posted May 01, 2012 12:41 PM            

I'm located in the complex of buildings of the largest US bank by assets and market capitalization.

All the yelling and chanting outside does nothing... not a single iota. The NYPD looks like they would take no nonsense from any in the crowd, with riot gear. I saw a riot truck with automatic weapons. After a while, even the TV stations left because the demonstrations were totally ineffective.

Office workers went about their daily work and stepped outside in curiousity and amusement.

In the end, Occupy Wall Steet just looked like a bunch of clowns with no real mission and no organization. There was no defined leadership.

I don't get it at all. Want to complain about not having a job, then complaining to banks is useless. Go to Washington. The demonstrations don't even interrupt the flow of business. It's business as usual.

posted May 01, 2012 12:59 PM            

Guess I`m just another conservative sheeple clown...

posted May 01, 2012 02:03 PM            

For instance, CEO pay has increased to 380 times over the average worker's salary in the last 40 years, while the average worker's salary has stagnated (declined if you factor in that average household incomes usually take two workers nowadays whereas that was far less likely 40 years ago).

Also, in order to even get a job these days you need a minimum amount of education or a degree, something which was not a requirement 35, 40 years ago when we still had manufacturing jobs, and this usually means taking on debt - starting out in the workforce with a huge pile of student debt.

Extreme leftists want all government loopholes that allow domestic-owned and based- businesses that have a large portion of their workforce based elsewhere to be closed by taxing the s*** out of these businesses so that there is very little monetary incentive to outsource.

These are self-employed people, people who are unemployed or underemployed, angry former students with piles of student debt that can't find work and were sold the pipe dream formerly known as "the American dream," young people with every right to be angry, etc.

You think Occupy Wall Street is bad? You ain't seen nothin'. In Greece where the unemployment rate is close to 50% there are pretty much daily demonstrations where fire is set to police cars.

posted May 01, 2012 02:12 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by YoursTrulyAlways:
In the end, Occupy Wall Steet just looked like a bunch of clowns with no real mission and no organization. There was no defined leadership.

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In the end according to you they appear that way. For someone who's interested in learning about the movement you seem to have already developed pretty hostile preconceived judgments.

posted May 01, 2012 03:44 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by YoursTrulyAlways:
And that is why it will never succeed... It's doomed for absolute failure right from the start.

Nothing but anarchy.

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posted May 01, 2012 04:24 PM            

Havent read through the whole thread and don't have time to atm (probably wouldnt be worth getting involved in anyway )

Don't listen to what the media feeds you about them is all I have to say. But most will, I'm afraid.

Keep fighting for humanity and a better more equal, sustainable, fair world OWS'ers.

posted May 01, 2012 04:27 PM            

http://occupywallst.org/article/occupy-wall-streets-anarchist-roots/

"I should be clear here what I mean by "anarchist principles". The easiest way to explain anarchism is to say that it is a political movement that aims to bring about a genuinely free society - that is, one where humans only enter those kinds of relations with one another that would not have to be enforced by the constant threat of violence. History has shown that vast inequalities of wealth, institutions like slavery, debt peonage or wage labour, can only exist if backed up by armies, prisons, and police. Anarchists wish to see human relations that would not have to be backed up by armies, prisons and police. Anarchism envisions a society based on equality and solidarity, which could exist solely on the free consent of participants."

"How, then, did OWS embody anarchist principles? It might be helpful to go over this point by point:

1.The refusal to recognise the legitimacy of existing political institutions.

One reason for the much-discussed refusal to issue demands is because issuing demands means recognising the legitimacy - or at least, the power - of those of whom the demands are made. Anarchists often note that this is the difference between protest and direct action: Protest, however militant, is an appeal to the authorities to behave differently; direct action, whether it's a matter of a community building a well or making salt in defiance of the law (Gandhi's example again), trying to shut down a meeting or occupy a factory, is a matter of acting as if the existing structure of power does not even exist. Direct action is, ultimately, the defiant insistence on acting as if one is already free.

2.The refusal to accept the legitimacy of the existing legal order.

The second principle, obviously, follows from the first. From the very beginning, when we first started holding planning meetings in Tompkins Square Park in New York, organisers knowingly ignored local ordinances that insisted that any gathering of more than 12 people in a public park is illegal without police permission - simply on the grounds that such laws should not exist. On the same grounds, of course, we chose to occupy a park, inspired by examples from the Middle East and southern Europe, on the grounds that, as the public, we should not need permission to occupy public space. This might have been a very minor form of civil disobedience but it was crucial that we began with a commitment to answer only to a moral order, not a legal one.

3.The refusal to create an internal hierarchy, but instead to create a form of consensus-based direct democracy.

From the very beginning, too, organisers made the audacious decision to operate not only by direct democracy, without leaders, but by consensus. The first decision ensured that there would be no formal leadership structure that could be co-opted or coerced; the second, that no majority could bend a minority to its will, but that all crucial decisions had to be made by general consent. American anarchists have long considered consensus process (a tradition that has emerged from a confluence of feminism, anarchism and spiritual traditions like the Quakers) crucial for the reason that it is the only form of decision-making that could operate without coercive enforcement - since if a majority does not have the means to compel a minority to obey its dictates, all decisions will, of necessity, have to be made by general consent.

4.The embrace of prefigurative politics.

As a result, Zuccotti Park, and all subsequent encampments, became spaces of experiment with creating the institutions of a new society - not only democratic General Assemblies but kitchens, libraries, clinics, media centres and a host of other institutions, all operating on anarchist principles of mutual aid and self-organisation - a genuine attempt to create the institutions of a new society in the shell of the old.

I absolutely detest your insinuations that I make this stuff up.

We have something called honour, you know?

I am not Jwhop, however honourable he is. I am uninterested in living to his standards or that of yours.

It's blatantly and thoroughly insulting that you claim I'm expressing a personal viewpoint.

I don't owe you an explanation on anything.

posted May 01, 2012 04:34 PM            

Sure there will always be punks out there screwing things up for people. That's life.

I'm not sure they werent "planted" there anyway. To give the good people and movement a bad name.

posted May 01, 2012 04:40 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by YoursTrulyAlways:

[b]I absolutely detest your insinuations that I make this stuff up.

We have something called honour, you know?

I am not Jwhop, however honourable he is. I am uninterested in living to his standards or that of yours.

It's blatantly and thoroughly insulting that you claim I'm expressing a personal viewpoint.

I don't owe you an explanation on anything.

[/B]

---

Good lord, this is really a lot of anger.

I really am unable to predict what will make you get bent out of shape, and each time I see it happen I just don't get it. It comes out of nowhere.

I don't get why you insinuated that you were making stuff up. You proved you weren't, so there really was no need for it to be a bother. You proved her wrong that you have your sources, done deal. Honor is something that is earned over time, not something that is right received at the get go. I'm sure you understand that. Further, you likely are not going be respected from the get go if you have strongly differing opinions, like you do here. In nearly every single political discussion that occurs on a message board, it's often people will be asked to site their sources.

The entire thing you here comes across as incredibly hostile, and is going to cause peoples opinion of you to drop from it, even if you prove your right.

Seriously though, I don't get your temper or values system at all. A lot of the time I feel like we are complete inverts of each other. It's completely alien to me. I mean, I "get it", but I am unable to empathize with it.

Really, I just don't understand tempers or anger at all.

posted May 01, 2012 04:48 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by YoursTrulyAlways:
I absolutely detest your insinuations that I make this stuff up.

We have something called honour, you know?

I am not Jwhop, however honourable he is. I am uninterested in living to his standards or that of yours.

It's blatantly and thoroughly insulting that you claim I'm expressing a personal viewpoint.

I don't owe you an explanation on anything.

---

posted May 01, 2012 04:48 PM            

OWS will be coming back stronger, louder and more powerful than ever. Just you wait.

posted May 01, 2012 05:42 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by tautomer4314:

Really, I just don't understand tempers or anger at all.

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posted May 01, 2012 06:03 PM            

San Fran.
Protesters blocked streets throughout the morning and vandalized two banks in the area. A news van and police vehicle were also vandalized.

On the eve of May Day, hundreds gathered in the Mission District. As the group began to march through the streets, some protesters began breaking car windows, spray-painting anarchist symbols on restaurants and attacking a police station.

NYC:
Letters containing a white powder that turned out to be cornstarch were sent to various New York banks and media outlets, and one was sent to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, reports the Associated Press.

The letters read "Happy May Day..This is a reminder that you are not in control.." said authorities.

Cleveland

Five people, claiming to be anarchists, have been arrested in Cleveland for trying to blow up a four-lane bridge across the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The local Occupy crowd said they were a part of their operation, but have now distanced themselves.

The suspects had bought fake explosives and placed them near the bridge Monday. The suspects were arrested after 9 p.m. Monday, according to WEWS.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/occupy-may-day-mostly-quiet-160849836.html