# Suggestions for Specific Demands for Occupy Wall Street **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 3, 2011, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestions-for-specific-demands-for-occupy-wall-street/598427 "2011-10-03T13:13:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestions-for-specific-demands-for-occupy-wall-street/598427/62 "2011-10-07T16:34:21Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > I realize this may be among the more radical suggestions. How about require all lawmakers to follow the Constitution. Which lawmakers are not following the Constitution, and how are they not following it? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestions-for-specific-demands-for-occupy-wall-street/598427/63 "2011-10-07T16:44:14Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Is it the same Power now? The same Power the Wall Street Occupiers are up against? Serious question. > [@elucidator](#): > > You are requesting _'Luc’s Collected Thoughts on the Nature of Good and Evil in the Political Perspective?_ Would that be Volume One, then? > > Different set of circumstances, different aspect of evil, different deadly sin, greed as compared to violence. Fighting pigs rather than hawks. Pigs and hawks are quite different, though they often collaborate on position papers. Well, put another way: In your view, is it the same American **Establishment** now as then (using the word “Establishment” as it was used in the 1960s)? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestions-for-specific-demands-for-occupy-wall-street/598427/64 "2011-10-07T16:50:53Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > I realize this may be among the more radical suggestions. How about require all lawmakers to follow the Constitution. :dubious: It is so radical that we have had a system of judicial review in place for that purpose for more than two centuries. But, I do see [your point.](http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-passionate-defender-of-what-he-imagines-c,2849/) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestions-for-specific-demands-for-occupy-wall-street/598427/65 "2011-10-07T16:59:35Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Well, put another way: In your view, is it the same American **Establishment** now as then (using the word “Establishment” as it was used in the 1960s)? I ask because of [this comment](http://kunstler.com/blog/2011/10/here-come-the-owsers.html) from James Howard Kunstler this week: > [@](#): > > All last week across the media landscape, in pod, blog, flat-screen, and crunkly old newsprint columns, fatuous professional observers complained that the Occupy Wall Street marchers “have no clear agenda” or “can’t articulate their positions.” What impertinent horseshit. I saw a statement on one OWSer’s sign that said it all: > $70,000 College Debt > $12,000 Medical Bills > I’m 22 > Where’s My Bailout? > What part of that is unclear to interlocutors of what we called “the establishment” back in the day? That would be the day of the Vietnam War and the Aquarian Upsurge. One difference being that in 1968 we at least had some solidarity in the older generation coming from figures of gravity like Senators Robert Kennedy (bumped off), Eugene McCarthy, J. William Fullbright, George McGovern, Rev Martin Luther King (bumped off), and even one US Attorney General, Ramsey Clark. Today, the entire “establishment” is a clueless, hopeless blob of self-interested, craven opportunism. Even the arty fringe - the people who pretend to be an avant-garde - are nothing but narcissistic self-branding operations masquerading as culture leaders. > > \ > > It is cosmically ironic, of course, that the same generation of Boomer-hippies that ran in the streets and marched through the maze of service roads around the Pentagon has become a new “establishment” more obtuse, feckless, greedy and mendacious than the one they battled with over 40 years ago. I guess they just don’t see that their time has come to get right with reality - or get shoved aside and trampled. The essence of the OWSer’s argument is pretty simple: they’ve got a raw deal; somebody dealt them a bad hand; someone ran their society into a ditch and not a goddammed one of the older generation will set in motion the machinery to correct the situation, or even acknowledge it. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestions-for-specific-demands-for-occupy-wall-street/598427/66 "2011-10-07T17:05:43Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I ask because of [this comment](http://kunstler.com/blog/2011/10/here-come-the-owsers.html) from James Howard Kunstler this week: He points to _one_ sign to show that the protests are focused? Well, I saw a sign at the Portland protest that read “HUMANITY-NOT COMMUNISM!”. Does this prove that the protesters are united in their fight against the Red Menace? ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestions-for-specific-demands-for-occupy-wall-street/598427/67 "2011-10-07T17:22:37Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Which lawmakers are not following the Constitution, and how are they not following it? "Amendment V No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; Amendment VI In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence." Anwar al-awlaki was killed on the order of the president. No proof of his crimes has been provided nor will it be. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6bgwZGZiIo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6bgwZGZiIo) The Congress has power “To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water” The president took it upon himself to use military force in Libya. I won’t continue to pile on but I will address the most common excuse for the usurpation of power found in the Constitution. “The Congress shall have Power To…provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States” I suppose you’re a big fan of the general welfare clause of the document. I wonder what the Father of the Constitution would have to say on the matter? James Madison, when asked if the “general welfare” clause was a grant of power, replied in 1792, in a letter to Henry Lee, “If not only the means but the objects are unlimited, the parchment [the Constitution] should be thrown into the fire at once.” How about what he said in Federalist 41? “Some, who have not denied the necessity of the power of taxation, have grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language in which it is defined. It has been urged and echoed, that the power “to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,” amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction…. Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it…. But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon?” ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestions-for-specific-demands-for-occupy-wall-street/598427/68 "2011-10-07T17:30:58Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > :dubious: It is so radical that we have had a system of judicial review in place for that purpose for more than two centuries. > > But, I do see [your point.](http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-passionate-defender-of-what-he-imagines-c,2849/) I wonder what THOMAS JEFFERSON thought of judicial review. “The Constitution… meant that its coordinate branches should be checks on each other. But the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.” Jefferson wrote in the Kentucky Resolutions that state nullification was the constitutional way for the power of the federal government to be held in check. Doesn’t the president appoint justices with the approval of the Senate? What interests do these parties have in appointing a justice who will limit their collective power? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestions-for-specific-demands-for-occupy-wall-street/598427/69 "2011-10-07T17:37:54Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > I wonder what THOMAS JEFFERSON thought of judicial review. > > “The Constitution… meant that its coordinate branches should be checks on each other. But the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.” > > Jefferson wrote in the Kentucky Resolutions that state nullification was the constitutional way for the power of the federal government to be held in check. > > Doesn’t the president appoint justices with the approval of the Senate? What interests do these parties have in appointing a justice who will limit their collective power? Are we discussing what is currently Constitutional, or what doesn’t jibe with the personal opinion of a single man who died a couple of hundred years ago? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestions-for-specific-demands-for-occupy-wall-street/598427/70 "2011-10-07T17:39:53Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > I wonder what THOMAS JEFFERSON thought of judicial review. I wonder what relevance that might have. (You do know Jefferson was not even present at the Constitutional Convention, do you not?) > [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Jefferson wrote in the Kentucky Resolutions that state nullification was the constitutional way for the power of the federal government to be held in check. Jefferson was an idiot in that regard. Nullification is a dog that wouldn’t hunt then and has been rotting in the pet cemetery ever since. > [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Doesn’t the president appoint justices with the approval of the Senate? What interests do these parties have in appointing a justice who will limit their collective power? Each might consider that this judge might limit the **other** branch’s power – but, more importantly, that this judge will be on the bench long after this president and perhaps after these senators have left office, i.e., how he’ll affect the **future** divisions of power between the executive and legislative branches, or between the federal government and the states. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestions-for-specific-demands-for-occupy-wall-street/598427/71 "2011-10-07T19:00:28Z")
There is a panoply of complaints being raised in the march on Wall Street ,by the marchers. To assume the march is not valid if it does not contain a single message is wrong. Some march because of the home foreclosures and the robo signing. Some march because of the tax breaks that have made the one percent on top royalty. Others are wanting the president to jail some of the bankers who fleeced the people in so many ways. Some are wanting the rating agencies to get prosecuted for being bought off. There are people on the streets who want the banks busted up into smaller units since too big to fail is dangerous to the economic system. Some believe there should be a moratorium on foreclosures. Some think the student loan situation is absurd. There are lots more including fixing the tax code. The germ that caused it all is atrocious behavior by the banks and their subsidiaries and their ability to buy the government. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestions-for-specific-demands-for-occupy-wall-street/598427/72 "2011-10-07T19:15:42Z")
Greedy pigs are running Wall Street and the American economy, and no one will stop them. That is what they are protesting about, that is WHY they are occupying WALL STREET. Any other understanding is verging on being deliberately obtuse. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestions-for-specific-demands-for-occupy-wall-street/598427/73 "2011-10-07T19:21:41Z")
[http://www.alternet.org/story/152629/10\_things\_to\_know\_about\_wall\_street’s\_rapacious\_attack\_on\_america/](http://www.alternet.org/story/152629/10_things_to_know_about_wall_street%27s_rapacious_attack_on_america/) Here is Alternet’s take on the marches. It is similar to mine. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestions-for-specific-demands-for-occupy-wall-street/598427/74 "2011-10-07T19:40:51Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Greedy pigs are running Wall Street and the American economy, and no one will stop them. That is what they are protesting about, that is WHY they are occupying WALL STREET. Any other understanding is verging on being deliberately obtuse. In that case, a large portion of the protesters are on the verge of being deliberately obtuse, judging by the signs they carry. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestions-for-specific-demands-for-occupy-wall-street/598427/75 "2011-10-07T20:43:35Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I wonder what relevance that might have. (You do know Jefferson was not even present at the Constitutional Convention, do you not?) > > Jefferson was an idiot in that regard. Nullification is a dog that wouldn’t hunt then and has been rotting in the pet cemetery ever since. > > Each might consider that this judge might limit the **other** branch’s power – but, more importantly, that this judge will be on the bench long after this president and perhaps after these senators have left office, i.e., how he’ll affect the **future** divisions of power between the executive and legislative branches, or between the federal government and the states. Ok let me get this straight. Jefferson = idiot on constitutional matters. Brainglutton= authority on state nullification. I feel that Jefferson had a pretty good idea about what the constitutional convention was trying to accomplish. Just because it hasn’t been followed since then doesn’t mean that wasn’t the original intent. So you’re suggesting the federal government is a legitimate limiter on federal powers. That’s one hell of an argument there bud. Good luck with all that. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestions-for-specific-demands-for-occupy-wall-street/598427/76 "2011-10-07T20:51:27Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Are we discussing what is currently Constitutional, or what doesn’t jibe with the personal opinion of a single man who died a couple of hundred years ago? If that single man is considered the Father of the said document yes. I guess by that logic the current pope would be a more legitimate interpreter of the teachings of Jesus than Jesus himself because Jesus “died a couple hundred years ago”. Me: Wait but Jesus said turn the other cheek. You: yeah but he dies years ago. We know better now. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestions-for-specific-demands-for-occupy-wall-street/598427/77 "2011-10-07T21:19:01Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > If that single man is considered the Father of the said document yes. I guess by that logic the current pope would be a more legitimate interpreter of the teachings of Jesus than Jesus himself because Jesus “died a couple hundred years ago”. > > Me: Wait but Jesus said turn the other cheek. > You: yeah but he dies years ago. We know better now. First you spell his name in all caps, then you compare him to Jesus. You _do_ know that others were involved with the writing of the Constitution, don’t you? ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestions-for-specific-demands-for-occupy-wall-street/598427/78 "2011-10-07T22:11:53Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > First you spell his name in all caps, then you compare him to Jesus. You _do_ know that others were involved with the writing of the Constitution, don’t you? Of course. If you were to furnish a quote from these other people regarding the intent of the general welfare clause that runs counter to his argument I would be very interested. Seeing that you insist on citing no counter argument I’ll just have to go by Madison and Jefferson. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestions-for-specific-demands-for-occupy-wall-street/598427/79 "2011-10-07T23:03:24Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Ok let me get this straight. Jefferson = idiot on constitutional matters. Brainglutton= authority on state nullification. You don’t need to be an authority, for Og’s sake, you can find enough relevant information in any HS American History text. But I **am** a lawyer, FWIW. > [@WillFarnaby](#): > > I feel that Jefferson had a pretty good idea about what the constitutional convention was trying to accomplish. Just because it hasn’t been followed since then doesn’t mean that wasn’t the original intent. Jefferson didn’t even **approve** of what the Convention was trying to accomplish (a strong, supreme and permanent federal government) and said so. > [@WillFarnaby](#): > > So you’re suggesting the federal government is a legitimate limiter on federal powers. That’s one hell of an argument there bud. Good luck with all that. What else could it be? (Well, the voters/people, of course.) If states can “nullify” then the federal government is not sovereign at all. The US would be no more than a sort of UN or EU. Jefferson might have liked that and you might, but it is **not** the system the Framers intended and the states ratified. ---
**Author:** ![Cyclone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/db5fbb/32.png) [@Cyclone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyclone)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestions-for-specific-demands-for-occupy-wall-street/598427/80 "2011-10-07T23:41:55Z")
Everything I have read or seen indicates that a small group of individuals - young, educated, in debt from college, and unable to find work got together. The internet has been a factor, (Twitter, Facebook etc.) Last night on CBS news I saw demonstrators using lap tops from the actual OWS park on Wall Street. Now with big labor chiming in, money should be available. I sent a small check myself to James Hoffa at the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. This life time liberal Dem is not real happy with Barry Obama. His face is on the screen every night with talk, talk, talk, talk. He needs to get his ass down on Wall Street and support these people as a citizen, not a president. Frankly, these days I am more interested in what James Hoffa and Ed Schultz have to say than Barry Obama. The amazing thing to me is the action and inaction of Mayor Bloomberg and the NYPD. In the end these police officers are in the 99% like the rest of us. I would hope that might cut some people some breaks. As an aside, TV news said the America’s original Bill of Rights (the first ten Amendments to the U. S. Constitution) was written two blocks from where the demonstrators are… What a pleasant coincidence. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2011, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestions-for-specific-demands-for-occupy-wall-street/598427/81 "2011-10-08T00:24:36Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > In that case, a large portion of the protesters are on the verge of being deliberately obtuse, judging by the signs they carry. Anything special you want to share with the group? Expousing some idea so totally out there that no one on this Board is iikely to disagree with you about it? Keeping in mind, most debate here on Lefty Heaven is Kropotkin arguing with Proudhon, with Emma Goldman chiming in every once in a while as a moderating influence. I, for instance, would have a hard time cozying up to the Peta position, given my enthusiasm for puppy soccer. Were they all crazy? Even that wild man talking about more restrictive regulations? Shit, stricter banking regulation, how anarchistic can you get?! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestions-for-specific-demands-for-occupy-wall-street/598427.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestions-for-specific-demands-for-occupy-wall-street/598427.md?page=5)