I didn't think you would ever get there, but you finally did, so congrats to that.
I'm still waiting
Although there is a lot of could say about the theater of OWS, such as the deaths, the sexual assaults, the anti-semitism, the violence, and the feces... so much feces.. But I don't come here to hippy punch, but to actually talk about the issues, for as long as you can manage to do that (and history makes me think you will veer off of that soon enough).
still waiting..
I think that there are similar roots to both the tea party and OWS: they feel marginalized, don't think they have a seat at the table, disgusted at bail outs, and how the system seems to be gamed by those already in power. When OWS first started, I mean that very first week, it seemed like their issues were crippling student loans and the unemployment that went with it.
I could understand that frustration. You spent a lot of borrowed money for a degree, and then you graduate into the worse recession in decades. However there really wasn't a policy solution to that. Some guy put on the OWS website that they wanted all debts, including all student loan debts, erased, but I don't think the movement has coalesced around that idea, and it's totally impossible anyway.
Of course they got their name from the disgust at Wall Street. They got bailed out, got their bonuses and those guys are doing great. It's the whole rest of the economy that's in the shitter.
Then every old hippie and leftist started showing up to these things and you wouldn't get the same answer twice as to what OWS was all about. Eventually that morphed into income inequality, which the policy solution for that is super high taxes on the wealthy. But again, that doesn't seem to do much for the recently graduated, unemployed young person. They are still out of work. Thats a policy of strictly class envy, it doesn't actually help anything.
So maybe you know better than I, but what does OWS want now in terms of policy? With the tea party, they had about half a dozen bullet points that they stuck with, but I don't have the same list of OWS.
it took you awhile to there didn't you. .. you spent that time pointing out my deficiency in debating an issue without 'veering off'.. the irony..
I couldn't agree more with most of everything you said, once we finally got to the meat of the issue. But, I don't find it to be the problem you do. OWS is a unique phenomena , given that there isn't a singular issue at heart in any of the cities they are occupying. They are a voice, and only a voice, crying out that things are not right.. and things need to change. What isn't right? What needs to change? The list, as you would probably agree is simply to long and convoluted to name.. But that doesn't make the 'wrong' any less wrong.. It is that tho, that bothers your 'orderly' style the most. You like black and white, cut and dried.. a collage seems anarchist to you.. so you cannot see OWS for what it is.. this not an insult, no more than it would be an insult to say you can't see the shapes in those 3d posters that were popular a few years ago.. it's just what it is.. To you, OWS is a jumble.. but that is what makes them beautiful and dangerous..
we are a broken country right now, just look at the super-committee.. or better yet, look at you and I. Sure, I had a hand in 'breaking' us.. but I don't think it was any more or less than your hand in it also. The difference is I accept that and you're still blaming and insulting... OWS is what would be our child if we were to have had one, something is wrong, their wrath is loud,bitchy and a little psycho.. but their feelings of anger and despair are genuine. But most of all, they are not going to go away.. Foxnews like smears, the kinds of things you've said about them, mayors and police pepper-spraying them.. all that is only going to make them grow.. They have already changed the national dialog from "Debt Reduction" to "Jobs and padded capitalism gone wild".. keep ignoring them, keep belittling them, allow your GOP leaders to keep egging them on with "Get a job, loser" remarks and they will only grow into something all politicians will fear.. because there will be a single voice eventually and with that voice will come retribution..
These people are not going away quietly, they've felt for years that things were wrong, that their country was really taken from.. not because a black man was elected like some of the Tea-Party felt, but really taken from them. Illegal wars were waged in their name with their money, their neighbors phones were tapped,their money was stolen from them by greed all while everyone sat on their hands and let it happen... laws have been passed that have take the singular voice from them and giving it to corporation and the highest bidder..bailouts were paid to banks while families were foreclosed on and thrown into the streets..
something is wrong in the country and they are out there letting everyone know that they know it..
Japanese Admiral Yamamoto once said
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant." ...That giant is awakening again with OWS...
