Is it the job of citizens to do the work of government representatives who are recalcitrant, or is it the job of citizens to point out that the work isn't getting done, and hold the representatives to account?
No, we understand the consequences.
But, more importantly, we understand the vastly more ominous consequences of NOT reforming the system. FDR saved capitalism by reforming American banking and redistributing wealth to the middle class through dozens of federal programs and tax reform. Had he not done that, this would probably be a communist (or possibly a Fascist) country today.
We of the 99% are not out to destroy. We are demanding no less than the salvation of American democracy. Do you not understand the seriousness of this situation? Do you not understand why we are willing to freeze and go hungry and suffer attack from those who are supposed to be protecting us - and yet still come back again and again to make our point?
There are lots of people on this board who think that keeping parks beautiful and citizens orderly is more important than justice, fairness and the salvation of an American way of life.
We think those people are anti-patriotic. No, not un-patriotic. Anti-patriotic.
This is likely the best thing you have ever posted.
You are of course entitled to your belief. SO your stance is that if your group weren't shitting in the park but returned each and every day this would somehow be less of a story?
Have you got some sort of feces fetish? You keep bringing this up, but if it's going on at all, it's rare -- and probably people's dogs, anyway.
Well you are right. No police removal would have been required and the demonstrators would have had no ugly headlines to buoy their cause. They are still one tenth of one percent of the american people no matter how often they claim the 99%.
Right -- keep your head down, don't stir things up, be quiet and submissive, and the cops will leave you alone.
And the surveys I've been seeing show that between half and three quarters of Americans support the movement.
As far as the end of capitalism as we know it? You are dead on in that aspect also... manufacturing will never return to this country in the manner desired to employ the vast unemployed. However this economy will recover as a cog in the global economy. Once jobs return (and they will) this movement will die on the vine. Just as the Tea Party will die on the vine once the republican have power and oust them.
Why should it die on the vine? Most of the people out there marching are employed. I wouldn't be surprised if as jobs return more people show up, because they'll have the means to do so.
You may agree with that or not but in the end there will be no redistribution of wealth. A fair tax code maybe but redistribution of wealth will not occur in this country.
We have redistribution of wealth
NOW. I don't know which thread it was in, but someone gave a link to the evidence that the result of government tax and other activity over the last twenty-five years has been that the income of the wealthy has increased at the expense of the rest faster than it would have without government intervention.
It's weird that in the early days of the minimum wage, the country was prosperous -- and that minimum wage, if it had kept up with inflation, would be about $19.85 cents today. Since then, government has stood on the side of corporations as they've whittled the minimum down and down -- and the money thus 'saved' has gone to the shareholders, which means mostly the wealthy. That's redistribution of wealth, from those who produce it to those who sit on their fat asses and do nothing. Has it ever occurred to you that just maybe if the minimum wage was raised to $20, we might get some of that prosperity back?
I would of course support the prohibition of corporate funding of politicians and the existence of lobbyist in general. There should also be a prohibition against public servants from serving entire lifetimes and getting a pension after one term. Those items MAY see some traction but I doubt it.
Just amend the constitution to make only flesh-and-blood citizens and legal residents people for the purposes of all political rights and participation -- there go donations, independent expenditures, lobbyists, the whole deal.
The only thing OWS fevered will receive is eventually a job and a police record.
If so, I wish you joy of that plutocratic future.
But I admire your dreams. It would be wonderful if to each his own by need was realized but it can not be while human beings make the decisions. We are naturally power hungry and selfish. Two instinctual things that kept the species alive. But two unchangeable characteristics that mean communistic capitalism doesn't and will never work.
I know one change that would go a long way toward making something with that appearance work -- a modified georgist property system. Turn all U.S. citizens into a corporation of the whole, and put ownership of every square foot of U.S. territory in the corporation. Every citizen would get one share, awarded at age 16, nontransferable. Every person with a title to use of a section of land would pay rent on the land, at market rates -- and that would include government. Once a quarter, each citizen would get a dividend check for one share of the land rent/lease. A portion of the revenue could go toward things such as national parks, if the citizens voted to set those aside, and some to things pertinent toward maintenance of the land, e.g. pollution controls and national defense.
