October 10, 2011: We Will Occupy

[F.I.S.T.]

there is no government that can be trusted with that much power

Our gov't is far from trust worthiness now so what's to lose?

 

[F.I.S.T.]

An interesting article in Reuters today.

Who's Behind the Wall Street Protests?

Who's behind the Wall Street protests?

8:21pm EDT
By Mark Egan and Michelle Nichols
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Anti-Wall Street protesters say the rich are getting richer while average Americans suffer, but the group that started it all may have benefited indirectly from the largesse of one of the world's richest men.
There has been much speculation over who is financing the disparate protest, which has spread to cities across America and lasted nearly four weeks. One name that keeps coming up is investor George Soros, who in September debuted in the top 10 list of wealthiest Americans. Conservative critics contend the movement is a Trojan horse for a secret Soros agenda.
Soros and the protesters deny any connection. But Reuters did find indirect financial links between Soros and Adbusters, an anti-capitalist group in Canada which started the protests with an inventive marketing campaign aimed at sparking an Arab Spring type uprising against Wall Street. Moreover, Soros and the protesters share some ideological ground.
"I can understand their sentiment," Soros told reporters last week at the United Nations about the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, which are expected to spur solidarity marches globally on Saturday.
Pressed further for his views on the movement and the protesters, Soros refused to be drawn in. But conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh summed up the speculation when he told his listeners last week, "George Soros money is behind this."
Soros, 81, is No. 7 on the Forbes 400 list with a fortune of $22 billion, which has ballooned in recent years as he deftly responded to financial market turmoil. He has pledged to give away all his wealth, half of it while he earns it and the rest when he dies.
Like the protesters, Soros is no fan of the 2008 bank bailouts and subsequent government purchase of the toxic sub-prime mortgage assets they amassed in the property bubble.
The protesters say the Wall Street bank bailouts in 2008 left banks enjoying huge profits while average Americans suffered under high unemployment and job insecurity with little help from Washington. They contend that the richest 1 percent of Americans have amassed vast fortunes while being taxed at a lower rate than most people.
BANKING LIFE SUPPORT
Soros in 2009 wrote in an editorial that the purchase of toxic bank assets would, "provide artificial life support for the banks at considerable expense to the taxpayer."
He urged the Obama administration to take bolder action, either by recapitalizing or nationalizing the banks and forcing them to lend at attractive rates. His advice went unheeded.
The Hungarian-American was an early supporter of the 2008 election campaign of Barack Obama, who will seek a second term as president in the November, 2012, election. He has long backed liberal causes - the Open Society Institute, the foreign policy think tank Council on Foreign Relations and Human Rights Watch.
According to disclosure documents from 2007-2009, Soros' Open Society gave grants of $3.5 million to the Tides Center, a San Francisco-based group that acts almost like a clearing house for other donors, directing their contributions to liberal non-profit groups. Among others the Tides Center has partnered with are the Ford Foundation and the Gates Foundation.
Disclosure documents also show Tides, which declined comment, gave Adbusters grants of $185,000 from 2001-2010, including nearly $26,000 between 2007-2009.
Aides to Soros say any connection is tenuous and that Soros has never heard of Adbusters. Soros himself declined comment.
The Vancouver-based group, which publishes a magazine and runs such campaigns as "Digital Detox Week" and "Buy Nothing Day," says it wants to "change the way corporations wield power" and its goal is "to topple existing power structures."
SLOW START
Adbusters, whose magazine has a circulation of 120,000 and which is known for its spoofs of popular advertisements, came up with the Occupy Wall Street idea after Arab Spring protests toppled governments in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, said Kalle Lasn, 69, Adbusters co-founder.
"It came out of these brainstorming sessions we have at Adbusters," Lasn told Reuters, adding they began promoting it online on July 13. "We were inspired by what happened in Tunisia and Egypt and we had this feeling that America was ripe for a Tahrir moment."
"We felt there was a real rage building up in America, and we thought that we would like to create a spark which would give expression for this rage."
Lasn said Adbusters is 95 percent funded by subscribers paying for the magazine. "George Soros's ideas are quite good, many of them. I wish he would give Adbusters some money, we sorely need it," he said. "He's never given us a penny."
Other support for Occupy Wall Street has come from online funding website Kickstarter, where more than $75,000 has been pledged, deliveries of food and from cash dropped in a bucket at the park. Liberal film maker Michael Moore has also pledged to donate money.
The protests began in earnest on September 17, triggered by an Adbusters campaign featuring a provocative poster showing a ballerina dancing atop the famous bronze bull in New York's financial district as a crowd of protesters wearing gas masks approach behind her.
Dressed in anarchist black, the battle-ready mob is shrouded in a fog suggestive of tear gas or fires burning. Some are wearing gas masks, others wielding sticks. The poster's message seems to be a heady combination of sexuality, violence, excitement and adventure.
Former carpenter Robert Daros, 23, saw that poster in a cafe in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Having lost his work as a carpenter after Florida's speculative construction boom collapsed in a heap of sub-prime mortgage foreclosures, he quit his job as a bartender and traveled to New York City with just a sleeping bag and the hope of joining the protest movement.
Daros was one of the first people to arrive on Wall Street for the so-called occupation on September 17, when protesters marched and tried to camp on Wall Street only to be driven off by police to Zuccotti Park - two acres of concrete without a blade of grass near the rising One World Trade Center.
"When I was a carpenter, I lost my job because the financier of my project was arrested for corporate fraud," said Daros, who was wearing a red arm band to show he was helping out in the medic section of the Occupy Wall Street camp.
Since its obscure beginnings, the campaign has drawn global media attention in places as far-flung as Iran and China. The Times of London, however, was not alone when it called the protests "Passionate but Pointless."
Adbusters' co-founder Lasn dismisses that, reeling off specific demands: a tax on the richest 1 percent, a tax on currency trades and a tax on all financial transactions.
"Down the road, there will be crystal clear demands coming out of this movement," he said. "But this first phase of the movement is messy and leaderless and demandless."
"I think it was perfect the way it happened." (Additional reporting by Cezary Podkul in New York and Cameron French in Toronto, writing by Mark Egan, editing by Claudia Parsons.)

Very interesting read Halo.As I stated before,the longer they are out the more attention they will get along with support.This is a beginning that needs nurturing into something great.As they are saying as well.Many are starting to believe in their cause and jumping into it.Again,I agree that many of these people are just jumping on this bandwagon just to do it,but many are not.The idea is good and if enough start to give their ideas and protests with logical and just demands,then it could turn into a solution.

 

[Halo]

Funny Reuters has just posted an Opinion piece by a guy who is "impartial" but hates the right, and obviously is pissed about the actual paper printing the article I posted. NO SHIT.....

 

[Halo]

I completely disagree, I think the idea is terrible, rich ass people behind have bad intentions for America and they think they will do it by getting these (in my opinion LAZY people) to stir up shit. I don't buy the organizers I don't buy the participants. I believe in capitalism it's made America the greatest nation the world has ever seen, it will bring us back when we shake off these socialist shackles and people get off their butts and do what it takes to make it. Participants in a great society, not a burden to it and a disgrace at least to me. The idea of protest and change I'm down with. This group doing it and the things they are for I'm not down and again I stand ready for the day I have to defend myself and my family and friends against them when they try and take my stuff.

 

[marx]

Lasn is good people. Last I knew the magazine, though excellent, is just scrimpin' by...

The Charter sounds like bullshit. A protest that protests a systemic bad like Wall St's behavior and influence is a finger pointing at ongoing bullshit. Every fuck in the world says the have to have 'demands', anyone realistic know that is counterproductive, it is in getting people to talk, look into the facts that there is power.

Charter sounds like vegan art student claptrap. And look at the source: wer'e prosperous, well, unless you are a regular working person...

 

[F.I.S.T.]

I don't believe in capitalism at all.Its actually ruined the country as I see it Halo.Sorry but don't see it as making America the strongest.In the beginning yes,but the long term has proven to be a huge failure.

 

[goldy]

This thread is riddled with so much ignorance and socialist bullshit I don't even know where to start. Some of you should just move to a communist country where your ideals are metwith open hands until those hands strangle your neck. Omfg am I still in america???

 

[Kosher Fried]

The people i meet day to day

one escaped Vietnam communism...he was a bank director in Saigon before the war. He built a boat 12ft/7ft/3ft with 4 friends in the jungle, and with $80, his 2 kids, and his wife, travelled for 4 days and 5 nights until he beached Malaysia at night..5 years later he was able to make it here....after nearly 30 years of hard ass work he now has $1.7million in liquid assets and sent his 24y old son to Harvard Law on his own dime (plus a scholarship for $105k)

another escaped singapore...horrible teeth and massive smoker...from the stranglehold of war to America, where he now has 3 thriving business and is buying a $400k house for damn near cash with about $1million liquid leftover post closing

a butcher i met from the former Soviet Union loves his job, and is scared to death of socialist idealism

These people all lived within their means....they came to America to escape the redistribution of their hard earned wealth...they scraped and saved and lived decent lives and have more than enough to show for it, enough to give to their children. and not just a little. Fucking HARVARD LAW paid for baby

the Marxist crap aint gonna work....Americans occupying the street makes them houligans, i don't care if they're violent or not

so let the banks fail and let the jobs dry up...investments dwindle and the dollar sink...

and then Welcome to post Germany WWI my friends....Hyperinflation/stagflation is around the corner.

now for a little picture

 

[Kosher Fried]

For the record...the sign above is exactly what i did..i moved to this city with $1000 i saved from working 3 jobs. i cooked cheap bland ass food on the $19 george forman i found. i never went out and had "dates" come over so i could try to impress them with Manashevitz wine and weird chicken dishes that i made up....couldnt buy beer or anything

i'm still relatively debt free, and make good money. i wish i could save more, because i could save boucoups...but i save about 1/4 of what i make and live the way i want to live now

 

[F.I.S.T.]

The people i meet day to day

one escaped Vietnam communism...he was a bank director in Saigon before the war. He built a boat 12ft/7ft/3ft with 4 friends in the jungle, and with $80, his 2 kids, and his wife, travelled for 4 days and 5 nights until he beached Malaysia at night..5 years later he was able to make it here....after nearly 30 years of hard ass work he now has $1.7million in liquid assets and sent his 24y old son to Harvard Law on his own dime (plus a scholarship for $105k)

another escaped singapore...horrible teeth and massive smoker...from the stranglehold of war to America, where he now has 3 thriving business and is buying a $400k house for damn near cash with about $1million liquid leftover post closing

a butcher i met from the former Soviet Union loves his job, and is scared to death of socialist idealism

These people all lived within their means....they came to America to escape the redistribution of their hard earned wealth...they scraped and saved and lived decent lives and have more than enough to show for it, enough to give to their children. and not just a little. Fucking HARVARD LAW paid for baby

the Marxist crap aint gonna work....Americans occupying the street makes them houligans, i don't care if they're violent or not

so let the banks fail and let the jobs dry up...investments dwindle and the dollar sink...

and then Welcome to post Germany WWI my friends....Hyperinflation/stagflation is around the corner.

now for a little picture

You shouldn't have had to work 3 jobs nor should anyone in America just to get by.Work 3 jobs and still struggle to get by and barely at that but thats ok cause you and me and many others have done it.I survived many bad things in my life but that doesn't mean it's ok for me or anyone else to have to suffer the same way.Crack heads survive,does that mean it's ok?

"SURVIVING" on 3 jobs should not be in the USA.Working 80 hours a week to get by while welfare recipients are given everything for FREE,should not be in the USA!! American's should not be without healthcare because it's too damn expensive while welfare recipients have the best healthcare available!!! Veterans who fought this country and everyone in it should not have to struggle and have the gov't's back turned on them when they come home in the USA!!!

The problem it seems is that too many people accept it and just say oh well.

 

[AllTheWay]

all im going to say is what should and shouldnt be doesnt really matter unfortunately, it is what it is now. but i dont care how many jobs one has to work to make a living atleast they are doing it on their own!

 

[F.I.S.T.]

all im going to say is what should and shouldnt be doesnt really matter unfortunately, it is what it is now. but i dont care how many jobs one has to work to make a living atleast they are doing it on their own!

I agree and they're doing it on their own to support all the ones that are not.Thats where I have a problem.