The "Occupy" Movement

[jollyjacktar]

Hear, hear ER.

 

[ModlrMike]

My opinion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unkIVvjZc9Y


WARNING: Not Safe For Work

 

[PMedMoe]

Police clear out N.Y.C. Occupy protesters

Police wearing helmets and carrying shields evicted protesters with the Occupy Wall Street movement early Tuesday from the park in New York City’s financial district where they have camped since September.

Police spokesman Paul Browne said that about 70 protesters were arrested in Zuccotti Park during the nighttime operation for defying orders to leave and several more were arrested nearby, although most left voluntarily.

Authorities declared that the continued occupation of Zuccotti Park — which had become a sea of tents, tarps and protest signs with hundreds of demonstrators sleeping there — posed a health and safety threat.

About a dozen protesters had chained themselves together and another two had chained themselves to trees before being cut loose and removed, Browne added.

The office of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the protesters were ordered to “temporarily leave” the park and remove their tents and tarps. Police said protesters would be allowed to return once the park was cleaned, but would have to abide by rules banning items like tents, tarps and the storage of belongings.

The protesters had set up camp in Zuccotti Park on Sept. 17 to protest a financial system they say mostly benefits corporations and the wealthy. Their movement has inspired similar protests against economic inequality in other cities, and in some cases have led to violent clashes with police.

Police barricaded streets around the park, which had been lit up with spotlights, and were keeping people about a block away. The operation began at around 1 a.m. and the last protesters had been evicted by about 4:15 a.m.. Authorities continued to sweep up and remove mounds of debris.

Police used a loudspeaker to tell protesters they would be arrested if they did not leave. “They gave us about 20 minutes to get our things together,” protester Sam Wood said as the eviction was taking place. “It’s a painful process to watch, they are sweeping through the park.”

Browne said the city and the owners of the park, commercial real estate corporation Brookfield Office Properties, issued fliers to the protesters saying the park would be cleared for cleaning shortly after 1 a.m.

More at link

Really, Sam Wood?  Painful?  I'm sure there are things far more painful to watch.  :

 

[PMedMoe]

Cancel my last.

Court order to let N.Y. protesters bring tents back

The Occupy Wall Street protesters who were kicked out of a New York park overnight will likely be able to return with their tents, after a court order was obtained by the National Lawyers Guild.

Hundreds of police officers showed up at New York's Zuccotti Park at about 1 a.m. Tuesday, when they informed the Occupy protesters that they had to leave so that sanitation workers could clean the park grounds.

The notices given to protesters on Tuesday said the Zuccotti Park encampment "poses an increasing health and fire safety hazard to those camped in the park, the city's first responders and the surrounding community."

The protesters were told that they would be able to return within hours, but would not be permitted to bring sleeping bags, tents or tarps with them when they did.

But the National Lawyers Guild said Tuesday that it had obtained a court order allowing the Occupy Wall Street protesters to return with their tents.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg held a press conference Tuesday morning, telling reporters that it was necessary to clear the protesters from the park because their encampment was prohibiting others from accessing and enjoying a public space.

Bloomberg said the people who have spent the past two months in the park have a right to air their views in public. But they don't have the right to keep others from doing the same.

"No right is absolute and with every right comes responsibility," Bloomberg said Tuesday morning.

"The First Amendment gives every New Yorker the right to speak out. But it does not give anyone the right to sleep in a park, or otherwise take it over, to the exclusion of others. Nor does it permit anyone in our society to live outside the law."

Bloomberg said there were also health and safety concerns at the protest site, which prompted the need for a clean-up.

The mayor did not have knowledge of the contents of the court order when he spoke to the media Tuesday morning, but he said the city plans to go to court immediately.

More at link

 

[a_majoor]

Well said:

http://freedomnation.blogspot.com/2011/11/occupy-toronto-has-no-right-to-st-james.html

Occupy Toronto has no right to St. James Park

On Tuesday the City of Toronto issued eviction notices to the Occupiers at St. James Park, I am sure in response to my post on Monday. A group of the Occupiers went to a judge for an injunction claiming that the eviction would violate their charter rights. The judge put a stay on the enforcement of the eviction notices until he had heard the arguments on Friday. This puzzles me.

I am not a lawyer. I have zero legal training, but I believe that I have a reasonable grasp on the constitution for a layman. I would have thought that this would be a pretty open and shut case. Isn’t it pretty well established that in Canada if you want to protest on public ground you need a permit? I hadn’t thought that this was a controversial limit on free speech.

As I say I am not an expert on constitutional law, but that doesn’t really matter because regardless of what the judge decides this is a reasonable limit on free speech and the Occupiers should be removed.

Lorne Gunter put it pretty well in his column published earlier today:

    You don't have an unreserved right to live in a public space, no matter how fervent your opinions are nor how noble you believe your cause is. Your actions diminish the ability of other citizens to enjoy that public space, too. By demanding that you be permitted to camp out in a city park until income parity is reached or caps to CEO pay are legislated or the dictatorship of the proletariat is achieved, you are, effectively, insisting your rights trump those of other members of the public who may wish to use the common space differently. What gives you that right?


It is a key point that the Occupiers are restricting the ability of others to use the public space. This restriction is a cost that the rest of the public who may wish to use the park must pay. At the same time the Occupiers are completely ignoring the usual method of assigning usage of this public good. Essentially the Occupiers, by claiming exclusive use of the park, are demanding a public subsidy for their free speech.

Here we come to one of the misunderstood aspects of the right to speech and peaceful assembly. For it to be truly peaceful you cannot force others to pay for it. Magazine owners do not have a responsibility to publish everything that is submitted to them. I am not obligated to listen to every speaker with equal attention. And no one has an exclusive claim on a public good for the purposes of voicing an opinion.

The people presently squatting at St. James Park have the right to say and believe what they like, but that right does not allow them to continue to squat on public land.

 

[Hammer Sandwich]

Let us Pray:

 

[Jungle]

Let us Pray:

And the Police special prayer: Let Us Spray:

 

[Retired AF Guy]

Let us Pray:

That's a keeper.  :nod:

 

[PMedMoe]

Winter's here.  :nod:

Occupy Regina camp torn down by police

All that remained of the Occupy Regina camp Wednesday was an iPod laying in the snow and circles of green grass showing where the tents once sat in snow-covered Victoria Park.

Members of the Regina Police Service and City of Regina bylaw enforcement took down the remaining nine tents in the park at 5 a.m. Wednesday. The tents were taken down under the authority of the Regina Parks and Open Spaces bylaw that does not permit an established camp in any city park. No resistance was met because the camp was already abandoned.

Glen Davies, the city manager, said that by 5:40 a.m., everything was cleaned up and he was not surprised to find the tents empty.

“(It was) an indication, I think, that people have been co-operating in terms of slowly removing themselves from the site,” said Davies.

Protesters were given eviction notices on Thursday and told they had until Saturday to exit the park. Several Occupiers left over the course of the weekend, leaving only a handful at the camp by Monday. Police handed out seven tickets after 11 p.m. Monday for violating a city bylaw that forbids anyone from remaining in a city park between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Police discovered two people in the park at 11:30 p.m. Tuesday and both were issued tickets.

More at link


Comment from the story on CBC:

The fact that there was an overnight low of -14, with a windchill of -23, is presumably just a coincidence.

I saw a news clip last night and one of the protesters stated, "We'll be back in the spring, stronger than ever."  Translation:  "It's too cold to protest."  :

 

[jasonf6]

@Recce Guy

Great picture.  I think that says it all.

 

[a_majoor]

#occupyfail

Here is a perfect example of the "1%" receiving fantastic bonus money at the expense of everyone else. Occupy response? Crickets....

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/11/16/video-the-stunning-silence-from-the-white-house/

The stunning silence from the White House on GSE bonuses
posted at 12:10 pm on November 16, 2011 by Ed Morrissey

Barack Obama has exhorted supporters to object to large bonus payouts at financial institutions that took TARP bailout money. The House Oversight Committee and its chair, Rep. Darrell Issa, want to know why Obama hasn’t objected to the ridiculous levels of compensation at the two largest bailout recipients — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In a new report (embedded below) titled “Government-Sponsored Moguls: Executive Compensation at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” Issa and the Oversight Committee detail executive compensation at the two GSEs, who — unlike their private-sector counterparts who have either fully repaid or are in the process of repaying their bailout funds — still demand more bailout money from Congress. They also have a new ad pointing out the hypocrisy of Obama’s class-warfare rhetoric:

Oversight’s executive summary makes the point quickly and substantively:

    When the bubble burst in 2007, Fannie and Freddie began to lose billions of dollars of investments in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) guarantees. In September 2008, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) took Fannie and Freddie into conservatorship as a result of mounting losses stemming from the financial crisis.The Enterprises became de facto government entities, funded by preferred stock purchase agreements from the Department of the Treasury (Treasury). Today, the Enterprises remain a multi-billion-dollar drag on the federal government’s finances. Since they entered conservatorship, Treasury has provided $169 billion to Fannie and Freddie – and the payouts are scheduled to continue with no end in sight. According to recent FHFA projections, by the end of 2014, Treasury assistance to the Enterprises will total $220 billion to $311 billion.

    Since the Enterprises have become government-funded entities, lavish payment packages have been doled out to their senior executives, and taxpayers have been footing the bill. In 2009and 2010, the Enterprises’ top six officers were given a total of more than $35 million in compensation. Of that amount, a total of $17 million in compensation was given to the CEOs of the Enterprises. Additional bonus installments for 2010 may still be forthcoming, and the two CEOs stand to make a total of $12 million in 2011. In addition, an executive has been awarded a substantial signing bonus – $1.7 million – upon joining the Fannie Mae. As these figures indicate, senior executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have become the highest compensated workers on the federal payroll – making as much as eight times more than the President of the United States. The executives even make more than their conservator, FHFA Acting Director Edward J. DeMarco.

    Such lucrative compensation packages may be appropriate for profitable companies in the private sector, but substantial questions exist whether they are appropriate for entities in taxpayer-funded conservatorship, especially those that are bleeding billions of dollars each quarter. In this context, it is important to remember that taxpayers – not corporate shareholders – are footing the bill for these lavish bonuses.

Exactly. Shareholders can vote with their feet and their wallets in support or opposition of private-sector executive compensation packages. Taxpayers are given no choice with Fannie and Freddie. Now, which of the two should government officials be discussing — private-sector compensation, or GSE compensation funded by American taxpayers? And why does Obama rail about the former while completely ignoring the latter? It’s because he wants to keep Fannie and Freddie in place so that activist government officials can exploit both once again for their social-engineering purposes.

Oversight is holding hearings on these issues as this post goes live. We’ll keep an eye on the proceedings, and see whether Democrats outraged over bonuses in banks have any concern about taxpayer dollars going to Fannie and Freddie bonuses.

Fannie and Freddie Executive Compensation Staff Report from the House Oversight Committee

Since the Democrats openly support the #occupy movement and provide the class warfare rhetoric that drives it, the silence from the Administration and the Legacy Media on the subject is also telling.

 

[The Bread Guy]

I wonder if the protesters are taking measures to protect the privacy of those caught in these videos?  Interesting Danger Room blog post on the implications of this:

The proliferation of drones throughout the military — and into civilian law enforcement — can make it feel like we’re living in an airborne panopticon. But flying robots are agnostic about who they train their gaze upon, and can spy on cops as easily as they can spy on civilians, shared with the usual caveats.

In the video above, protesters in Warsaw got a drone’s eye view of a phalanx of police in riot gear during a heated Saturday demonstration. The drone — spotted by Wired editor-in-chief and drone-builder Chris Anderson — was a tiny Polish RoboKopter equipped with a videocamera.

As Chris observes, no more do citizens need to wait for news choppers to get aerial footage of a major event. With drones, they can shoot their own overhead video. But the implications run deeper than that.

The Occupy events around the country gained initial notoriety by filming and uploading incidents of apparent police brutality. Anyone with a cellphone camera and a YouTube account could become a videographer, focusing attention on behavior that cops or banks might not want broadcasted or that the media might not transmit. When the New York Police Department cleared out Zuccotti Park on Tuesday, out came the cellphones to document it.

Getting an aerial view is the next step in compelling DIY citizen video.

As Chris’ DIY Drones blog documents, it’s as simple as hooking a remote-controlled model aircraft to a camera, or tricking it out to your own specifications. Some Occupy chapters already provide mobile livecasts using Wi-Fi hot spots — more on that in a forthcoming piece for our sister blog, Threat Level — and placing cameras and laptops in baby strollers. It’s not crazy to think that an enterprising Occupier might go vertical.

Imagine what that would have shown in a hairy situation like the Occupy Oakland tear gas incident. An aerial view gives an entirely different perspective what constitutes a legitimate — and illegitimate — threat.

It would also complicate an emerging trend: police use of aerial drones. Which happens to be the subject of my piece in the December issue of Playboy.

It’s not yet online, but the article examines a police department in Miami-Dade that recently got the first-ever thumbs up from the Federal Aviation Administration to send drones into the skies for law enforcement in an American city. A sampling:

    The [Miami-Dade Police Department] swears that those it’s paid to protect and serve don’t need to worry about being spied upon nonstop. First of all, the T-Hawk can’t fly for longer than 46 minutes. For another, it’s as loud as a lawnmower …

    But perhaps the biggest reason Miami-Dade cops are pledging restraint is because they fear the FAA will repeal their T-Hawk’s Certification of Authorization — or jeopardize another police department’s chance at receiving a certificate — if they use it frivolously or mistakenly crash it into a local news helicopter. “One person can really make a negative impact and set the program back several years,” says Andrew Cohen, the MDPD sergeant who runs the aviation unit at the Kendall-Tamiami airport.

That’s because the use of urban airspace is even more heavily restricted than the use of public parks. The Miami cops have had a tough time getting their clearance; think about how hard it’ll be for protesters. Still, the air is slowly opening up. And the cops don’t have to be the only ones with eyes in the sky.

 

[OldSolduer]

Winter's here.  :nod:

Occupy Regina camp torn down by police

All that remained of the Occupy Regina camp Wednesday was an iPod laying in the snow and circles of green grass showing where the tents once sat in snow-covered Victoria Park.

Members of the Regina Police Service and City of Regina bylaw enforcement took down the remaining nine tents in the park at 5 a.m. Wednesday. The tents were taken down under the authority of the Regina Parks and Open Spaces bylaw that does not permit an established camp in any city park. No resistance was met because the camp was already abandoned.

Glen Davies, the city manager, said that by 5:40 a.m., everything was cleaned up and he was not surprised to find the tents empty.

“(It was) an indication, I think, that people have been co-operating in terms of slowly removing themselves from the site,” said Davies.

Protesters were given eviction notices on Thursday and told they had until Saturday to exit the park. Several Occupiers left over the course of the weekend, leaving only a handful at the camp by Monday. Police handed out seven tickets after 11 p.m. Monday for violating a city bylaw that forbids anyone from remaining in a city park between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Police discovered two people in the park at 11:30 p.m. Tuesday and both were issued tickets.

More at link


Comment from the story on CBC:

I saw a news clip last night and one of the protesters stated, "We'll be back in the spring, stronger than ever."  Translation:  "It's too cold to protest."  :

Like I said  - the weather will do the work.

Fair weather protestors = WIMPs

 

[aesop081]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/11/16/f-rfa-macdonald-occupy-wall-street.html

ANALYSIS: How the Occupy Wall Streeters threw it all away

Only a first-year journalism student or my most thick-headed colleagues would deny that we reporters are a largely bourgeois bunch who have trouble dealing with the unconventional.

Collectively, we appreciate the order of things, which after all has been pretty good to us. We respect institutions and we like a nice, simple narrative, a natural beginning and a natural end to the stories we cover.

This attitude probably explains the subtext of relief in the coverage of those municipalities across America that are sending in their police to eject the anarchistic, smelly, sometimes weird Occupy Wall Street encampments that took over public spaces here this autumn.

For much of the media, the OWS movement was becoming a repetitive bore, a story that just went on and on and on without ever seeming to get to the point.

At first, no question, this movement did touch the national consciousness, a rare enough feat, given the self-absorbed, capricious nature of the American public mind.

Polling now suggests that support is souring, which is probably why local politicians are sending in the cops all of a sudden.

But for a while there, interest in the Occupiers was soaring, and most of the people who noticed them sympathized with their message, such as it was.

Droning on
That public interest meant the Occupiers were newsmakers, even if they were, and are, confusing people to deal with.

Occupy what exactly? A confusing message and now the police have moved in on New York's Zuccotti Park and elsewhere. In the months since the camps went up, the protesters have been unable to articulate a central demand, and their discussion groups and general assemblies drone on pointlessly. (I know; I spent an hour and a half recently filming one, and even the participants agreed they'd accomplished nothing.)

In individual discussions, Occupiers patiently explain their aversion to any sort of leadership, and their dedication to rejecting the entire corporate/governmental system — everything, in their view, is broken, therefore any solution that works within the system is doomed.

To me, anyway, a declaration that the U.S. government must be dismantled, or that all corporations must be "taken down" pretty much steers the conversation into neverland. Allrighty, then. Thanks.

The unbailed
In fact, it is one of the most remarkable aspects of this protest that those involved couldn't, or wouldn't, harness the power inherent in the name of their movement: Occupy Wall Street. And in their main slogan: We are the 99 per cent.

The words suggest a burning, pent-up anger at the small minority who have amassed insane levels of wealth in this country, in particular those who have done it not through hard work, innovation and ingenuity, but through a parasitic manipulation of markets, and cozy, subsidized cronyism with government.

Wall Street is just the best example. In the years leading up to the crash in 2008, its biggest players created what amounted to a giant, multi-leveled con, packaging and selling garbage, while secretly placing bets against the very products they were peddling.

When it all collapsed, these so-called Masters of the Universe turned to the politicians they'd helped install in Washington, to be rescued with a few trillion in taxpayer dollars.

The business model here, despite all the nonsense about market forces, was nakedly obvious: privatize profits, socialize loss.

Meanwhile, as just about everyone here knows by now, ordinary Americans were left unbailed to cope with the consequences of this rampant greed: recession, joblessness, personal debt, shrinking home values and foreclosures.

No wonder the public gravitated toward any protest movement with Wall Street in its name.

Big-government liberals
But if the advent of this movement created a particular moment, it is now disappearing. The Occupiers and their admirers deny it — they talk about living on in the public consciousness and changing the national discussion.

But the fact is, they've managed to waste a spectacular amount of political capital. As Pew Research pollster Andy Kohut has put it, if they aren't pursuing specific goals within the political system, they're "just another bunch of protesters outside the White House."

Will the Occupiers return? Or have they shot their bolt? Part of this had to do with an internal tension to their rhetoric.

The Occupiers declared government broken and corrupt, but the long list of issues they want addressed — homelessness, discrimination against minorities, treatment of veterans, war, child poverty, reduction of economic inequality, social justice in general — all require even more government.

The Occupiers might talk like anarchists, but scratch them and you find big-government liberals.

They also seem to lump all corporations together, despite the original focus on Wall Street, and that just doesn't fly with many Americans.

Few people here, for example, see Apple as a parasitic entity on the level of the banks that created the subprime debacle.

As one observer put it the other day, an Occupy Silicon Valley movement would seem absurd.

The fact is, not all wealth in America is accumulated through corruption or the cynical manipulation of markets and government. Most Americans not only admire honestly acquired wealth, they aspire to it.

The Occupiers also managed to cross even American boundaries of free speech, which are probably the most liberal in the world.

Loosely, the courts here have defined speech limits as the right to swing your fist, as long as you stop at the tip of the other fellow's nose.

Setting up tent cities in public parks, denying that space to fellow citizens, leaving trash lying about or relieving yourself in public spaces impinges on the other fellow's nose. All the reports of sexual assaults and drugs didn't help, either.

The Occupiers rose up, muddled about and, in the end, neutered themselves.

If they were a threat to what George Carlin used to call the real owners of this country, they aren't much of a threat anymore. And now winter is coming.

No wonder the Wall Street Journal, the sacred text of all those smug, ridiculously rich, unpunished incarnations of greed, was sneering and rejoicing in an editorial today about the police raids on the tent cities.

The threat is disappearing. The centre holds.

Too bad, in a way.

 

[ballz]

Here's an interesting one from the 1% who agrees with the 99%... shared with the usual caveats...

http://www.cbc.ca/strombo/social-issues/some-of-the-one-percent-attempt-to-occupy-congress.html

Some of the One Percent Attempt to Occupy Congress

November 17, 2011
Members of the Occupy movement are marching to the New York City financial district today to commemorate the two-month anniversary of their protest against Wall Street and the so-called One Percent. But yesterday, a very different group marched on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. - actual representatives of the One Percent. They're called 'Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength', and they're demanding higher taxes on themselves and other, similarly wealthy Americans.

Yesterday, the group sent two dozen people to visit the offices of 13 members of Congress to express their concerns about the country's fiscal health. Seven of those 13 are part of the so-called "supercommittee", a panel formed this summer in an attempt to create dialogue between Democrats and Republicans and reach an agreement on cutting the country's deficit. So far, the committee has made no progress, and they are facing a deadline of next week to agree on a plan of action.

The 'Patriotic Millionaires' group was formed last November. Their first act was to send a letter to President Obama urging him to let the Bush-era tax cuts expire at the end of 2010, which they claim would help pay down the national debt by $700 billion over the next 10 years. That letter was signed by 45 U.S. citizens who had earned one million dollars or more in a single year, including Moby and Jerry Cohen of Ben-and-Jerry's Ice Cream - you can read it here.

The Millionaires' message, as expressed by Robert Johnson, former chief economist of the U.S. Senate banking committee, is that the 99 percent are footing the bill when the one percent makes mistakes: "America is no longer based on markets and capitalism, instead our economy is designed as 'socialism for the rich' - it is designed to ensure that the wealthiest people take all of the gains, while regular Americans cover any losses." In this case, it seems like Occupiers and Millionaires are speaking the same language.

 

[Privateer]

Retired Philadelphia police captain joins Occupy Wall Street in uniform, and is arrested.  Not just for "hippies", apparently...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw5l0F-pe78&feature=share

 

[ArmyRick]

I am going to throw some thoughts in here, and I will p*ss people off, but I really don't care. I have my opions and you have yours.

1. A lot of army guys chime in about "protestors this and hippies that...". Has anybody not noticed in the last few years that there have been alot of economic/wealth based protest? When you step back and look at the big picture, there is a few things that bother me.

2. Some of the people who come out and protest are useless thugs looking to cause damage or young dirt bags that have never worked an honest day in their life, I have no time for them.

3. Some of the people protesting are respectable and hard working or formerly hard working decent citizens as part of occupy movements. That should ring some alarm bells with people.

4. Its too easy for people who have had a decent paying job for the last 3 or 5 or 20 years to pass comments about these protest. Imagine if you had a job and suddenly lost it, No, there are not jobs growing on trees these days. Its very, very hard on people who lose their living. People get desperate.

5. I don't think corporate greed is a myth, I think its a stinking reality. Pharmaceutical based, oil or petrol based, agricultural chemical based, food processing based corporations have lobbied to change laws, rules and regulations to ensure profits stay in their pockets and smaller companies can't even think of competing. They will use horse sh*t arguments like safety or market fairness. I have seen some examples of this and even talked to (In the case of agricultural) people with inside info. Its truly sickening.

6. I learned a ton of info about debt and loans in Canada when some relatives got into trouble. I was not aware of the dirty tactics that some financial companies would use.

I think people in the army need to realize their are TWO sides to this argument. Many Canadians are living a very sh*tty life and have no secure or reliable future except (if lucky) minimum wage jobs.

I don't excuse civil disobedience but I don't think large corporations should be allowed to bend, influence or sick an army of attack lawyers and lobbyist on our law makers for their own profit purse. 

 

[jollyjacktar]

No, I cannot fault you with your points, however, it's mostly optics.  What most of us may see ( and I am guilty of it ) is the dirty smelly hippies, the it's Woodstock still hippies or the young trouble makers.  Maybe they are the most vocal and attention grabbing of the lot.  But when I see them, I tune out.  Period.  They are always bitching about every friggin thing and I am sick to death of hearing/seeing their yelps as they love to demonstrate at the drop of the hat ala "The boy who cried Wolf".

I agree the world is not fair.  The rich keep getting richer and the poor poorer.  This has I suspect always been the trend overall (with maybe the exception for the Black Plague years when things were evened out mostly for the survivors) and I don't see this changing frankly.  I don't like the corporate greed out there either, but they hold the cards and have the standing as the house or city hall.  The house usually wins, and you rarely successfully fight city hall.

Until the "occupy" folks get their collective shit together, have some coherent points to make to the rest of us by respectable looking folks I fear most of us will continue to tune out.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Rick: your points 3, 4, 5 and 6 are well taken and I had some hope that OWS might highlight what I see as a real inequality problem - but OWS failed; it is incoherent. Yes there are decent, hard working people who have been/are being/will be badly served by "Wall Street" (and all those two words imply) but they have failed to enunciate a clear, comprehensible case for (or even against) anything. They let the "campers" take over and those "campers," the "children" are ill informed, to be charitable.

 

[Privateer]

Having actually gone to the Occupy Vancouver site a few times, I can say that a number of the people there are intelligent, with coherent concerns about wealth disparity, corporate influence on government, affordability of life essentials, etc.  Some of them might be every-day radicals, but some are not.  The "are nots" are feeling pushed towards public displays of anger and frustration because they see the system as fixed in favour of the existing power/money holders.  The "camp" also attracts wingnuts (9/11 truthers, etc.), but these seem to be peripheral.  The "campers" are not all "children".  I think that this movement, ill-defined as it may be, has exposed real anger that exists in many lower and middle class Canadians who feel that the system is rolling over them, and that there is no mechanism in the system to let them fix it.