Yeah, I felt this way too but then I watch the republican primary debates and realize I am stuck between Obama and the abyss. Now that he needs our votes, he is making all sorts of populist noises. I’ll never trust another politician again.
Safer for who? The protesters, or the 1%?
This statement is true. If only he argued well.
Agreed. He’s gone off the rails occasionally, but on the whole, he’s on the side of the angels. It’s his facility in arguing that side that’s questionable.
Shame on them!
Your concern is noted.
Careful, you’ll get carpal tunnel syndrome with all that handwaving.
What’s supposed to be done? Should Occupy Detroit be fanning out into the neighborhoods to drag people to the protest? And AAs may be underrepresented at OD, but they were practically non-existent at Tea Party rallies. Bringing up the fact that there isn’t an EXACT PROPORTION of black to white at these rallies is concern trollery of the highest order.
You’re both smarter and more articulate. Better still, you don’t need to publicly reassure yourselves of that every five minutes.
What it should trigger in your head is that it might not as well thought of, supported and received by the “99%” as you might think.
One would think that if it was as well received and supported amongst the common people of the land that this movement is supposed to speaking for, the proportions and representation would be more… representative… of that people as a whole.
It should make you think. But, then again, maybe not.
So. You said lily white and now you expect a head count. There is plenty of black representation, more than in congress, more than in the senate more than what is in business and banking.
Ooooh, I get it. You don’t know what the 99% refers to. The 99% of the nation are the 99% of people who hold only 58% of the nation’s wealth. OWS has never said that it enjoys the support of 99% of the U.S. population.
And despite that, they’re still fighting for that 99%.
I’ve been waiting all day for this to hit the news sites and as of yet, not a single mention that I can find. You’d think it’d make the news when the police start using flashbangs and such against American protesters.
Huh? They are speaking for the 99% OF THE NATION who hold 58% of the wealth. Unless you are saying the 1% is disproportionally Detroit African-Americans (which I really, really, really hope you are not) then I would expect the demographic makeup of this group’s Detroit rally be more reflective of that 99% that they claim to speaking for.
Unless , of course, this is another bullshit “movement” where a small group of douchebags assume to know better than their peers and assume to speak for and declare their representation of that subset of people.
They do not say, and have never said, that they represent the views or that they are “speaking for” 99% of the U.S. population.
Exactly. Suddenly the (presumably) conservative objection is that 50% of those actively involved isn’t black enough to count as legitimately representative? Good rule to know.
As is the case with nearly all the objections to the protests anyone has bothered to make explicit, we have a choice between calling this one stupid or just flat dishonest.
"…They are the 1 percent. They are the banks, the mortgage industry, the insurance industry. They are the important ones. They need help and get bailed out and are praised as job creators. We need help and get nothing and are called entitled. We live in a society made for them, not for us. It’s their world, not ours. If we’re lucky, they’ll let us work in it so long as we don’t question the extent of their charity.
We are the 99 percent. We are everyone else. And we will no longer be silent. It’s time the 1 percent got to know us a little better. On Sept. 17, 2011, the 99 percent will converge on Wall Street to let the 1 percent know just how frustrated they are with living in a world made for someone else. Let us know why you’ll be there. Let us know how you are the 99 percent."
Now, lets’ be fair. It could be both.
The total GNP of the United States in 2010 was 14.6 trillion dollars. One bank by itself, Bank of America, sold 74 trillion dollars in swaps. They are trying to move 54 trillion into commercial banks so they will get FDIC backing.
The point is they sold swaps far in excess of their ability to pay if home prices crashed. That would be fraud if they were actually called insurance, but the banks managed to get them called swaps instead of insurance to escape insurance regulation.
If you bought auto insurance and it was found the company did not have the financial backing to pay off their customers, the regulators would come down hard on them , fraud trials would follow.
But Bank of America is only one of the 6 huge banks. They all did the same thing. Many other banks which are merely enormous also played the game. How much money in SWAPS is out there? Who knows?
Brooksley Born testified in front of congress when she was head of the Commodity Futures Trading Comm, saying what was happening was very dangerous. Libertarian Greenspan , and several senators and congressmen creamed her in front of the ESPN cameras, telling her how stupid she was and unable to understand what was happening. She was the only one who did.