

agreed.
high frequency trading seems to be a dangerous development of the market that does not benefit the whole.  a small fee for each trade seems prudent.
PMZ, why the opposition to this?

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Well, you knew Michael Moore was going to shove his fat fucking ass onto the bench.

I was expecting him like a month ago. 

Why not suggest that someone is not him bring these proposals up at GA?

Oh, right.

Also, it will take him forever to get through that whole thing. That GA will probably be 4 hours long.