I sort of have to agree, the Occupy Wall Street movement is hardly presenting themselves in the best way possible with what some have been doing at these protests.
Frank Miller completely loses the plot
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Yeah, I've gotten to a point where I don't even remember what they're supposed to be protesting.
In 2008 a massive economic collapse began, caused by a complex series of financial gambles based on the buying and selling of mortgage debt and trading predictions of when and how much of it would be paid. Eventually, the whole house of cards started to fall apart, at which point several banks and financial institutions were threatened. These companies, thanks to a series of gluttonous mergers and buy-outs combined with overly-risky investment strategies, were in danger of going out of business entirely and taking the national and international economy with them, prompting a government "bail-out" which covered their debts, but with essentially no long-term solution to the problem (i.e., no regulations or laws to prevent the risky practices that blew up in our faces from being pursued again, and no plan for disposing of the "toxic assets" weighing down the banks). Adding insult to injury, many executives responsible for these irresponsible business practices accepted large cash bonuses for their companies, literally paid for out of the treasury.
Even with the extreme action of the bail-out, the economy remains in dire straits, second only to the Great Depression of the 1930s. Despite this, several large corporations continue to record more than healthy profits and decline to step up hiring, electing instead to continue the go-go-'90s practice of cutting workforce to the bone and relying on the motivating power of terror to make those that remain work harder to make up the difference, lest they, too, become unemployed.
You may have heard of it.
I didn't think it was possible for anyone to out-crazy and outflank to the right OSC. Somehow, though, Frank Miller managed that crazy feat.
I have indeed heard of it. I honestly just wasn't sure what the goal was of Occupy Wallstreet. What are they really trying to accomplish, and what are they doing (other than getting pissy) to accomplish it?
Well, if the same posters say that calling a tea party ( personally think both tea party and Occupy folks are nuts, but glad they care, even if misguided) a tea bagger is unfair, low, and hateful, then I might have to agree, (I don't follow political threads online mostly, I thought this was about a movie or something, you know, since it was in TV and movies) but I hate when some have the kettle calling the pot black.
I definitely think Wall Street needs to be held accountable, but unfortunately the protestors aren't putting forth enough of a focused message to get that point across.
Instead they come across much like the conservatives portray them-- a bunch of disorganized, naive, pot-smoking college students who hate capitalism and want to promote their various pet causes.
It pretty much falls to outside commentators and guys like Jon Stewart to tell people what the larger message should be.
The fundamental goal of the Occupy Wall Street movement is not akin to a traditional protest campaign. They don't have any one specific policy objective in mind.
Their fundamental goal, rather, is to change the narrative. To change how people think about the economy and about how the economy ought to work. To change the moral framework of our understanding of the distribution of wealth -- so that instead of the dominant idea being that it's every man for himself in a dog-eat-dog world where any and all forms of redistribution are theft, we come to understand that a healthy and free economy means that there has to be economic justice, there has to be a real social safety net, and that we can't have such extreme wealth disparities to the point where most people are suffering while a few are living high on the hog.
The goal of Occupy Wall Street, in other words, is to change our understanding of what a moral economy ought to be.
Why, it's amazing we let you post here at all!
It astounds me how right-wingers--who, by and large, hold most of the power and resources in this world--still play the persecution card with no sense of irony.
They believe Fox News, which continues to tell them they are persecuted, and that there is a massive "liberal bias" in the news media. Which, I guess, to THEM there would be ... when it's right down the center.
There's a poster here whose name I cannot remember. S/he has a sig line which really rather fits this, something to the effect of "Fox news is rich people paying rich people to convince middle income people that all the world's problems are caused by poor people." It's true.
People tend to gang up on the poor little guy and the rich big guy. Who is that middle income guy?
Why, it's amazing we let you post here at all!
It astounds me how right-wingers--who, by and large, hold most of the power and resources in this world--still play the persecution card with no sense of irony.
They believe Fox News, which continues to tell them they are persecuted, and that there is a massive "liberal bias" in the news media. Which, I guess, to THEM there would be ... when it's right down the center.
There's a poster here whose name I cannot remember. S/he has a sig line which really rather fits this, something to the effect of "Fox news is rich people paying rich people to convince middle income people that all the world's problems are caused by poor people." It's true.
People tend to gang up on the poor little guy and the rich big guy. Who is that middle income guy?
What middle income guy? The middle class in this country is disappearing, because more and more wealth is being bled out of them to enrich the elite. That's part of why OWS developed -- it's getting harder and harder just to STAY in the middle class, let alone to ENTER the middle class. The entire economy is rigged to trap people into the working class these days.
First things first - put back into place the glass-steagall act, break up the banks which are parasites instead of economic enablers. And this comes from a dye-in the wool capitalist (we do not have capitalism right now, we have cronyism and hucksters. )
Thats not going to happen. The Congress is pretty much the personal courtesan of the big banks.
Which is why the Occupy movement is so important. If more and more people take to the streets and more and more people start changing the national conversation, that puts pressure on politicians to change their policies. That leads to new people running. If the national conversation changes, then Members of Congress will eventually find that the costs of being Wall Street's whores will exceed the benefits.
The part that bugs me is that he seems to think the worst part of the Occupy movement is that it's taking away focus from the wars.
I can't see it, even if you hate the tea-party movement, at least you know what they where asking for. The OWS movement is too disjointed (at least right now) and lacks leadership to be able to clearly state what they want have happen. Even if the tea party folks make you want to move to Canada, at least they have some sort of focus on what they want to get done.
Wow. It seems odd that the man who wrote this...
...also wrote this...
It doesn't really change my opinion of him, though. Frank Miller went bat-shit (pardon the pun) crazy years ago. Miller's The Dark Knight Strikes Back and All-Star Batman and Robin are as bad as his Daredevil and Dark Knight Returns were good. The last thing he's written that I really, really enjoyed was Give Me Liberty, and even then you could see his sanity slipping away. Even Sin City is really, really over the top in too many places.
...also wrote this...
It doesn't really change my opinion of him, though. Frank Miller went bat-shit (pardon the pun) crazy years ago. Miller's The Dark Knight Strikes Back and All-Star Batman and Robin are as bad as his Daredevil and Dark Knight Returns were good. The last thing he's written that I really, really enjoyed was Give Me Liberty, and even then you could see his sanity slipping away. Even Sin City is really, really over the top in too many places.
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