I had been deceived - My visit to an OWS protest

I really don't care about this 'OWS' movement. As far as I'm concerned it's not going to change anything. It's a fad. Give it a month and it'll fade out. By the way, god help any of these 'protesters' if they interfere with my day. Or my childs.

Originally posted by ParkerCramer

Can you find no good in these protests, not even one thing??? I bet you could if you tried............So, take that one good thing, add you vast experience to it, and help make a change.

It's a good thing that a copperhead can defend it self. That does NOT mean I'm going to beg one to bite me, or even try to pet it.

Sure, there are a good point or two among some of the protestors, although misguided and misdirected. That does NOT mean I'm going to stand with them, and in fact means I will eventually end up standing AGAINST them, out on the sharp end where it counts, if this madness continues.

Just because they have one good idea or two, and just because the soldiers on the front line have good intentions, does NOT mean I'm going to help the generals in the rear further their collectivist agenda.

These people have the blood of my brothers on their hands, and I'll be damned if I'm going to sit down and break bread with them now, and help them make slave out of the rest of you - and I don't much care how hard the rest of you beg for that slavery.

Originally posted by CB328

they have been legislating morality for decades now so what's changed from all of it? Absolutely Nothing.

You obviously are very ignorant of history. Before we had regulation life was brutal for most people- they worked 15 hours a day 6 days a week for pennies and usually died by the age of 60. Only after we got "big government" did we get a prosperous middle class and the wealthiest country in history with the highest standard of living. That was due to silly morals like safety standards, minimum wage, anti discrimination laws,etc.

Thomas Jefferson died at the age of 83.

Benjamin Franklin died at the age of 85.

George Washington died at the age 68.

Aaron Burr died at the age of 80.

John Adams died at the age of 91.

John Quincy Adams died at the age of 81.

James Madison was 85 at the time of his death.

John Jay was 84.

John Marshall was 80.

Joseph Story was 65.

Thomas Paine; 72.

Paul Revere; 72.

Frederic Douglass; 77.

George Washington Carver; 79.

Harriet Ann Jacobs; 80.

John Brown; 66.

Robert Smalls; 76.

Soujourner Truth; 86.

Daniel Boone; 86.

Oliver Wendell Holmes; 94.

Samuel Adams; 81.

This is not to argue that lifespans have not increased overall throughout the centuries, only to refute your absurd claim that it was a lack of big government that was cutting life short.

Do you not think it possible that the increase in lifespans has more to do with advances in medicine than it does government?

Further, those lifespans have managed to increase in the U.S. in spite of the lack of socialized medicine, or "universal health care" so many lament is missing in that nation.

Originally posted by projectvxn

I've been called a bank shill, inhuman, and an whole host of other things simply for not agreeing to follow OWS to where I believe they are headed. Never mind my track record of promoting and advocating real solutions to these problems.

I understand the need to be part of something. I understand the need to want to defend it from attacks from the outside. I really do. But unlike many people, I don't want to be standing next to someone who wants to foment revolution and to burn the house down for the sake of some fruity revolution that will end with all of us under the thumb of a government that cannot be controlled.

It doesn't matter what people call you. Slapping on a new label in no way changes the actual contents of the package. They don't get to define you.

YOU define you.

You should tell your story again sometime, remind these folks of just how you came to be in the US in the first place. THAT is what they are agitating for, and trying to bring in here.

Then ask them who the REAL shill is.

Lets simplify this.
The left told me my cigarettes where bad for me,so they took them away.
The right said that we need to allow corporations to have more money so they could create jobs.
I got laid off.
I'm done with both,let's just start all over again.

reply to post by Misoir


Good for you - you decided to use your own initiative and cognitive reasoning to explore a concept for yourself. You spoke to a gentleman in a wheelchair and as a reference point - he and his story epitomise the imbalance and impropriety of all governments/bankers/authority figures everywhere.

We cannot always rely on a book or a television broadcast or a study by an official or an important release of information from a business ...get my point? Sometimes we have to see something with our own eyes to believe - we have to speak with a real person to hear a real story based on facts and not media spin. Sometimes we have to lift ourselves out of our own lives and take a walk down an unfamiliar street or take an unscheduled journey.

Whether you are for OWS or against it - as I have stated in previous posts - it is not about winning or losing - it is not about a single message or direction. This is about a reaction and a global awakening. There will not be a single message because this is about individuals - lots and lots of individuals who all have a message
Entertain my creative imagination for a minute if you will. I imagine I am in charge of the entire world for one day - the first thing I would want to do...I would want to listen and take note of EVERY single message from EVERY single person.

Probably need more than a day huh....?

Much Peace...

reply to post by nenothtu


They don't care about that.

This is one of the few societies in the world where ignorant academics can discuss the good virtues of systems that have failed over and over again. They have that luxury here, if they only knew what the reality was they would change their tune, but freedom has an insulating effect on the minds of spoiled children who simply haven't any appreciation for what is around them.

What else can I say? They HAVE THE LUXURY and liberty of discussing how great communism and socialism is without experiencing it for themselves. They are insulated from the realities of their supposed ideals and then look down their noses as those of us who have seen it or experienced it or had family who have.

reply to post by projectvxn


If they get their way, they'll learn. I suppose experience IS the best teacher, but it's a shame they feel the need to drag the rest of us down with them. When I go down, however, I'll be going down swinging, not hugging, and they can take that to the bank - whichever bank they choose. I would suggest they take it to a small local Savings and Loan, rather than one on Wall Street where they are currently aimed by their masters.

ETA: Have they ever tried to tell you that wasn't "real communism"? I have to wonder what is more real - academicians discussing theoretical virtues, or the Policia kicking in the door and hauling away one's brother for simply speaking his mind?

Which would better qualify as "real"?

reply to post by Misoir


Misoir, OMG! I think I have fought with you on these forums over these issues. But, here you are coming to your senses, realizing we are all fighting the same thing and our views are really not that far apart. A lot of the anti-capitalist are just sick and tired of the huge corporations controlling our government, raping our resources, polluting our air, all in the name of profit. I see nothing wrong with having this view. Another group is sick of the government telling them what to do, infiltrating their lives, and making up rules that prevent true freedom. However, what if both sides were right? What if government is over stepping its bounds by catering to large corporations? What if our system is in shambles because the corporations have placed people into government to do their will?

I cannot be mad at anti-capitalists, because our system is not a capitalist system at all. True capitalism would have far less rules and people overall would have more wealth. These people at the OWS movements are simply pissed that they have been lied to, cheated, and hung out to dry. When their job is taken away, when they have spent their last dollar, our government would rather give money to banks and corporations rather then the people. The government would rather give money to the rich, so they can get richer, while the average person is hurting badly. When these people turn to the government they practically have to beg and lie to obtain benefits of any kind, just so they do not end up homeless and useless.

I cannot blame people for wanting to have some type of life, some hope, or some reason to be proud of our nation. Our wealth has not been squandered by government welfare to the people. It has been squandered by increasingly more and more spending, more and more debt, more and more pet projects, and more and more endless pursuit of empire overseas. We would have no problem maintaining our domestic welfare and security programs at home, if we weren't involved empire building around the globe, and increasing the size of the government every chance we get.

Originally posted by projectvxn
reply to post by nenothtu

 

They don't care about that.

This is one of the few societies in the world where ignorant academics can discuss the good virtues of systems that have failed over and over again. They have that luxury here, if they only knew what the reality was they would change their tune, but freedom has an insulating effect on the minds of spoiled children who simply haven't any appreciation for what is around them.

Aaaargh! Academicians!! Even though it is observably so that more than just heat systems tend towards entropy when they are closed systems, the academic will vehemently argue the point. Our current economy is just one example of the law of entropy at work, but Academicians will say; "But JPZ, our economy is an open and free market, not a closed system", then when I continue to debate them, they invariably, without a hint of irony, ask for my credentials.

I went to my local occupy today , The general assembly is quite the thing to witness, and yes there was a drum circle. The GA was opened up with a nice 60 year old woman who's been watching this go downhill for awhile, she gets it. There were quite a few older people there come to think of it, 60 or 70..

While some may not agree, Change needs to come, The way of life right now is unsustainable, we will perish sooner than you think if we keep going down this road. You have to think about everyone, not just ones self.

The military industrial complex needs to be broken down
We need to convert to green energy, perhaps let some of those repressed technologies out to revolutionize our society.
Change is coming wether the select few like it or not.

Originally posted by aching_knuckles

Originally posted by projectvxn
reply to post by SG-17

 

It's collectivism.

It's the right of the individual taking a sidestep to the rights of the collective.

Each and every time that philosophy is put into practice people die.

Yeah, like seat belt laws and no smoking areas! When you remove rights from the individual to give to the majority, a puppy dies!

A puppy doesn't just die - someone snuffs that puppy out with a boot heel.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


So Jean Paul what do we need more tax cuts for the wealthy? No unions? Is it the poor peoples fault?
Accelerate "free trade"? More trickle down economics?

Corporate personhood precedence was set in Santa Clara vs Southern Pacific Railroad and apparently it was decided by a court reporter...not the Supreme Court. And oddly enough that court reporter happened to be a former Railroad executive. Do you understand the irony of that Jean Paul? However I am done with you it's like debating Rush Limbaugh.

The decisions reached by the Supreme Court are promulgated to the legal community by way of books called United States Reports. Preceding every case entry is a headnote, a short summary in which a court reporter summarizes the opinion as well as outlining the main facts and arguments. For example, in United States v. Detroit Timber Lumber Company (1906), headnotes are defined as "not the work of the Court, but are simply the work of the Reporter, giving his understanding of the decision, prepared for the convenience of the profession."[3]

The court reporter, former president of the Newburgh and New York Railway Company, J.C. Bancroft Davis, wrote the following as part of the headnote for the case:

"The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does."[4]

In other words, the headnote indicated that corporations enjoyed the same rights under the Fourteenth Amendment as did natural persons.[5] However, this issue was not decided by the Court.

Before publication in United States Reports, Davis wrote a letter to Chief Justice Morrison Waite, dated May 26, 1886, to make sure his headnote was correct:

Dear Chief Justice, I have a memorandum in the California Cases Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific &c As follows. In opening the Court stated that it did not wish to hear argument on the question whether the Fourteenth Amendment applies to such corporations as are parties in these suits. All the Judges were of the opinion that it does.[6]

Waite replied:

I think your mem. in the California Railroad Tax cases expresses with sufficient accuracy what was said before the argument began. I leave it with you to determine whether anything need be said about it in the report inasmuch as we avoided meeting the constitutional question in the decision.[6]

C. Peter Magrath, who discovered the exchange while researching Morrison R. Waite: The Triumph of Character, writes "In other words, to the Reporter fell the decision which enshrined the declaration in the United States Reports...had Davis left it out, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pac[ific] R[ailroad] Co. would have been lost to history among thousands of uninteresting tax cases."[7]

Author Jack Beatty wrote about the lingering questions as to how the reporter's note reflected a quotation that was absent from the opinion itself.

Why did the chief justice issue his dictum? Why did he leave it up to Davis to include it in the headnotes? After Waite told him that the Court 'avoided' the issue of corporate personhood, why did Davis include it? Why, indeed, did he begin his headnote with it? The opinion made plain that the Court did not decide the corporate personality issue and the subsidiary equal protection issue.[8]

reply to post by Misoir


Reading your post almost brought tears to my eyes. I am so glad you took time out of your day and went to go see what it is really all about. That's admirable to say the least.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being open minded......

Now that's awesome


ETA
If more of us do what you did today, I think "we" can finally see "us" (as in all humans) getting closer to understanding each other....

...Keeping my fingers crossed

reply to post by Leo Strauss

So Jean Paul what do we need more tax cuts for the wealthy? No unions? Is it the poor peoples fault?

Blame is irrelevant. Income taxes are odious and should be abolished. Everyone has a right to form organizations, and no one has the right to force their organizational ideology on anyone who doesn't accept it.

Accelerate "free trade"? More trickle down economics?

How about we take the quotation marks off of free trade and actually have free trade?

Corporate personhood precedence was set in Santa Clara vs Southern Pacific Railroad and apparently it was decided by a court reporter...not the Supreme Court.

That is because the precedence was not set in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. It was not held that corporations were a person, it was merely dicta. Court reporters do not decide rulings, thank God, as is evidenced by the heading of that court reporters report. The SCOTUS didn't just accept that court reporters mistake of fact, and misinterpretation of binding case law. This is a legend, nothing more.

I showed you both the U.C.C. and U.S.C. definitions of "person". Why are you ignoring that very real fact and instead perpetuating a historical non truth?

reply to post by nenothtu


They do. And they vehemently defend the system as "never having been truly implemented" when the first communists, the Bolsheviks did. And millions died. Socialist cultures around the EU are failing miserably under the shadow of the mountain of debt they have created as a result, and yet socialism is still a good idea.

I have explained to them that the reason socialism is bad is for the same reason bailing out banksters is bad. They take other people's hard earned money, and fork it over to banks so they can continue to do what they do. And yet socialism is still a good idea. And those that don't agree are just brainwashed.

Corporate bailouts IS socialism. It is the UGLY TRUTH OF IT. Both the left AND the right want to hide this fact from people because calling it what it is would call into question nearly everything that government does with our money. Especially when it comes to entitlements.

reply to post by Misoir


This just means you went to one of the few coherent groups out there then.

I've been to 3 different groups in my state (Kentucky) and all three of them were filled with loud-mouthed uninformed goons (for the most part). There were several arrests for drug-use and public nudity and I heard from more than a handful of people that the top 1% should be forced to hand over their money or be executed.

Wall Street IS NOT where the problem is. If these people want to make a real difference they need to be occupying Pennsylvania Avenue and telling the government to leave them the hell alone.

i'm glad you took the time to go check it out yourself.
i try to go to occupy l.a as much as i can. my mom still vilifies about the protesters there telling me that i just go there to smoke pot and what not. i explain to her how the main stream media vilifies about these people and only show the "bad".
i haven't had a chance to go but i shall go tomorrow!

reply to post by Misoir


Thank you for sharing this!!!

I've been participating with OWS here in Dallas, and I posted this thread about my experience, expressing my frustration with the misrepresentation/mis-info being spread about the movement.

The Judge Speaks the TRUTH- OCCUPY is Anti-Corp/Corruption, NOT anti-Capitalism (I OCCUPY Dallas!)


John Mayer puts it perfectly-


"Waiting On The World To Change"

Me and all my friends
We're all misunderstood
They say we stand for nothing and
There's no way we ever could

Now we see everything that's going wrong
With the world and those who lead it
We just feel like we don't have the means
To rise above and beat it

It's hard to beat the system
When we're standing at a distance
So we keep on waiting on the world to change.

Now if we had the power
To bring our neighbors home from war
They would have never missed a Christmas
No more ribbons on their door

And when you trust your television
What you get is what you got
Cause when they own the information,
They can bend it all they want

It's not that we don't care,
We just know that the fight ain't fair
So we keep on waiting for the world to change.

One day our generation
Is gonna rule the population
But we keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change.




Finally, we've gotten tired of waiting.
The critics, at the very least should respect that people are TRYING to do SOMETHING.
So many are tired of feeling helpless.
At the very least,
THIS IS A START.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
-Lao Tzu

reply to post by Misoir


Nice post. I agree the movement is NONPOLITICAL. I do not agree with anything you said in your first paragraph.