Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Occupy Oswego

OK, so there probably wasn't a tent city there last week, but I've been surprised at how viral the whole thing has been. (The viral aspect---made possible entirely by BIG business.) When it went global within days, it truly amazed me.

Having been an active part of the protest generation, in this case, oddly, I find myself with no strong feelings about it.

I'm glad that people still have faith in the power of citizenry united. Three years ago, the buzzword was "hope." I guess, when that ain't happenin', the buzz word naturally becomes "faith," if you're still hangin' in the game, that is.

The most interesting thing is that the impatience and disgust isn't directed at a party, but at goverment(s) en toto. Bipartisanship through collective anger?

There will always be other components to any movements, but this is predominantly econmic protest, the 99%/1% thing.

1960's activism had focused and, by comparison, rather simple goals--end the war, stop racism, stop sexism. The much wider and broader topic of Save-The-Earth, as a sustainable movement, (sorry for the pun) came a little later.

This time, I have difficulty understanding exactly what the 99% want to see happen, or more importantly, how do they expect to affect change.
When Steve Tyler sang, "Eat the Rich," he was the owner of a lear jet.

I did see, among the footage, a very witty and well exectued full-sized American flag with all the stars replaced by American corporate logos.

The point has been made, then what?

The new iPhone is moving a million units a day. (Apple was one of the logos on that flag.) How many protesters had to break camp to get in line at midnight at the Apple store?

Evreyone of those logos on that American flag got huge enough to be included there, because WE put them there.

So, though I admire your chutzpah, I bleat out once more, not "What do you want," but rather, "How do you want it?"

+1

Time to dust off some Mencken.

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard."

Or how 'bout some French:
"I didn't make my millions from people eating mustard. I made them from the mustard they left behind on their plates."

What?

Pfffft. You created a Mencken link. Pffffft.

At lunch, I caught a bit of my local news. The first story was about the "Occupy Wall Street" presence as is happening in NH. The second story was that Lowes in closing three stores in the state. So...literally... right on the heels of the story about corporate greed, came the story about Lowes which contained the following:

In all, 20 stores across the country will be closing, and about 1,950 employees will be affected by the closings. "Closing stores is never easy, given the impact on hard-working employees and local communities," said Robert A. Niblock, chairman, president and CEO. "However, we have an obligation to make tough decisions when necessary to improve profitability and strengthen our financial position."

You can't make this stuff up.

Edit: Now that I took the time to search out those quotes, I'm going to post it to Facebook, too.

Harumph!

Okay, then, how about Joe Jackson?

Joe Jackson? Why, he doesn't even have any shoes!

Back in the 1970's, Woody Allen's character in Annie Hall was waiting in line to see a film. The man in line in front of him misquoted Marshall McCluhan. Sooooo, Woody goes 4 people back in line, grabs (the real) Marshal McCluhan, and has him set the guy straight.

Now, with this webnet thing, everyone can do it. Marshall McCluhan is ALWAYS in the que with us, everywhere.

That's why I thought the link was humrous.

Boy, deconstruction ain't funny, is it?

Well, it is when WE do it.

Seriously, what's the "end game" for the occupiers? I get that "The main accomplishment of almost all organized protests is to annoy people who are not in them" (thanks, Dave Barry). But who are you trying to annoy here, and what do you expect them to do so that you can declare victory and stop annoying them?

I think they were trying to annoy you, in particular. Looks like they succeded.

Seriously though, they have surely annoyed every city treasurer's office, as the police O.T. has further burdended already diminshed coffers.

I'm annoyed insofar as the (presumably non-bowel) movement seems like a rather feckless response to legitimate policy issues.

I was kind of delighted by the rapid internet mockery, though. (Occupy Sesame Street, et. al.)

I wonder if there was an "Occupy Poland," again?

LOL!

I think we can be pretty certain about France.

Hey! Don't make fun of.....

Naw, nevermind. Go ahead.

You know how the Brits intentionally murder French by pronouncing it phonetically? How come we never did that on this side of the Atlantic? OK, I mean, aside from the bitterness left over from 3 centuries of Norman rule.

At least we have Detroit. So what if you can buy a house there for $7,800.00, it's still not Detwa!

You may be laughing now, but you'll be thanking them when all the banks pay us back.

That'll be the day.

I liked this link I just came across:

Thirteen Observations made while watching Occupy Wall Street from a Discreet Distance by Lemony Snicket

That is awesome, particularly number 7.

My feeling about it is that it's been given a lot of negative coverage, and the coverage has largely been of the nutballs on the outskirts. I think there is a legitimate complaint to be made here, which can be summed up by this series of graphs:
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-wall-street-protesters-are-so-angry-about-2011-10?op=1

As to how they plan to accomplish this change, well, sometimes you need to make a lot of noise to be noticed--especially when you don't have the money to be noticed.

So, does that mean if you worked for the only company in America that had people employed for them, that everyone else would stand around outside your building and wish you were dead?

That's a rather pointless question. Reduction ad absurdum can be a useful rhetorical tool, but it is so often overused in this day and age.

I can see this is going to get good.


.

That's happened to me at every job I've ever had.

Edit: OK, so it happens whenever I'm inside ANY building.

I hope you're not a shut-in, then.

My sister likes this guy, and he definitely has a bigger brain than I do, going by the few videos of his I've watched. I haven't kept up on the whole Occupy Wall Street thing, but at least he gave me a reason to think it might not be a total waste of energy.

Jay Smooth - Occupy Wall Street: Outing the Ringers

No struggle is a total waste of energy. The problems that the OWS protesters are calling for change to are very serious and evident (so long as you turn off mainstream news).

The mainstream news has dubbed it as a protest solely against those on Wall Street, but there's people from all segments and vocations that are fed up. It's also a nation wide movement, and spreading across the globe. If anyone has reservations or little understanding about the movement, the best thing you can do is go to a local rally and ask questions. Protests of such a grand scale as this have meaning and importance.

It's difficult for some people to see the tangible means of a mass movement when it's their country because we've been conditioned. Meanwhile, we'll all accredit the peoples in other countries-whether civil or not-who are fighting against the same things - austerity measures, corporate greed, corruption, social inequality et.al. Those people are revolutionaries, but at home they're all long haired, jobless, uneducated, pot smoking hippies. Spin works. "It's the intelligent manipulation of the public with false realities, which a compliant media would dispense" - Edward Bernay's (the father of spin).

Here's an amazing video of a U.S. marine sergeant protesting in NY - 'OWS ain't a war zone' - One marine vs 30 cops in NYC

And lastly - "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." Gandhi

Peace

We, the people, create change. Not politricktions!