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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Oct 27, 2011 - 04:10pm PT
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As for this movement not having leadership, why in God's name would anyone expect that a movement of the people would immediately have leadership. It is a collective of frustration, nothing more, until someone comes along and molds it. Glenn Beck was one of the talking heads for the tea party movement. I don't respect him and his attempts to demonize others in order to make himself appear humble, so I didn't really respect the tea party, though I thought that they had some legitimate beefs. Beefs that got taken and used by some less then savory people.
At this point, the same thing could happen to the OWS group. Some less then savory leader could step up and take it over, but at this point, it hasn't happened. It doesn't mean their beefs are illegitimate. It just means a leader hasn't stepped up.
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Oct 27, 2011 - 04:25pm PT
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ows proving that socialism/communism do NOT work::
By JAMES TARANTO
The New York Post has another hilarious dispatch from the People's Republic of Obamaville (or, as it was known before the revolution, Zuccotti Park). It seems "the Occupy Wall Street volunteer kitchen staff launched a 'counter' revolution yesterday--because they're angry about working 18-hour days to provide food for 'professional homeless' people and ex-cons masquerading as protesters."
For three days beginning tomorrow, the cooks will serve only brown rice and other spartan grub instead of the usual menu of organic chicken and vegetables, spaghetti bolognese, and roasted beet and sheep's-milk-cheese salad.
They will also provide directions to local soup kitchens for the vagrants, criminals and other freeloaders who have been descending on Zuccotti Park in increasing numbers every day.
To show they mean business, the kitchen staff refused to serve any food for two hours yesterday in order to meet with organizers to air their grievances, sources said.
It reminds one of Seinfeld's Soup Nazi: "No soup for you!" But it's also reminiscent of President Obama's comments that we noted yesterday: "The one thing that we absolutely know for sure is that if we don't work even harder than we did in 2008, then we're going to have a government that tells the American people, 'you are on your own. If you get sick, you're on your own. If you can't afford college, you're on your own. If you don't like that some corporation is polluting your air or the air that your child breathes, then you're on your own.' That's not the America I believe in. It's not the America you believe in."
Yet to judge by their actions, the denizens of Obamaville have come to believe in it very quickly. They selfishly feast on spaghetti bolognese and sheep's milk, but when the truly needy show up, the cupboard is bare. "No soup for you! You're on your own, freeloader." Apparently it's the bottom 1% against whom they're waging class war.
Of course we are being half-facetious here. In truth, the Obamavillians are learning why Obama is wrong--why socialism doesn't work. A society that makes a virtue of dependency ultimately encourages freeloading and grifting. The instinct to prevent it is a healthy one. A lot has been written about the similarities and differences between Obamaville and the Tea Party, and here is one: Whereas the latter arose out of the instinct to reward self-reliance and discourage dependency, the former is having it awakened by an encounter with the real world.
Will Obama ever have such an encounter with the real world? Probably not until he's been out of office for at least 10 years. There were no reports that any homeless people or ex-cons showed up asking for dinner at the million-dollar fund-raiser where he made the sanctimonious remarks quoted above. If they had, the Secret Service would have told them they were on their own.
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Gary
climber
From the City That Dreams
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Oct 27, 2011 - 04:34pm PT
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because they're angry about working 18-hour days to provide food for 'professional homeless' people and ex-cons masquerading as protesters."
Well, that's why they are protesting in the first place, isn't it? They are tired of working for con-men, frauds and ex-cons masquerading as "job creators."
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Oct 27, 2011 - 04:51pm PT
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yes Jeff, I can see that for you everything boils down to those beliefs. But the real world is a whole lot larger then that.
But carry on with those shallow beliefs, and see how far it gets you. Sure, you might defeat Obama, and this movement might fade out, but if the underlying frustration isn't dealt with, then it will irrupt in some other way.
But of course, your world is black and white and the only thing you care about is beating Obama.
I consider that to be foolish and very narrow minded.
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Gary
climber
From the City That Dreams
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Oct 27, 2011 - 04:56pm PT
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What, no comment about Jerry Brown abandoning the cause????
We're confused, fattrad. Your fellow Republican spambot Darnold Thompson assures us that state workers have 100% control of the state government.
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CrackAddict
Trad climber
Canoga Park, CA
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Oct 27, 2011 - 05:20pm PT
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Brown also proposed raising the age at which most new state workers can retire with full benefits and banning abuses known as “pension spiking” and “double dipping.” He would revamp the make-up of boards overseeing pension funds, bar retroactive benefit increases and disallow workers from “buying” credit for additional years of service to boost retirement payments.
Wonderful. In 40 years we will save a billion a year.
California's government will have long since defaulted.
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CrackAddict
Trad climber
Canoga Park, CA
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Oct 27, 2011 - 05:26pm PT
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Occupy Wall Street!
Occupy every USA city!
Occupy city squares and parks!
Occupy, Occupy, Occupy, Protest, and Occupy again to make your demands known to the powers that be.
How about occupying a job? Get off your butt.
Climbers should be more independent than this. Stop whining about what other people have, stop demanding a handout. Sad and Pathetic.
Can't make anything of yourself? Time to start looking at the choices you made in life instead of blaming other people.
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
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Oct 27, 2011 - 05:42pm PT
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Here's an excerpt (read the whole thing at the link at bottom) from Taibbi that puts this into perspective better than I ever could:
...When you take into consideration all the theft and fraud and market manipulation and other evil sh#t Wall Street bankers have been guilty of in the last ten-fifteen years, you have to have balls like church bells to trot out a propaganda line that says the protesters are just jealous of their hard-earned money.
Think about it: there have always been rich and poor people in America, so if this is about jealousy, why the protests now? The idea that masses of people suddenly discovered a deep-seated animus/envy toward the rich – after keeping it strategically hidden for decades – is crazy.
Where was all that class hatred in the Reagan years, when openly dumping on the poor became fashionable? Where was it in the last two decades, when unions disappeared and CEO pay relative to median incomes started to triple and quadruple?
The answer is, it was never there. If anything, just the opposite has been true. Americans for the most part love the rich, even the obnoxious rich. And in recent years, the harder things got, the more we've obsessed over the wealth dream. As unemployment skyrocketed, people tuned in in droves to gawk at Evrémonde-heiresses like Paris Hilton, or watch bullies like Donald Trump fire people on TV.
Moreover, the worse the economy got, the more being a millionaire or a billionaire somehow became a qualification for high office, as people flocked to voting booths to support politicians with names like Bloomberg and Rockefeller and Corzine, names that to voters symbolized success and expertise at a time when few people seemed to have answers. At last count, there were 245 millionaires in congress, including 66 in the Senate.
And we hate the rich? Come on. Success is the national religion, and almost everyone is a believer. Americans love winners. But that's just the problem. These guys on Wall Street are not winning – they're cheating. And as much as we love the self-made success story, we hate the cheater that much more.
In this country, we cheer for people who hit their own home runs – not shortcut-chasing juicers like Bonds and McGwire, Blankfein and Dimon.
That's why it's so obnoxious when people say the protesters are just sore losers who are jealous of these smart guys in suits who beat them at the game of life. This isn't disappointment at having lost. It's anger because those other guys didn't really win. And people now want the score overturned.
All weekend I was thinking about this “jealousy” question, and I just kept coming back to all the different ways the game is rigged. People aren't jealous and they don’t want privileges. They just want a level playing field, and they want Wall Street to give up its cheat codes, things like:
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/owss-beef-wall-street-isnt-winning-its-cheating-20111025
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Oct 27, 2011 - 05:45pm PT
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Awesome post Elcap.. too bad the fatties and skips and bookworms won't understand it and will try to pervert it.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Oct 27, 2011 - 05:55pm PT
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A study funded by the US government has concluded that conservatism can be explained psychologically as a set of neuroses rooted in "fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity [which] can lead people to cling to the familiar, to arrive at premature conclusions, and to impose simplistic cliches and stereotypes"
Analyzing political conservatism as motivated social cognition integrates theories of personality (authoritarianism, dogmatism-intolerance of ambiguity), epistemic and existential needs (for closure, regulatory focus, terror management), and ideological rationalization (social dominance, system justification). A meta-analysis (88 samples, 12 countries, 22,818 cases) confirms that several psychological variables predict political conservatism: death anxiety (weighted mean r = .50); system instability (.47); dogmatism-intolerance of ambiguity (.34); openness to experience (-.32); uncertainty tolerance (-.27); needs for order, structure, and closure (.26); integrative complexity (-.20); fear of threat and loss (.18 ); and self-esteem (-.09). The core ideology of conservatism stresses resistance to change and justification of inequality and is motivated by needs that vary situationally and dispositionally to manage uncertainty and threat.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Oct 27, 2011 - 06:03pm PT
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All Republican presidential candidates promise to lower taxes on the rich. Herman Cain has captured the popular conservative imagination with his 9-9-9 plan, a flat tax of 9 percent on the rich and corporations and the imposition of a 9 percent national sales tax on everyone. This would result in a 50-75 percent cut in taxes paid by the richest 1% while imposing a hefty new tax on the 99%. The Citizens for Tax Justice estimates that under Cain’s plan, the bottom 60 percent of taxpayers will pay about $2,000 more in taxes while the richest 1% will pay about $210,000 less.
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happiegrrrl
Trad climber
www.climbaddictdesigns.com
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Oct 27, 2011 - 06:34pm PT
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I'd like to see stats to back that up, Skip(repubs providing more for the poor). Otherwise - I have to say it sounds like one more example of "Republican Factuality." That is - to simply state something makes it true, regardless if the person who says it is twisting a statistic or event, or even pulling it right out of thin air.
I know that there are studies that show that people of lower incomes donate most, as a percentage of their income. The writings about that, I don't recall being broken down by political party, though.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Oct 27, 2011 - 07:07pm PT
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They will also provide directions to local soup kitchens for the vagrants, criminals and other freeloaders who have been descending on Zuccotti Park in increasing numbers every day
Well, that ensures that the Republicans will be taken care of. Probably the wouldn't want to be seen at the OWS event.
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cintune
climber
Midvale School for the Gifted
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Oct 27, 2011 - 07:11pm PT
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
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Oct 27, 2011 - 07:17pm PT
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But, you also cheer for drugged out money makers, Winehouse, etc,
FAIL. Assuming facts not in evidence. Try again.
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
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Oct 27, 2011 - 07:21pm PT
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System is rigged. Taibbi:
FREE MONEY: Ordinary people have to borrow their money at market rates. Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon get billions of dollars for free, from the Federal Reserve. They borrow at zero and lend the same money back to the government at two or three percent, a valuable public service otherwise known as "standing in the middle and taking a gigantic cut when the government decides to lend money to itself."
Or the banks borrow billions at zero and lend mortgages to us at four percent, or credit cards at twenty or twenty-five percent. This is essentially an official government license to be rich, handed out at the expense of prudent ordinary citizens, who now no longer receive much interest on their CDs or other saved income. It is virtually impossible to not make money in banking when you have unlimited access to free money, especially when the government keeps buying its own cash back from you at market rates.
Your average chimpanzee couldn't f*#k up that business plan, which makes it all the more incredible that most of the too-big-to-fail banks are nonetheless still functionally insolvent, and dependent upon bailouts and phony accounting to stay above water. Where do the protesters go to sign up for their interest-free billion-dollar loans?
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lostinshanghai
Social climber
someplace
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Oct 27, 2011 - 07:26pm PT
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“Abbie Hoffman was created from the turmoil of the 60-70's. He was murdered by a hit team to prevent him from becoming effective again. We can recreate him.”
Not true he died from an overdose
Stokely Carmichael can be recreated. So can the SLA. The Weathermen.”
But can agree that all can be recreated and looks like the 60’s will return
What was the song Bye, Bye American Pie?
Two books: The one of the LEFT or the message finally went away but the one on the RIGHT which it’s prime objective and the success of their activities was to contribute in the defeat of Fascism and did and was correct at the time but their message/ideals has changed and what have they done or doing.
Introduction; Prairie Fire
On November 4, 2010, Dohrn was interviewed by NewsClick India. About the "Right" in the U.S., she said, "It’s racist; it’s armed; it’s hostile; it’s unspeakable." Referring to the Restoring Honor rally which was promoted by Glenn Beck and held on August 28, 2010, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., "You have white people armed, demanding the end to the [Obama] presidency." She also stated, "The real terrorist is the American government, state terrorism unleashed against the world."[33]
Source: News Click India; newsclick.in
As for the other book: Assessment of Men
Last sentence in this April 30 1947 publication: “Introduction”: We trust that these will not fail to make paths for their potentialities so that our predictions will be verified and there will be triumphs in which we can partake vicariously as we say to ourselves: “Ah! Years ago this was foreseen.”
In “Conclusions and Recommendations” last sentence: Despite the somewhat equivocal outcome of the whole enterprise, we believe that by trials and errors we have exposed and found remedies for most of the defects of the system, and have finally arrived at a plan as promising as any that is known to us for advancing the science of man, a plan which contains the necessary instruments for its own modification and perfection.
My question instruments for WHOM? Not back then when Julia Child and John Ford were part of, it is now after 65 years; the last 20 years, now and the future?
Fox news will and will always do the disinformation or propaganda. Palin, Beck…………….
So I say divide the country into two: East vs. West, Cut CA into half: North and South. Let Mexico have Texas and Arizona and put missiles, anti-artillery weaponry at the above borders facing each other and arm the US citizens to the teeth. No military/police replace them with militias, John Birchers, Pat Robertson’s army of god, replace books with guns at the schools.
Vote in the Republicans so we can have more hate, racism, waterboarding, no education replace it with recess and eating at fast food outlets because they know how to create jobs.
The hell with democracy the republicans do not want it Fox wants control so let us replace it with anarchy. “What’ do we want?” and “When’ do we want it?
Then and only then can we take back this country. We can smoke in public, drive 100 miles an hour, turn off or get rid of stop signs, drink and drive, steal food what little of it is still left.
Hopefully the flooding will subside in Chiangmai by this year to watch all of this.
So bye, bye America Pie.
edit: Now can not wait to here on this post on the Obama / Ayers connection since there wasn't.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Oct 27, 2011 - 07:39pm PT
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Tax the rich, Warren Buffett says -- and a majority of millionaires agree.
According to a survey from the consulting firm Spectrem Group, sixty-eight percent of millionaires -- defined as people with investments of $1 million or more -- support raising taxes on people who earn $1 million or more in income, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The survey seems to reflect the sentiments of groups like Patriotic Millionaires, an organization of wealthy citizens that has urged the government to impose higher taxes on people like themselves. It also echoes the policy recommendations of President Obama, who has called for revisions to tax law that would levy a tax rate on millionaires at least as high as that experienced by middle-class earners.
And, of course, the survey hearkens back to Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor who galvanized a conversation about taxing the wealthy with a widely read New York Times Op-Ed this summer.
Spectrem's findings also seem to indicate that the grim state of the American economy -- where jobs are scarce, investment has fallen off and wages for most have flatlined -- hasn't escaped the notice of the country's more comfortable citizens.
The WSJ quotes Spectrem's George Walper as saying, "What this tells us is that there are a number of wealthy folks who said: 'Gee, we need to increase taxes to stimulate the economy. No one likes to be taxed more, but the reality is maybe it has to be done.'"
While some conservatives argue that higher taxes for the rich would discourage investment and slow economic growth, analysts have suggested that in fact this is not likely to happen. Historically, there is almost no correlation between high tax rates for the rich and a struggling national economy.
Earlier this month, a CBS News poll found that 64 percent of all Americans think millionaires should pay higher taxes -- a percentage nearly the same as the rate of millionaires in Spectrem's poll who feel the same way.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Oct 27, 2011 - 07:45pm PT
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Here is what the Oakland "protest" looked like;
http://zombietime.com/occupy_oakland_10-22-2011/
Squatting, loitering, etc...Why can't these brats be arrested just for that? Especially if they refuse to leave?
These people are a public nuisance. This IS NOT lawful assembly.
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