The Wall Street Occupation Part 2

[Crezth]

Pictures:

Political "cartoon."

A friendly measure of unemployment.

More graphs, this one is about medical costs/student loans/cost of living.

Graph about how income disparity has increased for the past thirty years.

Websites:

Streams of Occupy Wall Street.

Links and Videos:

Bank of America moving around more cash than exists in all of the world.

Police brutality in Boston.

A very short movie about Occupy and the rest of the world.

OWS and Tea Party come to table to chat and eat cookies.

Police Brutality at UC Davis
Article about ^

Republican talking points about OWS and all they stand for.

Occupy L.A. leaving a lot of trash lying around.

The sequel thread to the world-acclaimed "The Wall Street Occupation."

Occupy Wall Street is a grassroots movement dedicated to, well, a lot of things. Basically they are a bit fed up with the banks and would like the government to stop giving so many handouts to Wall Street. They occupied some public spaces, then the police got involved. But the police don't really see the problem with all that.

Demands?

There are none. From the 2nd Issue of the Occupied Wall Street Journal:

No list of demands

We are speaking to each other, and listening.

This occupation is first about participation.

Tens of thousands of New Yorkers streamed into Foley Square on Wednesday—labor unions rolled out, students walked out. The occupation of Wall Street grew to resemble the city we live in.

What race, age, religion, occupation did we represent? None of them. All of them.

Barricaded in by steel pens, surrounded by a thousand cops and NYPD helicopters above, we saw our power reflected in their need to control us. But just as this is our movement, it is our narrative too.

The exhausted political machines and their PR slicks are already seeking leaders to elevate, messages to claim, talking points to move on. They, more than anyone, will attempt to seize and shape this moment. They are racing to reach the front of the line.

But how can they run out in front of something that is in front of them? They cannot.

For Wall Street and Washington, the demand is not on them to give us something that isn’t theirs to give. It’s ours. It’s on us. We aren’t going anywhere. We just got here.

Basically these people just want America to be the free nation we all grew up believing it is.

This thread is for you to post and talk about it.

I will update this original post with new content, links, and videos as people post them in the thread.

Cheers,
Crezth

 

[Integral]

The new "list of demands" is ridiculous. What happened to the old one? I can't support this anymore.

 

[Crezth]

The new "list of demands" is ridiculous. What happened to the old one? I can't support this anymore.

I couldn't find it. If someone wanted to post a link to it, that'd be great.

 

[GenMarshall]

Demands #1, 3, & 11 I'd agree with. With a side of no discriminating against the long term unemployed and hiding behind the excuse of telling candidates they're overqualified.

 

[jtb1127]

Yes, I'd like a list of demands as well.

 

[Labtec600]

While I agree the bailouts of corporations that went under because of their own bad decisions to be bailed out by my money is BS, occupy wallstreet does not represent me.

What exactly are the bums, college students, jobless, and cashier at Star Bucks that is occupy wallstreet bailing out? My money also goes to support these people which - they do not represent me.

 

[choxorn]

So, wait, what is the list of demands right now, exactly?

 

[Integral]

I couldn't find it. If someone wanted to post a link to it, that'd be great.

I'm speaking of this one, which has undergone some changes since I discussed it here.

 

[Crezth]

I'm speaking of this one, which has undergone some changes since I discussed it here.

Thanks. Added to the OP.

 

[W|M]

Since when was this a serial thread?

 

[Crezth]

Since when was this a serial thread?

Last thread reached 1000 posts.

 

[W|M]

I know, but threads about political and economic discussions generally aren't turned into serial threads (ie, ones which end at 1000 posts).

 

[Integral]

New comments for a new set of "demands":

Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending "Freetrade" by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.

Trade barriers are bad, m'kay? No reason to hate on the poor Chinese guy working his butt off in a factory.

Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.

Yawn. We have Obamacare, what more do you want?

Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.

How about a negative income tax, which gives living wages without distorting the labor market?

Demand four: Free college education.

Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.

Yawn.

Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.

Yawn.

Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America's nuclear power plants.

You guys really like the sound of "trillion", don't you?

Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.

Indifferent. Mildly supportive in theory but I don't know if it merits "constitutional amendment" status.

Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.

I'm okay with this but it would take a LOT of prep time. Also you can't have (9) with (1) and (3). The mind, it boggles. How you can advocate unrestricted movement of labor but not of goods is beyond me.

Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.

Indifferent. I mean, sure, why not, but it's not an issue that's gonna get me out of bed in the morning.

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the "Books." World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the "Books." And I don't mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.

Indifferent. What purpose would this serve?

Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.

Indifferent.


Source

The entire new list smacks of a profound misunderstanding of basic economics.

--

There isn't a single mention of campaign finance reform here! My position remains

I've been thinking a bit about the declaration. I think it'd be better served if it were pared down to the absolute essential, which is campaign finance reform.

 

[downtown]

Yeah, I think that's another clue that while wealth disparity and bailouts are a big problem, the policy arm of OWS is out to lunch. It's time for them to go home and figure out a way to fight for their goals in the system, like the tea party did. It's the only way.

I'm with you Integral. fight for campaign finance...although I also support strong regulator activity against the financial sector. Frank-Dodd is just window dressing...we could be back here again in another 8 years.

 

[choxorn]

Yawn. We have Obamacare, what more do you want?

An actual single-payer public-run Health Care system, rather than just making everyone buy private insurance and making the private insurers screw people over less?

I'd agree that most of the rest of the demands from that list are a bit silly, though.

 

[Crezth]

For the record, the "new list," is not official, and until it is it won't be in the OP. I added the link to the 99 Declaration in the op in its place.

 

[Pangur Bán]

Demand nine would kill most of these people economically.

 

[Cutlass]

Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.

How about a negative income tax, which gives living wages without distorting the labor market?

How is that not just a subsidy for the companies that keep wages down, distorting the labor markets?

 

[CaptainF]

Yeah, I think that's another clue that while wealth disparity and bailouts are a big problem, the policy arm of OWS is out to lunch. It's time for them to go home and figure out a way to fight for their goals in the system, like the tea party did. It's the only way.

I'm with you Integral. fight for campaign finance...although I also support strong regulator activity against the financial sector. Frank-Dodd is just window dressing...we could be back here again in another 8 years.

Saying that the Tea Party "fought for their goals" is a little silly, given that the ones really fighting for the "goals" of the Tea Party aren't the Tea Partiers themselves but the ones who created this Astroturf movement to begin with, a.k.a. the oligarchs of industry and finance.

When you own/run the system, it makes perfect sense to use it to your advantage.

 

[Labtec600]

Good god, those are there demands? These guys are a joke. This supports my beliefs even more - these guys are nothing but a bunch of useless drains on society.