A Conservative Defense of OWS

Kuros

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A Conservative Defense of Occupy Wall Street

I'd long suspected the financial crisis, policy foibles, chronic unemployment, and general corruption of our politics would sooner or later fuel a measure of social unrest in this country as it has elsewhere. We are not immune to a deadening of hope fused with deep-seated suspicion of having been essentially swindled via policy decisions resulting from broken politics that denies a sense of genuine progress and possibility.

. . .


With Occupy Wall Street, those protective of the status quo may be more rattled than they had by the Tea Party, which in its aim to minimize government's role, carried an agenda convenient with Wall Street's current mood. This is because OWS are directing their ire squarely towards the real elites of the country, rather than their bought-and-paid marionettes sitting in Washington. These elites are seen to have benefited from emergency large-scale existential rescues -- all necessary exigencies to avoid a second Great Depression, our titular leaders would have it, and remind us often -- with little accountability, genuine gratitude or fundamental change emitting from the financial sector post the Government's ministrations.

The point is not that TARP has been profitable. The point is that the TARP windfall (given the fungible nature of cash) also served to better allow for convenient de-levering on the government's dime. Without tracking of TARP funds, or clarity about the Federal Reserve's policy decisions and generous emergency lending operations, one cannot help feeling something has become well rotten in Denmark. Given this backdrop, Occupy Wall Street, cleverly, is squarely aiming its attentions at the realer powers behind the supposed throne -- that is, where the money is.

Beyond this, they are likely smarter, and with more idealistic energy, than their Tea Party analogues. Ranging from younger near anarchists to older protesters with almost Eisenhowerian politics (repulsed by income disparities reminiscent of the "robber baron" era) they are a disparate bunch, to be sure. They represent the majority of the population wallowing in dire economic straits amidst a materially shrinking middle class, chronically elevated unemployment, dangerously poor career prospects for youths alongside sky-rocketing college tuition, and seemingly endless sums of wasted monies on fundamentally flawed wars of choice. To top it off, you have the perceived injustices of TARP and such banker-welfare largesse.

Speaking to several of these protesters today, I met MBA students who cannot find jobs (one even told me his GPA at business school, a respectable 3.2) and law students in a similar predicament. As money gets wasted in epic fashion overseas for desperately flawed "provincial reconstruction teams" in Iraq and risible Government-in-a-Box initiatives in Afghanistan, these kids are staring at mountains of debt and an equally daunting lack of viable employment prospects (the MBA student was underemployed working as a barista at Starbucks). So there are intelligent faces and voices in these crowds--not just aimless rabble-rousers out for a rise--and I can sense this movement becoming more contagious. For instance, I detected among several of the more junior police officers perhaps some degree of sympathy for the protesters.

These are our young, screaming out in need, meriting not kettling and reprimands, but job prospects and dignity.



I visited the OWS movement in my own town. I received one leaflet from someone who had come South from across the river. It talked about regulatory capture and how corporations use government regulations to shield themselves from free market competition. At the end it had links to libertarian sites like Reason Magazine.

Anyway, its very easy to sympathize with both the proto-Tea Party and OWS, once you realize the essential overlap.

OWSvsTP.jpg
 
Yeah OWS and the Tea party have alot of the same gripes and blame many of the same people. The only difference is that OWS claim that the elites are responsible (yanno the 1%) where the Tea Party seems to believe that the poor are to blame (or programs for the poor)

Both hate TARP, both are tiers of the same old shit but the tea party thinks that Obama is responsible for TARP
 
Another point is that the repubs like to pretend that because OWS doesn't have one message they "don't know what they want" pretending that if they did have one message everything would be ok. Differing opinions equal stupidity to them but a unified message equals "sheep". So no matter what OWS thinks they hate it.
 
Yeah OWS and the Tea party have alot of the same gripes and blame many of the same people. The only difference is that OWS claim that the elites are responsible (yanno the 1%) where the Tea Party seems to believe that the poor are to blame (or programs for the poor)

Both hate TARP, both are tiers of the same old shit but the tea party thinks that Obama is responsible for TARP

^^^^ That's the problem. Idiots who believe the bullshit instead of using logic to understand what people they disagree with are saying. The TEA Parties do not believe the poor are to blame. They believe (and they are right) that the fucking government is responsible. Hence, they protest the government.

Moron.
 
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Another point is that the repubs like to pretend that because OWS doesn't have one message they "don't know what they want" pretending that if they did have one message everything would be ok. Differing opinions equal stupidity to them but a unified message equals "sheep". So no matter what OWS thinks they hate it.

There is a lot of blind hate and suspicion for OWS on the right; even after the unfair hate and suspicion for Tea Partiers on the left.

Its very disconcerting how partisan we as Americans are.
 
A Conservative Defense of Occupy Wall Street

I'd long suspected the financial crisis, policy foibles, chronic unemployment, and general corruption of our politics would sooner or later fuel a measure of social unrest in this country as it has elsewhere. We are not immune to a deadening of hope fused with deep-seated suspicion of having been essentially swindled via policy decisions resulting from broken politics that denies a sense of genuine progress and possibility.

. . .


With Occupy Wall Street, those protective of the status quo may be more rattled than they had by the Tea Party, which in its aim to minimize government's role, carried an agenda convenient with Wall Street's current mood. This is because OWS are directing their ire squarely towards the real elites of the country, rather than their bought-and-paid marionettes sitting in Washington. These elites are seen to have benefited from emergency large-scale existential rescues -- all necessary exigencies to avoid a second Great Depression, our titular leaders would have it, and remind us often -- with little accountability, genuine gratitude or fundamental change emitting from the financial sector post the Government's ministrations.

The point is not that TARP has been profitable. The point is that the TARP windfall (given the fungible nature of cash) also served to better allow for convenient de-levering on the government's dime. Without tracking of TARP funds, or clarity about the Federal Reserve's policy decisions and generous emergency lending operations, one cannot help feeling something has become well rotten in Denmark. Given this backdrop, Occupy Wall Street, cleverly, is squarely aiming its attentions at the realer powers behind the supposed throne -- that is, where the money is.

Beyond this, they are likely smarter, and with more idealistic energy, than their Tea Party analogues. Ranging from younger near anarchists to older protesters with almost Eisenhowerian politics (repulsed by income disparities reminiscent of the "robber baron" era) they are a disparate bunch, to be sure. They represent the majority of the population wallowing in dire economic straits amidst a materially shrinking middle class, chronically elevated unemployment, dangerously poor career prospects for youths alongside sky-rocketing college tuition, and seemingly endless sums of wasted monies on fundamentally flawed wars of choice. To top it off, you have the perceived injustices of TARP and such banker-welfare largesse.

Speaking to several of these protesters today, I met MBA students who cannot find jobs (one even told me his GPA at business school, a respectable 3.2) and law students in a similar predicament. As money gets wasted in epic fashion overseas for desperately flawed "provincial reconstruction teams" in Iraq and risible Government-in-a-Box initiatives in Afghanistan, these kids are staring at mountains of debt and an equally daunting lack of viable employment prospects (the MBA student was underemployed working as a barista at Starbucks). So there are intelligent faces and voices in these crowds--not just aimless rabble-rousers out for a rise--and I can sense this movement becoming more contagious. For instance, I detected among several of the more junior police officers perhaps some degree of sympathy for the protesters.

These are our young, screaming out in need, meriting not kettling and reprimands, but job prospects and dignity.



I visited the OWS movement in my own town. I received one leaflet from someone who had come South from across the river. It talked about regulatory capture and how corporations use government regulations to shield themselves from free market competition. At the end it had links to libertarian sites like Reason Magazine.

Anyway, its very easy to sympathize with both the proto-Tea Party and OWS, once you realize the essential overlap.

OWSvsTP.jpg

Once you realize the two movements are not anything like one another only then will you realize the true intentions of both. The Tea party wants limited government and lower taxes, OWS wants to collapse the system and run under a dictatorship by communism. Van Jones himself admitted that they will try to mimic the tea party, and by doing so they have adopted some tea party principles just to try to act like they are on the same side, it doesn't take away from the fact that they are still trying to collapse the system, why do you think the Democrats approve of the filth occupying in our cities in protest right now? They want the system to collapse also, especially before November 2012, they got a taste of full power, and will not relinquish it easily. Why did OWs not happen in 2010? I'll tell you why, Obama was not up for re-election and the Democrats did not stand to lose it all in 2010. OWS is not a grass roots movement, they have to pay people to show up, and the unions are there just to stir the pot.
It won't work, we will remain peaceful and vote them out in 2012. The only thing the left can do now is manufacture their own riots to get elections suspended, and dont be surprised when it happens.
 
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Another point is that the repubs like to pretend that because OWS doesn't have one message they "don't know what they want" pretending that if they did have one message everything would be ok. Differing opinions equal stupidity to them but a unified message equals "sheep". So no matter what OWS thinks they hate it.

I get their message.

Give me what you have. They are thieves. They are people who want to steal without having the balls to do it.

:lol:

These are the laziest thieves on the planet. Give me what you have.

Why?

Because I want it. And if I whine loud enough I'll get it.

Oh too funny.:eusa_angel:
 
Anyway, its very easy to sympathize with both the proto-Tea Party and OWS, once you realize the essential overlap.

Indeed, and liberals had no issue with the ‘proto-TPM,’ either, given the overlap; the conflict arose when the TPM abandoned its original non-partisan demands and were absorbed by the GOP shortly after Obama took office, which was inevitable given the fact 70 percent of TPM members were republicans or republican leaning independents.
 
Yeah OWS and the Tea party have alot of the same gripes and blame many of the same people. The only difference is that OWS claim that the elites are responsible (yanno the 1%) where the Tea Party seems to believe that the poor are to blame (or programs for the poor)

Both hate TARP, both are tiers of the same old shit but the tea party thinks that Obama is responsible for TARP

The Tea Party Believes Government is Responsible.
 
A Conservative Defense of Occupy Wall Street

I'd long suspected the financial crisis, policy foibles, chronic unemployment, and general corruption of our politics would sooner or later fuel a measure of social unrest in this country as it has elsewhere. We are not immune to a deadening of hope fused with deep-seated suspicion of having been essentially swindled via policy decisions resulting from broken politics that denies a sense of genuine progress and possibility.

. . .


With Occupy Wall Street, those protective of the status quo may be more rattled than they had by the Tea Party, which in its aim to minimize government's role, carried an agenda convenient with Wall Street's current mood. This is because OWS are directing their ire squarely towards the real elites of the country, rather than their bought-and-paid marionettes sitting in Washington. These elites are seen to have benefited from emergency large-scale existential rescues -- all necessary exigencies to avoid a second Great Depression, our titular leaders would have it, and remind us often -- with little accountability, genuine gratitude or fundamental change emitting from the financial sector post the Government's ministrations.

The point is not that TARP has been profitable. The point is that the TARP windfall (given the fungible nature of cash) also served to better allow for convenient de-levering on the government's dime. Without tracking of TARP funds, or clarity about the Federal Reserve's policy decisions and generous emergency lending operations, one cannot help feeling something has become well rotten in Denmark. Given this backdrop, Occupy Wall Street, cleverly, is squarely aiming its attentions at the realer powers behind the supposed throne -- that is, where the money is.

Beyond this, they are likely smarter, and with more idealistic energy, than their Tea Party analogues. Ranging from younger near anarchists to older protesters with almost Eisenhowerian politics (repulsed by income disparities reminiscent of the "robber baron" era) they are a disparate bunch, to be sure. They represent the majority of the population wallowing in dire economic straits amidst a materially shrinking middle class, chronically elevated unemployment, dangerously poor career prospects for youths alongside sky-rocketing college tuition, and seemingly endless sums of wasted monies on fundamentally flawed wars of choice. To top it off, you have the perceived injustices of TARP and such banker-welfare largesse.

Speaking to several of these protesters today, I met MBA students who cannot find jobs (one even told me his GPA at business school, a respectable 3.2) and law students in a similar predicament. As money gets wasted in epic fashion overseas for desperately flawed "provincial reconstruction teams" in Iraq and risible Government-in-a-Box initiatives in Afghanistan, these kids are staring at mountains of debt and an equally daunting lack of viable employment prospects (the MBA student was underemployed working as a barista at Starbucks). So there are intelligent faces and voices in these crowds--not just aimless rabble-rousers out for a rise--and I can sense this movement becoming more contagious. For instance, I detected among several of the more junior police officers perhaps some degree of sympathy for the protesters.

These are our young, screaming out in need, meriting not kettling and reprimands, but job prospects and dignity.



I visited the OWS movement in my own town. I received one leaflet from someone who had come South from across the river. It talked about regulatory capture and how corporations use government regulations to shield themselves from free market competition. At the end it had links to libertarian sites like Reason Magazine.

Anyway, its very easy to sympathize with both the proto-Tea Party and OWS, once you realize the essential overlap.

OWSvsTP.jpg

Once you realize the two movements are not anything like one another only then will you realize the true intentions of both. The Tea party wants limited government and lower taxes, OWS wants to collapse the system and run under a dictatorship by communism. Van Jones himself admitted that they will try to mimic the tea party, and by doing so they have adopted some tea party principles just to try to act like they are on the same side, it doesn't take away from the fact that they are still trying to collapse the system, why do you think the Democrats approve of the filth occupying in our cities in protest right now? They want the system to collapse also, especially before November 2012, they got a taste of full power, and will not relinquish it easily. Why did OWs not happen in 2010? I'll tell you why, Obama was not up for re-election and the Democrats did not stand to lose it all in 2010. OWS is not a grass roots movement, they have to pay people to show up, and the unions are there just to stir the pot.
It won't work, we will remain peaceful and vote them out in 2012. The only thing the left can do now is manufacture their own riots to get elections suspended, and dont be surprised when it happens.

You have to admit Van Jones is pretty good. Hey, he is from the Karenga team who actually got the original Black Panters killed. And that is crazy.The New Black Panthers are NOTHING like the old.

I don't understand how you can do this to one another.
 
Anyway, its very easy to sympathize with both the proto-Tea Party and OWS, once you realize the essential overlap.

Indeed, and liberals had no issue with the ‘proto-TPM,’ either, given the overlap; the conflict arose when the TPM abandoned its original non-partisan demands and were absorbed by the GOP shortly after Obama took office, which was inevitable given the fact 70 percent of TPM members were republicans or republican leaning independents.

You clearly don't know what you are talking about. The Tea Party didn't even get started until After Obama won the Election. It was a response to Obama Care, and the Stimulus, and Tarp before them.
 
Sorry Kuros>>

There IS a Conservative argument for OWS -- but it's NOT that Atlantic story.. That's for sure. Not with crap like ----

Beyond this, they are likely smarter, and with more idealistic energy, than their Tea Party analogues.
That screed is just sucker bait for leftists who think Atlantic has Conservative contributors.

The REAL argument (and the union between Tea Party and OWS that someone posted graphically in this thread) is that we ALL agree about the existence and increasing stench of GOVT/CORP collusion.

But the disagreement is in whether out-of-bounds inept and powerful GOVT is the primary cause or whether measly amounts of campaign cash forces otherwise pure as snow politicians to extend favors and project power.

I posted a thread examing which is the Cause and which is the Effect --- http://www.usmessageboard.com/4271747-post1.html

It has several reasons why the Conservative/free market/Libertarian side is correct in asserting that "it's the POWER stupid" -- not the lobbyists and the cash. The most cogent point is that "influence" in the form of donations has been studied to death and there is very little actual academic PROOF that campaign cash really brings policy diffs. What the leftists and OWS want folks to believe is that NOBODY in their right minds would support domestic drilling, or less EPA bureaucratic power UNLESS they were bought by campaign cash. Clearly not the case.

The POWER would still be doled to cronies if the cash was banned. And since corporations are being attacked by Congressional meddling -- lobbying is largely a defensive measure.

Best to wait to see what is more to OWS.. Whether they truely WANT to prevent a corporatocracy -- or whether this is all an excuse for a socialist revolution..
 
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I visited the OWS movement in my own town. I received one leaflet from someone who had come South from across the river. It talked about regulatory capture and how corporations use government regulations to shield themselves from free market competition. At the end it had links to libertarian sites like Reason Magazine.

Anyway, its very easy to sympathize with both the proto-Tea Party and OWS, once you realize the essential overlap.

OWSvsTP.jpg

I think what both groups are motivated by is that they see less success and oppurtunity than their parents had in a globalized, corporate world where nations are less important.

Government has become so large because it has taken up the slack for what we can't do for ourselves anymore. This is what the Tea Party resents, and rightfully so.

The OWS resents the fact that big corporations put profits before people, even though the long term effect is damaging.

And of course, you'll have the crackpots who show up to both groups, and they get more attention than the sensible people making valid points.
 
Yeah OWS and the Tea party have alot of the same gripes and blame many of the same people. The only difference is that OWS claim that the elites are responsible (yanno the 1%) where the Tea Party seems to believe that the poor are to blame (or programs for the poor)

Both hate TARP, both are tiers of the same old shit but the tea party thinks that Obama is responsible for TARP




TEA partiers don't like the corrupt elite either. You should be able to figure that out by looking at the establishment Republicans they were able to get removed from office.
 
I visited the OWS movement in my own town. I received one leaflet from someone who had come South from across the river. It talked about regulatory capture and how corporations use government regulations to shield themselves from free market competition. At the end it had links to libertarian sites like Reason Magazine.

Anyway, its very easy to sympathize with both the proto-Tea Party and OWS, once you realize the essential overlap.

OWSvsTP.jpg

I think what both groups are motivated by is that they see less success and oppurtunity than their parents had in a globalized, corporate world where nations are less important.

Government has become so large because it has taken up the slack for what we can't do for ourselves anymore. This is what the Tea Party resents, and rightfully so.

The OWS resents the fact that big corporations put profits before people, even though the long term effect is damaging.

And of course, you'll have the crackpots who show up to both groups, and they get more attention than the sensible people making valid points.

Corporations put CUSTOMERS before profit. They put their REPUTATION before profit. Because profit is impossible if you lose either one of them. I'm kinda tired of the free market being modeled as a free for all for profit. Because there are at least 6 fundamental inherent constrainsts on what corporation can do in order to realize a profit if they want to thrive. They have to make LOTS of stakeholders happy.
 
Anyway, its very easy to sympathize with both the proto-Tea Party and OWS, once you realize the essential overlap.

Indeed, and liberals had no issue with the ‘proto-TPM,’ either, given the overlap; the conflict arose when the TPM abandoned its original non-partisan demands and were absorbed by the GOP shortly after Obama took office, which was inevitable given the fact 70 percent of TPM members were republicans or republican leaning independents.

You clearly don't know what you are talking about. The Tea Party didn't even get started until After Obama won the Election. It was a response to Obama Care, and the Stimulus, and Tarp before them.

TARP was Bush's baby and ObamaCare wasn't for another year.

The Tea Party was a response to a black president.
 
I visited the OWS movement in my own town. I received one leaflet from someone who had come South from across the river. It talked about regulatory capture and how corporations use government regulations to shield themselves from free market competition. At the end it had links to libertarian sites like Reason Magazine.

Anyway, its very easy to sympathize with both the proto-Tea Party and OWS, once you realize the essential overlap.

OWSvsTP.jpg

I think what both groups are motivated by is that they see less success and oppurtunity than their parents had in a globalized, corporate world where nations are less important.

Government has become so large because it has taken up the slack for what we can't do for ourselves anymore. This is what the Tea Party resents, and rightfully so.

The OWS resents the fact that big corporations put profits before people, even though the long term effect is damaging.

And of course, you'll have the crackpots who show up to both groups, and they get more attention than the sensible people making valid points.

Corporations put CUSTOMERS before profit. They put their REPUTATION before profit. Because profit is impossible if you lose either one of them. I'm kinda tired of the free market being modeled as a free for all for profit. Because there are at least 6 fundamental inherent constrainsts on what corporation can do in order to realize a profit if they want to thrive. They have to make LOTS of stakeholders happy.

Except ... Corporations don't put employees before profits. And since employees are also customers, how do you rationalize that?
 
Indeed, and liberals had no issue with the ‘proto-TPM,’ either, given the overlap; the conflict arose when the TPM abandoned its original non-partisan demands and were absorbed by the GOP shortly after Obama took office, which was inevitable given the fact 70 percent of TPM members were republicans or republican leaning independents.

You clearly don't know what you are talking about. The Tea Party didn't even get started until After Obama won the Election. It was a response to Obama Care, and the Stimulus, and Tarp before them.

TARP was Bush's baby and ObamaCare wasn't for another year.

The Tea Party was a response to a black president.

Not very analytical are you? The Tea Party was largely a revolt over the 2 bad choices that the DEM/REP monopoly represents. Largely INTERNAL to the REP party. Had nothing to do with a Black President. In fact, 2 of the first chapters were founded by black men.

And tho TARP was PASSED on Bush's watch, it didn't take shape until Obama took office. It was essentially a blank check to Treasury that HAD TO HAPPEN by THURSDAY --- but it took 3 or 4 months of various bungling to decide how it was to be used. Was never used for the primary purpose that it was passed for --- and that was to buy up toxic assets.
 
Yeah OWS and the Tea party have alot of the same gripes and blame many of the same people. The only difference is that OWS claim that the elites are responsible (yanno the 1%) where the Tea Party seems to believe that the poor are to blame (or programs for the poor)

Both hate TARP, both are tiers of the same old shit but the tea party thinks that Obama is responsible for TARP

^^^^ That's the problem. Idiots who believe the bullshit instead of using logic to understand what people they disagree with are saying. The TEA Parties do not believe the poor are to blame. They believe (and they are right) that the fucking government is responsible. Hence, they protest the government.

Moron.

how fucking stupid. the government is to blame for everything. how about you. how about your consumer behavior. how about the corporations you bow down to, that are in collusion with teh government you hate so much. The tea party scope is far too narrow and incorporates no personal responsibility whatsoever. at least those at OWS are withdrawing their money from these big banks.
 

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