[shooz]

Here's the first official statement from their GAs.

I find it inarguable, but go ahead and try...........

You Tube

You Tube

[Gooshin]

very interesting insight in this article:

Astro-turfing the Occupy Wall Street Movement: Can it Happen? | Feed the Protest

[shooz]

Interesting, but I think they have already moved beyond that point.
Teabaggers didn't get maced, beaten, kettled, etc, etc.
No one confiscated their equipment or told them they couldn't use an umbrella in the rain.
The biggest unanswered question in my mind is, how will they handle a New York snow storm?
Open source leadership is their goal. A lofty one indeed, but so far they are adhering to it.

We are the 99%

[johnmflores]

Here's the first official statement from their GAs.

I find it inarguable, but go ahead and try...........

Keith Olbermann Reads The Statement Released By The Wall Street Protesters - 2011-10-05.flv - YouTube

Declaration of Independence 2.0

[redrockcoulee]

If they work but don't pay federal income taxes then they would be free riders not freeloaders.

You still sound derogatory in your terms. Lets leave workers alone for a moment and look at business; how many of them pay taxes the first few years in business? How many are profitable right from the beginning and have little start up costs to offset their revenue? What about a business even a large one that has a bad year, are they now lazy or freeloading as they did not make a profit. Back to workers, how many are working part time even if they want full time employment.

One of the biggest flaws in the tea party stance is they criticize your president for either not creating jobs or having bills that kill jobs (any bill he supports apparently kills jobs) but on the other hand they more or less claim that anyone who is not working is lazy or a freeloader. So in other words there are jobs enough to go around for all those who want them and only the lazy or the theives taking your tax dollars are out of work. if this is the case then your President is not killing jobs as there are more than enough to go around and those who are out of work are so by choice.

I cannot understand the logic.As to the comments about farmers, some years they pay lots of taxes and some years none. Society is sort of about helping each other out as there will come a time when you also need the help. And Mike there may come a time that you might say decide to go back to school for a first or second degree. Will you be a freeloader or a free rider or simply some one trying to better your lot. But if those years in school you live off your savings instead of working full time you are apparently taking away from society because you are not paying taxes. Good chance though the person doing your job is.

[jolepp]

Occupy everywhere: the ghost of protests past - The Drum Opinion (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

[mikemike]

They had an Occupy NOLA event yesterday at 1:30 in the afternoon. Unfortunately, I have a job so I was unable to attend.

[shooz]

And here I thought you were just hiding from any admission of corporate malfeasance.
They'd love to have you come visit on your lunch break............................................................

[jolepp]

BBC News - Can the 'occupation' spread to middle America?

[Ratmagiclady]

Photography, especially with a Leica, can be an expensive habit for "poor" people.

To be quite honest, it was 'bourgeois' opportunism that sold the brand name 'Leica' in ways that meant even a Canonet with the good fourty was a rich kid's 'poor man's Leica.' See, when people were practically or actually throwing them away, all I would have had to do to make a couple grand on them would have been to...Not trashpick and restore some dozen of those and Yahsicas too, then give them to poor kids looking to learn photography. If only I'd hoarded them all, right? Thanks to Ebay and hype, they cost a few hundred now, even if speculators have been pronouncing 'the doom of film' ....and *my* G-III has damage from some kind of worm living in there on the coatings.


Many will say these are 'Cult favorites' among 'Pseudo-poor people' but the reality was, almost everyone thought 'This is the most popular point and shoot ever, but the automation is lousy compared to a Sure Shot.'



There wasn't *money* there.


Frankly, I wouldn't even have my K20d if a pawnbroker had believed me about how much some Nikkors were worth.


You always hear about 'the big deal' ....That was mine. I have a digital SLR because I had 150 bucks, some of it borrowed in person, when I found that glass.

There wasn't a back in the day where Canonets were a living, though, I promise you. And if some kid has a Leica, well. Probably similar.

And maybe that's your hangup, Mikemike and others, you think someone's somehow getting one over on you somehow... It's not just poor people, it's *poor people with *Leicas.*

[newarts]

Here's one way 47% of US households payed no income tax - http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Nearly-half-of-US-households-apf-1105567323.html?x=0

"families of four making $50,000 ..[sometimes].. eliminate their income tax liability. Here's [one way] they did it, according to Deloitte Tax:

The family was entitled to a standard deduction of $11,400 and four personal exemptions of $3,650 apiece, leaving a taxable income of $24,000. The federal income tax on $24,000 is $2,769.

With two children younger than 17, the family qualified for two $1,000 child tax credits. Its Making Work Pay credit was $800 because the parents were married filing jointly.

The $2,800 in credits exceeds the $2,769 in taxes, so the family makes a $31 profit from the federal income tax.

But these are the same deductions and credits available to all taxpayers (not to mention mortgage interest deductions, donations, etc.) do you want to give them up so people who make less than you must pay net taxes?

This problem could easily be solved by making everyone send in a check for the amount before deductions and credits then the IRS sending a check back in the amount of deductions and credits; would that make everyone feel better?

The point is that those 47% are using the same deductions and credits as everybody else; is that bad somehow?

[jolepp]

NYT / Krugman: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/opinion/krugman-confronting-the-malefactors.html

... it was a play in three acts. In the first act, bankers took advantage of deregulation to run wild (and pay themselves princely sums), inflating huge bubbles through reckless lending. In the second act, the bubbles burst — but bankers were bailed out by taxpayers, with remarkably few strings attached, even as ordinary workers continued to suffer the consequences of the bankers’ sins. And, in the third act, bankers showed their gratitude by turning on the people who had saved them, throwing their support — and the wealth they still possessed thanks to the bailouts — behind politicians who promised to keep their taxes low and dismantle the mild regulations erected in the aftermath of the crisis.
...

[jeffkrol]

How does that song go "we didn't start the fire"......................
Eric.. be afraid, be very afraid........

Majority Leader Eric Cantor today described the Occupy Wall Street protesters as “growing mobs,” in some of the sharpest criticism yet from a one of the highest-ranking Republican leaders in the House.
“I am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and other cities across our country,” the Virginia congressman said in Washington this morning.

The majority leader than chastised Democrats for supporting the protestors. “Believe it or not, some in this town have actually condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans,” Cantor said. “But you sent us here to fight for you and for all Americans. You sent us here to bring about real change in Washington, real change to your federal government. And we’re committed to do that.”

Both President Obama and Vice President Biden expressed solidarity with the groups at separate speeches Thursday.

“What is the core of that protest?” Biden asked at the Washington Ideas Forum. “The core is: The bargain has been breached. The core is the American people do not think the system is fair or on the level. That is the core is what you’re seeing with Wall Street.”

At a White House news conference, President Obama said the Wall Street protest “expresses the frustrations that the American people feel.”

“We had the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, huge collateral damage all throughout the country, all across Main Street,” Obama said. “And yet you’re still seeing some of the same folks who acted irresponsibly trying to fight efforts to crack down on abusive practices that got us into this problem in the first place.”

In the three weeks since the “Occupy” protests began in lower Manhattan, they have spread beyond New York City to cities across the country.

In Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Austin, Texas, and other metro areas, protesters are demanding jobs, the investigation of Wall Street bankers involved in the financial crisis and a roll back of the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court case that allowed corporations to donate unlimited funds to political campaigns.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor Calls Wall St. Protests ‘Growing Mobs’ - ABC News

BTW: this IS our heritage..........

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive.

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?

Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.

Thomas Jefferson Quotes - Page 2 - BrainyQuote

My favorites are bolded..... sorry Gene.

Who was this guy Jefferson.. some sort of alien???? Just kidding.

[jeffkrol]

What Cantor refuses to see is that the people participating in Occupy Wall Street-style protests around the country also represent an awakening in America. Seeing the similarities in the grievances held by the Occupy Wall Streeters and the Tea Party movement, Mark from Ohio explained to me in a letter this week, “Both see corruption in high places — corporations and government — and those two areas are so closely aligned, that I don’t think there is really much of a difference between criticizing the tyranny of corrupt government and the tyranny of corrupt corporations.”

That Cantor would denigrate this new wave of Americans exercising their rights to demonstrate against government and Wall Street is as insulting as it is outrageous.

Eric Cantor’s breathtaking hypocrisy on Occupy Wall Street - PostPartisan - The Washington Post

[jeztastic]

Interesting link to photos from the protest.