Selfish? The homeless in Detroit are moving to the Occupy park. They are getting clothes, food sleeping bags and tents. The occupy Detroit people in a fit of selfishness are supplying the safety net that the city, state and national government do not. They also get haircuts and medical help. Yep ,pretty selfish.
In my city and any city I’ve ever visited there are established organizations that feed and house the homeless.
Doesn’t change the fact that the occupiers are creating a negative effect and serve no useful purpose beyond their own narcissistic desire for attention. Everything they’re doing can be done in their parents basement without taking over public space which is meant for everybody and not their little shanty towns.
How would that have changed if the protesters left each night, and returned each day?
It is obvious you know nothing about that. I have talked to the homeless and they tell me of the difficulty in getting in the homeless shelters. they are filled early. They are nowhere near able to keep up with the need. There is a reason people live in parks and tent communities. They have no choice and the programs that are supposed to help them have had budgets sliced or been completely eliminated.
You live in some kind of bubble.
it wouldn’t. whether they take a pizza break and sleep at home they still would have caused economic harm. You should be able to see this in the greater picture and not as some kind of “I’m not touching you, I’m not touching you” example of legal behavior.
When looking at their behavior you have to project it to everybody in society and see how it plays out.
what if I build scaffolding above the occupier tents and occupy the occupiers. I bring an amplifier that is exactly twice as loud as occupier bullhorns and shout them down in an attempt to be heard. Lather rinse and repeat until every person on earth has effectively made it their lot in life to shout the other person down and generally make a joke of public use space.
It shouldn’t be hard to visualize how much your life would suck if occupiers took up residence on the sidewalk next to your house or business. It’s absurd to think freedom of speech means anything beyond the ability to freely communicate with people who want to freely communicate with you. It’s not a conceptual social headlock where people get to make you listen to them.
How have they forced you listen to them and how have they harmed you in any way? Is there any consideration is your uptight life for those who go to the occupations because they want to hear what they say? Do you think your safe home in the middle of Ohio is being threatened ?
It will be an interesting Tournament of Roses Parade next year.
No, I think the people who were FIRED or kept awake by the noise were harmed which I’ve clearly stated. But what do you care sitting in your living room in Michigan. You literally don’t care about other people. Nothing, and I mean nothing these people are doing is in anyway useful to themselves or the world at large. The best we can hope for is tax money being spent to babysit these people. The worst we can hope for is loss of public use space, disturbance of the communities around them, and loss of jobs.
Not sitting in my living room. i have, unlike you, spent a lot of time down at the occupation. I have been in many meetings and assemblies. I have been involved in the organization. I have also made donations and solicited more of them.
So, how do you feel about the people who got laid off?
(Emphasis mine, offered without comment)
Just who is “we” and who is the “them” that you speak of? What a bizarre statement. Do you think that our Congressional leaders in both Houses are acting in a civilized manner when they are so easily controlled by lobbyists and pac money? Why hasn’t our civilized justice system brought the scam artists in our banking systems to justice for what they did to the foundations of our economic system near the end of the Bush Administration? Why are our copycat State Legislatures making it harder for certain groups of citizens to vote? (The elderly, people who have lower incomes, college students) If they will accept your gun club photo ID they damned well ought to accept your University photo ID! Not to do so is uncivilized.
Follow the rules? We would still be Tories if we hadn’t broken the rules. That attitude would never have integrated the first lunch counter or made the Ivy League and military schools co-ed. Have you never read Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience or read about Gandhi?
Is it civilized to expect a family of four to live on less than a thousand dollars a month while the General Electric Corporation pays no corporate taxes at all? That is insanity. And let’s be sure to give tax breaks to those poor little oil companies.
So the people have a right to peacefully assemble…just as long as they don’t do it on public or private property?
I would explain but my prior comments had the relevant parts already included. Sitting in a public park annoying innocent neighbors isn’t civilized.
BTW It would have been classier, and a lot less slanted if after
“General Electric Corporation pays no corporate taxes at all?” you added “and President Obama thought it would be okay to make Mr. Immelt “chairman of the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness” at the same time he is CEO of GE and within the same time frame he closes a US division and relocated it to China” Or of course eliminated the Bush jab, which even I a novice on the economy know that the banking system has been tweaking and prodding for profits with the help of both of our wonderful two party systems reps from before 2000. Both parties are to blame and I actually respect a portion of the OWS who are not allowing Democrats to seize the movement. The ones that realize the R or the D mean absolutely nothing compared to the $. The ones who want real change not just a new face in charge of the same corrupt systems, but a new platform to stand on and take back our nation.
As for the rest of your how to be civil lesson, it as well has nothing to do with OWS it was a bashing contest, or an admission you hadn’t read what I wrote. Lunch counter sit ins =effective because they were done in the places that needed to change. I am not repeating myself about where I think OWS would be if they were serious about wanting to be provocative.
Those participating in OWS that think its okay to disrupt the sleep and relaxation of the hard working drones around them, well fuck them. They cannot speak for me, because they do not respect others.
“Keep your friends closer, and your enemies closer.”
The millions of people who got laid off or fired by the bankers disrupting the economy for their own gain, or the 21 claimed by a poster who has a very faint regard for fact?
The occupations are fighting to get the economy out of the hands of the people who have turned our treasury into their own piggy bank. That could benefit us all.
We could try and find out how many shops are making money off occupations and probably hired more workers. The barbecue shop across the street from Occupy Detroit is doing big business off the occupiers and visitors. Does that balance your apocryphal lay offs? How many tents , sleeping bags ,blankets and food has been bought by the occupiers? There is money being made by many companies.
Let’s try this. Let’s both looka at the thread title and see what we’re discussing. Oh, look it’s Wall Street. Look at Magiver’s posts, look at my question, what do you see? Yes, they’re about Occupy Wall Street. Now I know you’re really happy playing protestor and think you’re answering some higher calling and all. But when cites are brought up regarding Wall Street, try commenting on them. You seem to think that its a valid debating tactic to counter a newspaper article in New York with your personal anecdotal observations in a town a few states away. It ain’t. And that is giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming there is no bias on what you’re seeing and sharing.
Perhaps you could get someone to read the MAGIVER posts and then explain them to you. I merely responded to those grasps . I suppose all posts should merely respond to the original OP. That would be strange since almost none do. They all wander and morph. Maybe you are new to the Dope and don’t know that.
The occupy movements is a lot bigger than NYC. There are 1000 of them around the world. It is MAGIVER who thinks a" possible" layoff of 21 people degrades the entire movement. That that proves they are selfish people who do not care about anyone else. Yep, protesting in cold miserable weather is a “lark”. Fighting bankers who brought the world economy to its knees, is a selfish act .
You wouldn’t happen to have a cite for that, would you?
Yet, think of how many non-protesting patrons had their lunch experience ruined. Those who participated in the sit-ins should have found a way not to disturb anyone, right Magiver?
I work under a block away from one of the Occupy Washington site. Not heard a peep from them, other than the demonstrations a while back, which isn’t the same thing at all.