I honestly forget; I've only used it to get to you once out of the half-dozen times I've done it. I'll try to do better.
So there's this Occupy Wall Street protest in Manhattan today
- Thread starter Charlie Don't Surf
- Start date
Canadian cops show us how it's done:Occupy Ottawa camp evicted, no one hurt. Well... except that one guy, who had his pre-existing injury start acting up and was immediately taken to a hospital.
So what then, the Occupy people want a direct democracy? You can't just make that happen--it has to be agreed upon by every single person. It's practically impossible when there are billions of people in the world. Someone has to lead at times, and someone is going to be better off or worse off than someone else. This is sounding like total idiocy.
Basically, freedom to protest, freedom of speech, freedom of the press... so long as it doesn't get in our way. Then it's a paddling.
I agree with all three of those agendas, although I don't think most of the occupy people are aware of them. And I can totally see why Congress would feel a personal interest in having a violent counter to a non-violent situation (except Oakland apparently). Which is the kind of bullshit only topped by our second president locking up political dissidents.
Our politicians need to get it through their fucking heads: this is not China-style government and we don't want it to be.
Wait, what?
With the publicity gained by both the Occupy movement and the crackdown, plus the normal partisan politicking in the USA, I can certainly expect heavy shit flying both ways over this. But do you guys really think there's that much more to it?
The various cities are sharing information with each other, and various federal agencies are providing information that cities are using to guide their actions:
http://inthesetimes.com/uprising/entry/12303/mayors_dhs_coordinated_occupy_attacks/
The federal agencies are not providing on-the-ground support, nor directing the operations. The cities don't appear to be coordinating eviction dates/times, but they are all discussing how various raid went, and tactical strategy for future raids (now past in some cases).
I don't see a big problem with this - when cities have any sort of "big" issue they generally do consult with other cities and with federal agencies that might have information or even be able to lend help depending on the situation. They aren't doing anything illegal - but there are a lot of people unfamiliar with this that are taking these discussion to mean collusion.
Further, it appears that they are assuming that federal agencies can only be ordered to help out from the top - in other words people assume that the FBI, DHS, etc would not get involved unless they had orders from the president or congress. So a lot of people are thinking that these raids are not merely cities enforcing the law, but congress trying to protect companies and the upper class by cracking down on the revolutionaries trying to start a civil war.
Or something like that.
It's all very hand-wavy at this point - it seems like people want to or need to believe that they are not fighting individual fights with their city, but a bigger war with the federal government.
Regardless, I'm watching with some interest.
My current stance is:
I don't think OWS has its head together or knows exactly what it wants, so I can't support it. It sounds dumber the more mouths open and the more complaints spew out.
That said, I know I can't support police/security people using violence against a non-violent protest, especially when it spills over into suck a fuck-fest as beating down media and lawful observers. That's bullshit. It comes across as people at the top, be they federal or local, who don't want to deal with the "peasants" crowding around.
I don't think OWS has its head together or knows exactly what it wants, so I can't support it. It sounds dumber the more mouths open and the more complaints spew out.
That said, I know I can't support police/security people using violence against a non-violent protest, especially when it spills over into suck a fuck-fest as beating down media and lawful observers. That's bullshit. It comes across as people at the top, be they federal or local, who don't want to deal with the "peasants" crowding around.
I'm not sure that SVU has ever passed up a chance to work local news/events into an episode somehow. I remember a ways back during the whole "Ground Zero Mosque" nonsense that the episode victim was a police informant who pretended to be part of the protests to get info on a white supremacist movement.
Of course, in the episode, the "Mosque" was actually filmed using a 5-story building in a small Queens neighborhood where it actually did tower over everything else in the area.
Of course, in the episode, the "Mosque" was actually filmed using a 5-story building in a small Queens neighborhood where it actually did tower over everything else in the area.
From the article:
That almost makes it seem pointless that any of it was torn down. Derp.
Is it just me, or has the Occupy movement gone full-retard? I mean, I could get behind their (purported) original message, that corporate greed is bad, and that punishing poor people for being poor while failing to actually fix the economy and the jobless problem while ignoring the mega-bonuses that wall street execs have been given and refusing to prosecute traders who were involved in the shady dealings which helped bring the economy down in the first place is just plain wrong. But their methodology escapes me, and I have to wonder if there really is any method to their madness.
Let's take yesterday's events for example. Shutting down the ports on the West Coast will cost the big corporations almost nothing in the long run, but would create additional hardship for the little guy; everyone from union longshoremen to independent truckers who have to pay for all of their own fuel and maintenance and were prevented from completing their daily runs and, therefore, from earning their often meager pay. Now, news outlets around here are reporting that the Occupy protesters found a wrinkle in the union contract that allowed longshoremen to collect their days' wages without interruption; but in order to do that they had to make the picket line too dangerous to cross, which in Seattle they reportedly did by willfully and purposefully causing violent clashes with the police, in the form of lobbing flares, bags full of bricks, pieces of rebar, and other debris at SPD officers who were, until then, peacefully observing the protest. Of course, once they reportedly came under attack, the SPD moved in with pepper spray, flash bangs, and tear gas, and made several arrests. Once that happened, an independent arbitrator declared that the picket line was too dangerous to cross, thereby guaranteeing that the longshoremen would get paid; but that did nothing for the independent truckers.
When a local reporter attempted to interview one of the protesters, he replied by screaming at her that it didn't matter that the protesters were preventing honest, hard working people (part of the 99% that the movement allegedly represents) from working and collecting their pay, because the protester and his whole family don't have jobs and that means that something is wrong with America and needs to be fixed.
Sure, there is definitely a problem right now, and it definitely needs to be fixed, but preventing your support base from doing their jobs because you don't have one is not going to win you any favors.
This, however, is not my only problem with the movement. I've heard from several sources that the movement has taken a lot of its inspiration from the Arab Spring movement. But in each individual country where Arab Spring protests took place, the protesters there had one clear goal - to oust the current leadership of their country from power and replace it with a new, representative form of government. The only clear goal I've heard of from the Occupy movement is to end corporate greed in order to fix the economy, which to me is like saying "it's cold in my house, I demand that you end winter." While it may be feasible to help someone whose house is too cold better insulate their home, or give them access to better heating sources with lower cost to them, ending winter is obviously impossible (short of waiting for spring and summer to roll around). I accept that that's not really a very good analogy, but where does corporate greed end and "honest" corporate success and good earnings begin? If I have a good company, and pay good wages to my employees, and pay for their benefits, and succeed not because I'm illegally screwing over my competitors, but because my products and services are just plain better, and I'm making huge profits, does that make me an evil, greedy, corporate big-shot?
Then there's the camping issue. I understand that American citizens are supposed to have the right to freedom of assembly and the right to freedom of speech (against the government, which most seem to forget or wilfully leave out), but where in those two rights am I guaranteed the right to camp on public, city, or private property? And what does camping in a public park even have to do with a protest against corporate greed? How does my inability to set up a tent and camp out in downtown Seattle whenever I want and for however long I want make my point that corporate greed is bad? All it actually does is distract from the "real" issue that the movement was trying to protest, and since the "real" issue at hand is such a big problem that it can't be fixed in one fell swoop the way ousting Mubarak "fixed" the Egyptians' issue, really just means that these people would be camped indefinitely. Plus, it just invites police reaction to your movement if you're refusing to leave property that (in most cases) has city ordinances in place to prevent you from camping on it.
And that brings me to the other thing that bothers me about this movement. There is an un-ignorable amount of police brutality and misuse of force/misrepresentation of the law/etc. happening around the country (and around the world) right now. It's a big deal. And yes, some of the objectionable police behavior directly involves members of the Occupy movement; but doesn't something that important deserve its own platform and press coverage, instead of being lumped in with these loons who want to camp in city parks and prevent hard working Americans from doing their jobs because bank presidents get paid too much?
tl/dr: The occupy movement's scope was too big to start with and they keep adding more and more problems to it. Someone should make a documentary called "The Occupy Movement in America: How Not to Protest Effectively."
Let's take yesterday's events for example. Shutting down the ports on the West Coast will cost the big corporations almost nothing in the long run, but would create additional hardship for the little guy; everyone from union longshoremen to independent truckers who have to pay for all of their own fuel and maintenance and were prevented from completing their daily runs and, therefore, from earning their often meager pay. Now, news outlets around here are reporting that the Occupy protesters found a wrinkle in the union contract that allowed longshoremen to collect their days' wages without interruption; but in order to do that they had to make the picket line too dangerous to cross, which in Seattle they reportedly did by willfully and purposefully causing violent clashes with the police, in the form of lobbing flares, bags full of bricks, pieces of rebar, and other debris at SPD officers who were, until then, peacefully observing the protest. Of course, once they reportedly came under attack, the SPD moved in with pepper spray, flash bangs, and tear gas, and made several arrests. Once that happened, an independent arbitrator declared that the picket line was too dangerous to cross, thereby guaranteeing that the longshoremen would get paid; but that did nothing for the independent truckers.
When a local reporter attempted to interview one of the protesters, he replied by screaming at her that it didn't matter that the protesters were preventing honest, hard working people (part of the 99% that the movement allegedly represents) from working and collecting their pay, because the protester and his whole family don't have jobs and that means that something is wrong with America and needs to be fixed.
Sure, there is definitely a problem right now, and it definitely needs to be fixed, but preventing your support base from doing their jobs because you don't have one is not going to win you any favors.
This, however, is not my only problem with the movement. I've heard from several sources that the movement has taken a lot of its inspiration from the Arab Spring movement. But in each individual country where Arab Spring protests took place, the protesters there had one clear goal - to oust the current leadership of their country from power and replace it with a new, representative form of government. The only clear goal I've heard of from the Occupy movement is to end corporate greed in order to fix the economy, which to me is like saying "it's cold in my house, I demand that you end winter." While it may be feasible to help someone whose house is too cold better insulate their home, or give them access to better heating sources with lower cost to them, ending winter is obviously impossible (short of waiting for spring and summer to roll around). I accept that that's not really a very good analogy, but where does corporate greed end and "honest" corporate success and good earnings begin? If I have a good company, and pay good wages to my employees, and pay for their benefits, and succeed not because I'm illegally screwing over my competitors, but because my products and services are just plain better, and I'm making huge profits, does that make me an evil, greedy, corporate big-shot?
Then there's the camping issue. I understand that American citizens are supposed to have the right to freedom of assembly and the right to freedom of speech (against the government, which most seem to forget or wilfully leave out), but where in those two rights am I guaranteed the right to camp on public, city, or private property? And what does camping in a public park even have to do with a protest against corporate greed? How does my inability to set up a tent and camp out in downtown Seattle whenever I want and for however long I want make my point that corporate greed is bad? All it actually does is distract from the "real" issue that the movement was trying to protest, and since the "real" issue at hand is such a big problem that it can't be fixed in one fell swoop the way ousting Mubarak "fixed" the Egyptians' issue, really just means that these people would be camped indefinitely. Plus, it just invites police reaction to your movement if you're refusing to leave property that (in most cases) has city ordinances in place to prevent you from camping on it.
And that brings me to the other thing that bothers me about this movement. There is an un-ignorable amount of police brutality and misuse of force/misrepresentation of the law/etc. happening around the country (and around the world) right now. It's a big deal. And yes, some of the objectionable police behavior directly involves members of the Occupy movement; but doesn't something that important deserve its own platform and press coverage, instead of being lumped in with these loons who want to camp in city parks and prevent hard working Americans from doing their jobs because bank presidents get paid too much?
tl/dr: The occupy movement's scope was too big to start with and they keep adding more and more problems to it. Someone should make a documentary called "The Occupy Movement in America: How Not to Protest Effectively."
The only problem with everything you've said is that this "movement" was stupid from the get-go. They had no true purpose, no direction, and no hope of affecting any real change. This has been a clusterfuck from day one.
Yeah, I ran out of steam. There were a few other points I meant to bring up, like the fact that everytime someone from the business world or a politician tried to come out in support of OWS, they claimed it was just a PR move, or the fact that when someone wanted to actually engage them in a conversation it ended with the engagee throwing their hands up in disgust and wandering off because all they could get out of OWS was "Greed is bad, mmmkay?"
So yes, we are in agreement. OWS, while they may have a point that greed is bad, is a bunch of loons and was a bad idea from the get go.
So yes, we are in agreement. OWS, while they may have a point that greed is bad, is a bunch of loons and was a bad idea from the get go.
GasBandit
Staff member
Except greed is NOT bad. Greed is the single underlying impetus for every single advance in the human race, and the reason anybody has a job at all. You don't start a company as an act of altruism, you start a company to make money. You hire people because they can help you make more money than it costs you to pay them. It's been shown time and time again that any system that relies on the effort of those for whom reward is in no way linked to performance is doomed to failure, if not outright disaster.
Frankly, when they said "greed is bad," all they're really saying is "someone has more money than ME and I don't like that." Which is the greed of the lazy.
You mean, the goal of every company isn't to run out of money and fail? Damn... the whole basis of my economic understanding was wrong. No, but seriously, all negative connotation aside, you are correct. And, not to open a completely separate can of worms, the fact that so many of our school systems for the past decade or so seem to have been doing their damnedest to ensure that no one understands that you have to put forth effort in order to be rewarded, and aren't just entitled to the same rewards as your peers because if you don't get the reward (no matter what the other person got it for) your little feelings will be hurt; has certainly contributed to the entitlement/understanding how companies work failures.
Hmm.. that's one hell of a confusing sentence. Let's try that again. "GB is right. That is what companies are supposed to do. Taking effort and performance standards out of the equation leads to ruin. I blame psychologists for trying to make sure we don't hurt the tender wittew feewings of people who can't be bothered to try hard and get ahead based on their own efforts. Whomever invented the term 'self-esteem' should be shot."
Hmm.. that's one hell of a confusing sentence. Let's try that again. "GB is right. That is what companies are supposed to do. Taking effort and performance standards out of the equation leads to ruin. I blame psychologists for trying to make sure we don't hurt the tender wittew feewings of people who can't be bothered to try hard and get ahead based on their own efforts. Whomever invented the term 'self-esteem' should be shot."
In moderation. Otherwise you encounter the tragedy of the commons and everyone loses.
First bolded section is wrong, for a number of reasons. It ignores the other driving factors of humanity, such as compassion, ingenuity, and many others, and it assumes that those driving factors are truly driven by a desire for wealth. I can't imagine a world where this is considered ok and it concerns me that there are people out there who really believe this is how to better the nation.
The second bolded part is just insulting. It's meant to make people upset and isn't really worth discussing.
Necronic
Staff member
The idea that selfishness is the motive behind every human action isn't really that novel or complex. Even the so-called altruistic acts are done out of a desire to "do good unto mankind". You don't perform altruism because it goes against everything you believe, you do it because it satisfies some personal interest.
But that's a low-level philosophical argument that has no bearing in society.
The tragedy of the commons is probably one of the best arguments against the dangers of greed.
But that point aside I'll posit that greed is perfectly fine as long as it's accompanied by inscrutable honesty. The problem is that most people associate greed with dishonesty. When someone creates wealth through real, honest, work, everyone benefits. Their employees/ers, the people who demand their products, and people who can use their product to produce their own products.
However, when someone makes money, not by creating wealth, but by stealing it (or fabricating it), everyone suffers. This kind of greed is terribly destructive, and is the cause of our current predicament.
And it's whats so frustrating about republicans and libertarians. They believe, as I do, that greed is good. But they do not seem to appreciate the incredibly destructive nature of greed in a dishonest hand, and seem to intentionally ignore the fact that there are always people out there that will be dishonest, and that since we cannot control the heart of a man, we must have regulations to limit the potential for dishonest men to wreak havoc, as they have done time and time again.
"Now, we must all fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. "
FACT
But that's a low-level philosophical argument that has no bearing in society.
The tragedy of the commons is probably one of the best arguments against the dangers of greed.
But that point aside I'll posit that greed is perfectly fine as long as it's accompanied by inscrutable honesty. The problem is that most people associate greed with dishonesty. When someone creates wealth through real, honest, work, everyone benefits. Their employees/ers, the people who demand their products, and people who can use their product to produce their own products.
However, when someone makes money, not by creating wealth, but by stealing it (or fabricating it), everyone suffers. This kind of greed is terribly destructive, and is the cause of our current predicament.
And it's whats so frustrating about republicans and libertarians. They believe, as I do, that greed is good. But they do not seem to appreciate the incredibly destructive nature of greed in a dishonest hand, and seem to intentionally ignore the fact that there are always people out there that will be dishonest, and that since we cannot control the heart of a man, we must have regulations to limit the potential for dishonest men to wreak havoc, as they have done time and time again.
"Now, we must all fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. "
FACT
No, the problem is that most people influenced by greed ARE dishonest. If they weren't, we wouldn't need regulation to begin with.
Necronic
Staff member
This is a completely speculative claim. You have absolutely no idea if that is correct or not. But it doesn't even matter, because it only takes a handful of dishonest people to cause massive amounts of damage.
It's not speculative when their is a cavalcade of historical precedent. Remember, the FDA was started explicitly because the manufacturers of meat and medicine were being dishonest about the contents of their products, which were later found to be full of substances that were dangerous to their consumers. They just didn't care, because you made more money selling sausages full of boot leather and pain pills full of heroine.
Necronic
Staff member
So lets say that there is a small minority of the greedy that are corrupt. This small minority is able to use dishonest techniques to get to the top of the foodchain, and then with their newfound power and influence they are able to have very large reaching effects while still being a minority. That completely explains the situation you described while keeping dishonest-greed in the minority.
I mean, we're arguing a minor point now, but your assertion that the majority of people motivated by greed are corrupt is completely specious. It cannot be proven (or disproven) and it only goes to illuminate your own confirmation biases at play in this argument.
It would be like stating that OWS is more a bunch of over-priveledged over-educated and under-skilled tweeners than an actual representation of the 99%. Except that there is actual evidence of that (although not enough to make a real argument).
I mean, we're arguing a minor point now, but your assertion that the majority of people motivated by greed are corrupt is completely specious. It cannot be proven (or disproven) and it only goes to illuminate your own confirmation biases at play in this argument.
It would be like stating that OWS is more a bunch of over-priveledged over-educated and under-skilled tweeners than an actual representation of the 99%. Except that there is actual evidence of that (although not enough to make a real argument).
While there's no evidence of greed ever making people act dishonest?
Necronic
Staff member
Exactly, no disagreement there, which is why regulations are so completely important. When it only takes a handful of badapples to screw everything up you need much more serious security. This is why Airports have guards and do not rely on passengers "self-regulating" as a security measure.
I think most of today's argument is coming from two slightly different definitions of greed. Some appear to be arguing from a standpoint that every human is greedy - it's part of our genetic/instinctual/evolutionary/etc makeup - while others appear to be arguing from the standpoint that only a subset of the human race truly exhibits "greed."
It's pointless discussing whether greed and dishonesty are kissing cousins or not until you first agree whether greed is a natural instinct we are beholden to, or if it goes beyond the normal human instincts to provide for oneself, one's family, etc and is something worse that only a subset of people fall victim to.
It's pointless discussing whether greed and dishonesty are kissing cousins or not until you first agree whether greed is a natural instinct we are beholden to, or if it goes beyond the normal human instincts to provide for oneself, one's family, etc and is something worse that only a subset of people fall victim to.
TLDR;
Self interest does not equal greed.
Self interest does not equal greed.