Occupy Wall Street

Discussion in 'Political Discussions' started by ryoder, Oct 5, 2011.

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  1. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

  2. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    I think the 10th Amendment is the most ignored of the Bill of Rights, other than the 3rd (prohibiting the involuntary quartering of troops). I don't want much from the federal government beyond a strong military and secured borders. Most everything I need or want from government is provided at the state or local level; police and fire protection, a good public education system, repair/maintain/plow the streets, water & sewer service, and pick-up my trash once a week. Everything else I need, I can get from private companies (electric, phone, cable, oil delivery, etc.).
     
  3. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Why quarter soldiers in people's houses when you can just take those people's money and use it to build barracks?
     
  4. 03310151

    03310151 Active Member

    Richmond Tea Party Says Occupy Protesters Getting Special Treatment, Demands $10,000 Back From City

    In April, the Richmond Tea Party held a Tax Day rally in Richmond’s Kanawha Plaza. Along with two more of their rallies, the group was charged about $10,000, and had to comply with a list of rules and regulations. Now they want their money back, saying that Occupy Wall Street protesters have been camping out and using the plaza for free since October 15. Colleen Owens, a Tea Party spokesperson, says that her group had to go through a litany of procedures — getting permits, paying for police, paying for port-o-potties, and paying for emergency personnel, among other things — while the Occupiers are getting use of the Plaza without incurring any expenses.

    “The City of Richmond’s picking and choosing whose First Amendment rights trump someone else’s First Amendment rights and we thought–well that’s fine–then they can refund our money,” Owens told CBS 6′s Sandi Cauley. “If that’s how they’re going to run the city then they owe us our fees back.” Mayor Dwight C. Jones had no comment on the issue, as his office had not received any communication from the Tea Party (the letter asking for the refund was being sent on Friday), but at least one government official agrees with Owens:

    “I guess we’ll be writing a check to the tea party people,” Councilman Bruce W. Tyler told Wesley P. Hester of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “You can’t treat one group different from the other. It’s unfair. We’ve now hit the slippery slope that we never should have found ourselves on.”

    On Thursday afternoon, Mayor Jones visited the Occupy camp and met with some of the protesters. The scene, described by Hester in the Times-Dispatch, was almost like when Dorothy landed in Oz and met all the people with their strange customs. For instance, when Jones was trying to explain that city officials would soon be sent to discuss the legality of the occupation, this exchange ensued:

    “I’ve been lenient,” Jones said to the group of dozens gathered around him. “I understand protests.”

    Jones was then interrupted, and informed by [Josh] Kadrich that the encampment was not a protest, but rather “an occupation in protest, which is something distinctly different.”

    It gets better:

    When Jones resumed speaking, protesters began shouting “mic check,” which meant that members of the group could not hear him. They then began using the “people’s mic,” essentially shouting every few words that Jones uttered.

    Jones then attempted to “invite your leaders” to come and meet with him to discuss the occupation, at which point he was informed that there were no leaders.
    http://www.mediaite.com/online/richm...ack-from-city/
     
  5. 03310151

    03310151 Active Member

    COMEDY GOLD:

    Some of the dialogue in this one is straight out of the movie "Reds", from when the commies were trying to organize. Except the commies in the 1920s were a lot more intelligent than the OWS crew.

    Occupy LA ripped apart by argument over pot-smoking

    As the Occupy Los Angeles protesters begin to encounter pressure from a formerly welcoming city administration to think about ending their occupation, the group also appears in danger of being ripped apart from within over the issue of pot-smoking. The Los Angeles Times commented in a Friday editorial, “Four weeks after protesters converged on the Civic Center, they are wearing out their welcome. Even some of the city’s most liberal politicians, who initially embraced them, are trying to figure out a graceful way of getting them to go home. … But it’s hard to negotiate with a headless group united only by its resentment toward bankers, corporations, Congress, the media and others in positions of power — including the police.”

    “It would be best for everybody, including the demonstrators, if the impasse could be resolved without resorting to police in riot gear,” the paper urged. “Another location for the protest should be found, and if the participants are organized enough to put out a joint statement, they’re organized enough to negotiate a peaceful departure.” An internal mutiny over the issue of pot-smoking, however, has raised doubts as to just how unified the protesters really are, and whether any person or group among them is in a position to negotiate on behalf of the entire occupation.

    As described by journalist Natasha Vargas-Cooper, “Around 8 p.m. on Wednesday night, the 300 people who have been occupying the lawn of Los Angeles City Hall for the past three weeks split themselves into two hostile camps.” She explains that “drug use has been a key conservative talking point used to undermine the various Occupy camps around the country,” but that in Los Angeles, “smoking weed has become a wedge issue dividing the camp into increasingly entrenched groups.”

    “Rumblings of dissent and palpable animosity had been mounting in the camp throughout [Wednesday] afternoon,” Vargas-Cooper reports. “Informal meetings were held around the clock to hotly debate an issue that had factionalized the camp: weed. . . . Occupy LA’s decision-making body, the General Assembly, has been responsible for conducting the encampment’s business. … But on Wednesday, a large group of dissenters decided to occupy the General Assembly’s usual outdoor meeting space and assert themselves as the new regime.”

    “A large group, made up almost entirely of men, stood in a circle denouncing the General Assembly and their efforts to ‘police’ the camp, particularly regarding drinking or smoking weed,” she continues. “Anyone who spoke in favor of a code of conduct was aggressively booed. … When a runner from the General Assembly made the announcement that they would begin the meeting, he was thunderously shouted down, then someone yelled out ‘The GA is dead!’ and the crowd erupted in both celebration and shock: ‘We don’t want you or your ****ing procedure!’” She goes on to quote one of the protest’s original organizers as explainng that “on one side there’s the hardcore Politicos-Get-Shit-Done process freaks and on the other are people who think they are starting a new society.”
    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/10/2...r-pot-smoking/
     
  6. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    The fact that there are 2 different standards, for both conduct and treatment in the media, for liberals and conservatives is so glaringly obvious that it's not even worth debating.

    The City of Boston has let these layabouts flout the law for almost a month, even providing them with electrical power. When the Tea Party has their rally in Boston in the Spring of 2012, will they receive the same considerations (no permits to camp, not have to pay for police OT costs) that the Occupy people are currently enjoying?

    I think we all know the answer, and I have $100 that says Mayor Menino will deny anything and everything to the Tea Party with the excuse of "I learned my lesson from the Occupy Boston movement".
     
  7. MichaelR

    MichaelR Member

    So i have been wondering.... I know that the sit ins of the 60's where much different than occupy wall street, but is the police reaction to them different or the same? footage I have seen from the 60's seems to have just as much of a violent reaction from the police as what is happening today. But then again, I am just seeing what the media has shown us.
     
  8. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    I appreciate your straight forward answer brother Cory. Thanks to my other conservative friends as well.

    Abner



     
  9. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I'm reminded of the saying that "if you ask the government for permission to protest it, you deserve to be told no."
     
  10. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    He he he!

    Abner :smile:
     
  11. Jonathan Whatley

    Jonathan Whatley Well-Known Member

    Wouldn't the original Tea Party coalition have divided on this issue too? Social pressure would haven be different enough that the question of doing this at a Tea Party event probably didn't come up much, granted. But the movement was full of Ron Paul supporters, other libertarians, and stay-easy-on-the-social-issues fiscal conservatives.
     
  12. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

  13. Jonathan Whatley

    Jonathan Whatley Well-Known Member

    I can't answer this.

    But hey, it strikes me here that in the popular history, 'the hippies of the 1960s became the Wall Street bankers of the 1980s.'

    And then 'Wall Street got us into this mess.'

    If all this is so, dear God protect us from whatever, I don't know…*virtual nano social currency traders… these Occupy protesters drastically change into twenty years from now!
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 30, 2011
  14. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    I thought this remade speech would be of interest to you brother Jonathon. It touches on foreclosures.

    V for Vendetta


    Abner
     
  15. BobbyJim

    BobbyJim New Member

    An observation from Germany ignored???

    Now that many have expounded on sociology, economics, political science, religion, the art of war, etc. it seems IMHO the most striking comment to date has been largely ignored:

     
  16. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    BobbyJim
    Registered User Join Date:Jul 2010
    Location:Cowpatty in SE Texas
    Posts:73An observation from Germany ignored???
    Now that many have expounded on sociology , economics , political science , religion, the art of war, etc. it seems IMHO the most striking comment to date has been largely ignored:

    Originally Posted by mintaru
    Yes, the followers of both, the Occupy Wall Street movement and the Tea Party do not really have a clue, but there still is something fundamentally wrong in the US. This has to be fixed. Otherwise, not only the US but the West as a whole will decline - and I don't want to live in a world were the only superpower is communist China...

    Abner:

    Quite correct BobbyJim. We the people must not be afraid to speak out. Complied compliance is no longer an option, and the ants are starting to figure that out.

    Good night BobbyJim,

    Abner
     
  17. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

  18. StefanM

    StefanM New Member

    So did I, but I think the test missed a large number of significant issues.

    I'd probably be closer to the "New Coalition Democrat" on that spectrum, if more questions were asked.
     
  19. BobbyJim

    BobbyJim New Member

    OK Abner, but thoughts on this part of the quote?

    "..... but that's not my point. I grew up in former East Germany (in the town of Rostock) and I know for sure that I would not live in a reunified and free country today without the US (and especially not without presidents like Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr.). To be honest, I even want Germany to be a little bit more like the US... the OLD US! But it seems - from the outside - that the US is on the decline, faster than very most Americans think! That really worries me!"
     
  20. rmm0484

    rmm0484 Member

    I'm not Abner nor am I Republican, but I mourn the loss of the Old Republicans. And I also think that we are in decline.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 31, 2011

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