Occupy Wall Street

[joshh]

We don't have much of a choice at least people who are in the same financial state my fam is in. In order to get that education you have to have money. Very few people can pay out right. My father is entering his 60 soon and still has to do hard labor(construction) every day of his life. In the past few years he has come very close to be homeless. He has put in countless number of aplications with very little outcome. Not many employers want to hire older people. My mother in her late 50s works 18-20 Hour days on a grave yard shift and makes only 45ish K a year. And because of the rise in technology people are buying less of the products her job offers. In the next year she may no longer have a job. And could very well end up loosing her home.

I guess it's there Own fault though. It has nothing to do with any 1% taking all of the countries wealth. It's got nothing to do with companies outsourcing jobs to other countries, It has nothing to do with our social problems in this country, it has nothing to do with racism or classism. It can't possible be any of that. This country is so great! And it's so easy to just go out and put some hard work in and land that great paying job with wonderful health benefits. It's so easy! Why should we protest? Life is so great! Homeless people are not real, their is no such thing as poverty in the good ol USA, oh no! Every person on this planet has the ability to work hard and live the American dream!!!
It's the individuals fault. Yeah capitalism!!! Wahoooo!

Exactly. We should all take an example from Jim Carrey in "Liar Liar" and kick our own asses. Self-loathing is the American way. It will motivate you to go out and get 2 or 3 extra jobs on top of your normal day job. Then you can look down on anyone who is struggling and refer to them as lazy and worthless. This will create pride to counteract all that self hatred you were doing in step one. See the logic here? Now go be a good little pod person.

Yes it's your countries fault for not coming to your rescue. You have from the ages of 18ish to 60 to educate yourself in a field that makes decent money. If you didn't know already, minimum wage is intended to be temporary...till you either self educate or go to school. Or work your way into a better job through hard work.
Sounds like you guys think going to work every day at the same job is an excuse that you "did all you could" for yourselves. Working the same dead end job everyday is giving up.

The only people that have an excuse from this are the disabled, handicapped and the decapitated.

No shit. The successful and harder workers should cover their asses.....NOT!

[Morrison]

Oh good - you've reached step 3. Don't worry, we'll be there soon if we can just blame ourselves a little more first.

[joshh]

Oh good - you've reached step 3. Don't worry, we'll be there soon if we can just blame ourselves a little more first.

No you should keep blaming everyone else. Because after all, it's their fault you're where you are today.

[!kid]

I do not blame our goverment, nor do I expect them to hand everything to us. I blame ourselves, not because we didn't try hard to get that job or higher education. I blame ourselves for letting our country get to this point. We are all to blame.

It's my opinion that our governments are scrambling to keep our failing systems together. What we need is huge social change and equality among all earths habitants. Just one look at our economical history and you we see that things are getting worse and worse.
This shits got to go!

[Morrison]

I guess I feel there are certain portions of the 1% who pay off politicians to grease the wheels of democracy to spin in favor of whatever industry they are linked to. Also, I blame the allowance of a former Goldman Sachs executive, Adam Storch to be named as the first cheif operating officer of the Securities and Exchange commission in 2009 AFTER the financial collapse that lead to to the bailout bonanza. Government obviously didn't learn their errors from hiring slews of other former Goldman employees. Henry Paulson, Bush's Secretary of the Treasury, was a former CEO of Goldman. Robert Rubin, Clinton's secretary of the Treasury was a former 26 year employee of Goldman and served as co-chairman from 90-92.

Most people think that the OWS crowd are protesting in the wrong place. But if you figure that in 5 years, potentially several more board members of Goldman and others will have accepted government positions, then perhaps they are in the right place.

Of course none of this is technically illegal and passing any legislation to do so would probably be determined as un-constitutional. Unless they allow Americans to directly vote on positions which are now otherwise appointed. But is it too much to ask these people to act slightly ethically? Do you live your life getting away with whatever you can get away with just because you can? Should they?

[mrsleeve]

You know, I think I will leave this right here

[Dozyproductions]

cmon mr.sleeve, you can do better than that guy. He's just saying things that you would want to hear, no better than some liberal spewage. "At its core" it's really much more about classic class struggle, which we can see through demented practices from the public and private sector.

As the post above yours... would it hurt so much if some of these guys would act ethical? Would it hurt that through some record profits, a company can adjust wages to inflation or a politician yadda yadda and etc, etc?

[Airborneinfantry11]

That's the problem, if you think two 32 hour weeks at two fast food chains is working yourself to death, then you are too hopped up on needing full cable, a nifty cellphone and a financed car. The problem is people living beyond their means to be feel like they are a part of the populous and on the cutting edge, fact is, if you only got an 890 on your SAT, got a GED, and spent the first six years of your adult life living a seven day a week party, you've got no one to blame for your lot in life but yourself. Those CEO's spent their school career taking advantage of the free start to their education, then spent eight more in school they paid for to put them in a place to decide whether or not the hours you spend making minimum wage at one of the four hundred Arby's they are responsible for is worth the investment.

This

[Dozyproductions]

This

Even though that touches with what's wrong with almost our entire modern society it's also not the topic of this protest. People telling you this instead of telling you to look through the lifestyle of the protesters are really doing you a disservice.


Aka, if you can't win the argument through argument win it by destroying your opponent's legitimacy. In this case the message is there, even if you have to really dumpster dive to find it.

[mrsleeve]

cmon mr.sleeve, you can do better than that guy. He's just saying things that you would want to hear, no better than some liberal spewage. "At its core" it's really much more about classic class struggle, which we can see through demented practices from the public and private sector.

As the post above yours... would it hurt so much if some of these guys would act ethical? Would it hurt that through some record profits, a company can adjust wages to inflation or a politician yadda yadda and etc, etc?

HES FUCKING RIGHT, its has nothing to do with saying what I want to hear. Its the plain honest truth of the matter is it not??

[Dozyproductions]

It doesn't matter if its right or wrong (for me its both). This is classic misdirection and if you don't want to acknowledge that then thats fine. For further clarification look at my post just above.

[gwb72tii]

What we need is huge social change and equality among all earths habitants. Just one look at our economical history and you we see that things are getting worse and worse.
This shits got to go!

pray tell exactly how you're going to get this done?
socialism/marxism, from those with means to those with needs, has killed more of "earth's habitants" in the fucking name of fairness than any political persuasion ever invented. stalin killed millions, mao killed 30 million.

care for a rerun?

there is no way for government to make people equal.

[mrsleeve]

^
Some "experts" Put Mao's numbers closer to 70m and uncle Joe at the 25-30ish million

[E30godz]

It surprises me that people can get so heated over this when, likely, they all believe in the same core principles..

Things like:
A) Capitalism isn't perfect
B) Capitalism requires integrity from our leaders (business, political, etc) to function correctly
C) People are fallible

How is this such a big fucking surprise? We have a system based on the acquisition of money. How could that possibly go wrong. Not every politician or businessman is "bad", but the problems the "bad" ones create can become systemic. If history has taught us anything it is that human integrity fails...consistently. We have an entire industry surrounded by the constant temptation of greed.. and without proper regulation to curtail it.

Oh, its the politicians' fault? Well sure. They passed the laws (or...didn't pass the laws). But nothing happens in government without some poking and prodding. And who likes to poke and prod a lot? I don't know...how about a financial industry clamoring for new markets? I am sure they had nothing to do with this whole 'mess'.

It offends me that anyone could look down over their nose at these protesters. It is unwise to judge a group of people based on a few idiots...else Republicans, Democrats, America, the E30 community, and your family would be completely invalidated and marginalized. It doesn't take a Master's degree in economics to understand this shit. Even dirty, English major, suburban white kids can. Can you not protest a system that hasn't effected you negatively? Should we only protest when things are bad for us? Do only the people with 'jobs' have a right to protest? Shit. I work in the defense industry and try and vote against defense spending as much as I can.

[Dozyproductions]

Thank you for returning some sensibility to this thread