Occupy Wall Street?

[Zag]

Pablo, when you get over your paranoia of the government being a single all-powerful entity that only pretends to answer to the people, I'll get over my belief that all corporations are simply ruthless, greedy, environment-raping, crushing-little-guys-under-their-heel-any-chance-they-get bastards who don't even have a pretense of answering to the people.

Oh wait. There actually is an answer to this. Just read a history book!

Look what happened before we had government doing trust-busting. There was a balance of wealth equaled in history only by significant fascist governments. (Though we've almost caught up to it today! Reaganomics FTW! That is, the wealthy people's win.)

Or are you going with, "That ridiculously lopsided balance of wealth is correct and healthy for society." I have no argument to that except to shake my head sadly and start muttering.

[Pablo]

[Pablo]

check this out

I know Gomez will just think it is because government is not big enough, but I kind of think this suggests something other than paranoia on my part.
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All religions are the same - Guilt....just with different holidays.

[Pablo]

And while you're reading all those history books, why don't you make a list of all the civilizations that have failed due to greedy, powerful corporations. Then make a second list of civilizations that have failed due to large, corrupt, inefficient, bloated, belligerent central governments.
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All religions are the same - Guilt....just with different holidays.

[Death Mage]

And that little blurb of mine was originally a response to Zag's post BEFORE the one that it ended up as a reply to.

And if you can figure that out, great.

So now I'm gonna read a bit more, and then decide if I need to rant a bit more or just leave things be.

[Edit]
Alright, I've read it, and this seems to come down to the same old, same old issue.

"Who is more corrupt: Private Business or Government?"

The correct answer is "It doesn't matter, you're screwed either way.;" Some people (myself included) believe private businesses are easier to weed out the corruption in. Some people believe governments are easier to weed out the corruption in. Ultimately, given the chance, BOTH are going to get "corrupted" because it is human nature to grab as much power as you can. This is never going to go away. No amount of protesting will stop human nature from existing. All you can do is try to build the system with enough checks and balances to control and limit that corruption. And, as I stated, I believe it's far, FAR easier for governments to become unchecked, unbalanced, uncontrollably corrupt than it is for private businesses. After all, if a business goes "evil", you have alternatives. Where do you go to shop for a new government?
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[Pablo]

[Zag]

[Pablo]

[Scurra]

To lighten things up a little, I offer the Who said it: Wall St Occupier or Tea Partier? quiz
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_{still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon}

[Chuck]

Fliers about When Should You Shoot a Cop? were left on a table at the Phoenix occupy Wall Street rally.

[Neo]

I don't believe for an instant that the flier was legit. It was planted, either to make the protests look bad, or to stir up trouble.
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_{Ad Astra}

[Scurra]

I found this article "The conservatism of Occupy Wall Street" to be quite insightful. Obviously I don't entirely agree with it (simply because from this side of the Atlantic we start from a slightly different position), but it does make a good argument.
_________________
_{still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon}

[Pablo]

Great article! I posted it on my facebook page.
_________________
All religions are the same - Guilt....just with different holidays.

[Silverfire]

Yes! Exactly! I want to have that diagram framed!

[j_s*]

[Pablo]

Definitely same page with you, j_s!!
_________________
All religions are the same - Guilt....just with different holidays.

[Death Mage]

Shame that the protest isn't about what you believe, but about what the protestors themselves believe.
_________________
* These senseless ramblings brought to you by Insanity™. If you just can't figure the dang thing out, it must be Insanity™.
[YOUR AD HERE!]

[Pablo]

[Scurra]

[Jack_Ian]

The trouble is, that even if you removed all corruption currently in the system, it would just return.
It's evolution, pure and simple, the corruption would just return because it's the best way to survive, and indeed prosper, in the current system.
If you want to remove corruption, then you need to have an environment where corruption can't prosper any more, or at least finds it extremely difficult to compete with more honourable members.
That's a tall order, but the current system, where government and business are in each others pockets is a recipe for disaster.
Between them, they have absolute power, and we all know where that leads.

We need to get back to why we need government and then create a society that has that, and only that. Many would argue that the purpose of government is to provide a fruitful environment for the economy to prosper. That's why government is judged on numbers like inflation, GDP etc.
What we need is a happiness index and just scrap the rest and we need to curtail government power, so that business would need to corrupt all society in order to achieve its aims.
Of course corrupting all society is not impossible, but it's certainly a lot harder that what we have now.

[Scurra]

I remember reading some thought experiment in which it was posited that the entirety of the world's wealth was pooled and divided evenly amongst everyone on the planet.
And the conclusion they reached was that within a very short space of time (a fortnight? a month?) the wealth would end up being distributed pretty much as it is now (with 1% of the people having some massively high proportion) because the natural salesmen and charismatic leaders would extract a lot of it, and fraudsters would account for the rest.
This was deeply depressing but also deeply believable as well.
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_{still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon}

[Jack_Ian]

I don't mind charismatic people being successful. I'd just like to have a more helpful definition of success adopted.

[Pablo]

[Jack_Ian]

Well it seems the Occupy Wall Street campaign has been revitalised by the evictions.

I'd pretty much stopped taking an interest until recent events.

It seems like a First Amendment case to me, but the judge disagrees...

[Undercover Monk]

To me living in rural Indiana I say who cares. No Im not some ignorant hick who either believes hippies have taken the country hostage or that GWB was the devil incarnate views held by real people I work with (thats a sad commentary on America itself) But It doesnt really affect me. The truth about national politics is it takes so long that by the time changes are affected the issues have usually been resolved by other means. Look at Obamacare (I dont like it) but by the time some of the policies take affect a new party may be in power and abolishing it.

In all honesty it is the state governments that enact true change. local politics (excluding large cities) are too small to inact real change and the national government is too slow (a good thing in many cases as its kept radicals from gaining power and overthrowing the country. Obama is not a true radical people.) State governments may not be perfect but I think come the closeest to truly representing the populace.

sorry about the rant but this forum is one of the few places I feel I can blow off steam about politics where being from a different party doesnt necesarilly mean Im an idiot. (of course the lazy spelling mistakes aren't helping =))
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The Classic Blunders:
1. never get involved in a land war in Asia
2.Never go in against a Sicilian when DEATH is on the line
3. Never release Peyton Manning

[itisally]

UM,

I agree that the federal government is slow. It is a protection from extremists. I wonder, though, how many bad polices are passed because the process out lived the people's attention span to disagree with it.

As far as the Occupy movement, it is interesting to me that the judge didn't say that they couldn't be there just that they couldn't be restricting others from using the same place safely or prevent the owner from maintaining the park. They were denied a restraining order, not the right to gather. And while I am at it.. I don't think that "assemble" is synonymous with "set up temporary living arrangements"
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I could agree with you, but then we would both be wrong.

[Jack_Ian]

[Scurra]

UM, I actually agree with you on the principle that it is the States that manage true change, being large enough to enact significant things but small enough to be able to deal with local issues. It's one of the things I genuinely admire about the original US structure.
Unfortunately, you then had a Civil War and two World Wars, as a result of which the federal government took more and more power, and - as we all know - governments (for which read "politicians") only give power back shortly after Hell has become a skating rink. (Mind you, with the current extreme weather state, that may yet happen. Cf. that joke about Houston electing a lesbian as Mayor and then having a snowstorm...)

Even as an advocate of Big Government I think that the States/Regions structure is inherently better for most things - which is why I support the underlying principle behind European integration too, but here we are hampered by the additional bogus problem of "national identity" which undermines almost all progress towards that sort of model.
_________________
_{still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon}

[Undercover Monk]

except that the original structure of the USA did exactly that. The articles of Confederation left a bare bones form of federal government and it nearly destroyed us. The Federal Government may have a larger share of power but my point is it is mostly symbolic. so whats the harm. I disagree with the current administration on many things and agree with you that we need less govt interference but I think that sometimes we make the federal government out to be a boogie man when they are in fact a harmless bunny rabbit.

The system was built to keep Government from having too much power and our current two party political system helps ensure that. thats why for the past 30 years we have been pretty consistent in the power switching hands. when was the last time we had the same party president two times in a row.
_________________
The Classic Blunders:
1. never get involved in a land war in Asia
2.Never go in against a Sicilian when DEATH is on the line
3. Never release Peyton Manning

[Duke Gnome]

[itisally*]

It is not thier cause that was before the judge, but a request for a restraining order based on thier right to assemble. With any protest they are assembling to gather attention for thier cause, but the judge ruled that having the right to be there does not give them the right to do what every they want while they are there.

Isn't that what the protesters what from Wall Street and the Bankers too, that the bankers and wall street would realize that just because they have a right to be there dosen't mean they should do what ever they want.

As far as the cause goes it looks like a win to me.

[Pablo]