haha, that's awesome... seems like maybe fox is helping make propaganda movies for Hitler AGAIN



but no, the 2nd largest shareholder in Fox News



would never fund wahabi cleric extremists and profit from turmoil in the US

Edited by tremelo on 10/11/2011 17:30:54 MDT.

Hey all,

Thanks for all of the well-thought-out responses and view points! Yes, a bit of thread-deviation has happened, but definitely toward an ever-important subject. All this said, I still have more questions:

-Is it good/bad that the Democratic party has officially taken a stand next to the OWS (jumping on a potentially voter-filled bandwagon?)?
-Isn't OWS non-government-party-esque in nature? Should it even WANT to be associated with a party?
-Are Republicans against the protests simply because it has the 'full support and sympathies' of the Dems?
-Is that a LEGIT list of demands formulated by the OWS group or simply a list put together by an individual?
-Guaranteed living wage regardless of employment? A full pardon of all world-wide debt? Really?
-Provided that this movement is in-fact a positive step toward a better middle-class voice, why do there have to be d-bags that so-effectively remove credibility from an cause? No social movement is exempt from this.
-Why are people pitting the OWS group AGAINST the Tea Party? Since when are the two groups anti-each-other?

More questions to come, I'm sure, but I am really interested in the opinions of those here. By far, BPL has proven itself one of the more civil discussion forums time and time again, and I respect the opinions of those involved (whether I agree with all of them or not). So keep them coming.

Many thanks,
Clint

It is pointless for the Dems to pretend they are with #OWS.

#OWS is not a Democrat movement. Obama has less than 35% approval from the demonstrators last I checked.

$16,000,000,000,000 handed to the banks is not really a partisan issue.

Edited by redmonk on 10/11/2011 18:00:42 MDT.

How many dollars?

Just remember the famous words of Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois:

"A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you're talking real money".

--B.G.--

GAO Report No. GAO-11-696 PAGE 131

SIXTEEN TRILLION DOLLARS

$50,000 handed to the banks for every child in American.
$50,000 handed to the banks for every woman in America.
$50,000 handed to the banks for every man in America.

Or, if you prefer
$210,000 handed to the banks for every family counted in the census.

I don't think these numbers sit well with either party.

Imagine a rogue ATM spraying ten $100 bills a second onto the ground. For five hundred years.
10bills * $100/second * 500 years * 31556826 seconds per year dollars.
The banks were given more than that.

Imagine every minute from 9-6, the banks randomly chose one million fine citizens and sucked a hundred dollars from their account. Every minute, every day, for a whole year, from 9-6 they pull $100,000,000 out of our accounts. Yeah, it is like that, except they took more.

Edited by redmonk on 10/11/2011 23:50:26 MDT.

I don't think Democratic party has officially endorsed OWS, just statements like that "they have a point"

Many Republicans called them "mobs" so they are definitely against

The OWS haven't made any official demands or anything, just general things like the richest 1% are taking advantage of the other 99%, which is why the Republicans don't like it. The Republicans #1 priority is to preserve tax cuts (predominantly for the richest 1%).

I agree, Tea Party has a lot in common - at least the original Tea Party people, but they have largely been taken over by the right wingers that favor the richest 1%.

Did you know that the Tea Party in the 1700s was a protest against the East India Company because they had special tax breaks and other advantages from the British government? sort of like big U.S. corporations now which the OWS is protesting against so the modern Tea Party should have a lot in common

Nick,
I'm not necessarily saying autoshop needs to be tought in high school. I just think that there should be some votech put back in schools be it autoshop, metalshop or whatever. My school had an hvac class for a while.

I don't think every tech has to be a master tech and every master tech doesn't need to be a supertech. What you describe is a supertech. I've only worked with a few my current boss is one. And yes a few of them are making 100k but it's not what it used to be. I remember when it was common for guys to be making 75-100k heck I knew alignment guys making 70 but now it's rare. I'm sure you know what has led to this.

I am with you on the training. Especially for the next crop of techs. They will need to specialize as well as get good training. I think we will see the end of the general shops that work on everything that comes through the door mainly due to tooling and information.

Also I work on lots of classic cars (got a 28 chevy pickup in the shop now ohv!) and is some ways they are easier to fix. But in others they are much harder. Diagnosis can be a different story...

" I just think that there should be some votech put back in schools be it autoshop, metalshop or whatever."

+1 They could sure get a running start on their chosen field, along with the basic skills Nick mentioned.

"I don't think every tech has to be a master tech and every master tech doesn't need to be a supertech. What you describe is a supertech."

Again, +1 By definition, not every techician is a master tech, or super tech, and yet they still take home a decent salary. For machinists, it used to be apprentice, journeyman, and master. Even an apprentice made a living wage. I know I did when I was an apprentice tool and die maker at GM back in the late 50's. I wonder if the apprentice level knowledge base could be learned in high school these days, so that a student could come out of high school and immediately be employable at an entry level position? Perhaps not in every industry, but in some.

I also wonder if we don't have a lot to learn from Germany. They put kids on a vocational track early on, somewhere around our equivalent 9th grade if they don't test at a university track level, and they have one of the most highly skilled, competitive work forces in the world, even with European level wages. Until recently, they were the number one export country in the world, mostly high tech products.

I think the 'Official Democrats' have now saddled-up alongside the OWS, whether the protesters like it or not:

HERE
HERE
and HERE

It definitely seems like the Dem leaders are hopping on the 'hey look at them! they're the bad guys!' gravy-train! It also seems as though the 'Official Republicans' are against it, but I dare say that there are large groups within both parties that disagree with their party-leaders' decisions/ endorsements.

A nice quote from David Plouffe, Oboma's Senior Campaign Advisor, referring to a second Obama term "... we are going to be more transparent."
-If I had a dime for every time a politician promised that I'd probably be part of the 1% =D!


-Clint

http://occupysesamestreet.org/

This didn't start today, yesterday, last week, or the week before that.

Obama, thru his actions or lack thereof, spoke volumes long before his team made that statement.

This country needs leaders, not cheerleaders.

On the bright side, 1200 new campsites and growing opens up new urban backpacking routes.

Edited by redmonk on 10/11/2011 21:27:26 MDT.

let the neo-libs sink.

straight from the horse's mouth:

"This Site Has Nothing To Do With Us
Posted Oct. 6, 2011, 11:48 a.m. EST by OccupyWallSt

occupyparty.org

We are not a political institution.

no sympathy

I think this commentary says very succinctly what OWS is all about.

Edited by butuki on 10/12/2011 07:04:00 MDT.

Nice rant Miguel, well said

I agree, until we get the money out of politics, it's a waste of time talking about anything else

But any politician that pushes this will lose his financing and lose his office

Need something like OWS

I like how the news talks about if the protests have permission to be wherever they are.

Its a protest people. The point is to stay put to make a point.

If the officials told protesters to leave, and they packed up and left, it wouldn't be much of a protest now would it?

@Tom.
I met with the English teacher. She confirmed what I had been told about the extra credit assignment, but added that prior to the instructions she had talked about consumer confidence and how vital it is in our economy. She did not understand how I could have a problem with an extra credit assignment to begin with. I explained how I thought that her assignment taught the kids that just "spending" was the key to our recovery. She said that it is, it's common knowledge and she was not teaching them anything new there ( I agree with the second and third point there). I asked her what she thought about mentioning one other school of thought on that subject ( read Hayek) and she had no idea of what I was talking about. She just went back to saying that she was not influencing or swaying, rather telling them what is common knowledge, that spending is the key to our recovery. She was very nice and our conversation was polite.
So, no, I don't think she had an agenda, although the stickers seem to say otherwise; I think she just does not know any better. She was not interested in hearing or considering an alternative point of view. It was as if I was telling her to consider the possibilty that our planet might be flat.

Thankfully this was a conversation I had had with my daughter very recently, because in my opinion, that's about all we need, to have our teens taught that it's all about spending. Call me old fashioned European, unable to just "live in the moment", but the short sighted goals really don't do it for me. I just think we'd be better off holding back on "spending just for the sake of it", get back to reality even if it's painful and start from a better more realistic place.

Miguel,

That's definitely a great video that needs more circulation! On a side note, that was probably one of your more succinct posts, considering the recent threads =D!

"I think this commentary says very succinctly what OWS is all about."

And very accurately. Nice on one, Miguel.

"I think she just does not know any better. She was not interested in hearing or considering an alternative point of view. It was as if I was telling her to consider the possibilty that our planet might be flat."

Sigh....

What a long hard road we're facing.

I wonder if it has occurred to any official involved in public education to study the experience of the Finns and Singaporeans, both of whom have superb educations systems before continuing to throw money down the same old rathole in a seemingly hopeless effort to turn things around?

"Call me old fashioned European, unable to just "live in the moment", but the short sighted goals really don't do it for me. I just think we'd be better off holding back on "spending just for the sake of it", get back to reality even if it's painful and start from a better more realistic place."

Me neither, and I'm not even an "old fashioned" European, just an old fashioned American. It was very different here when I was a kid, and the values I learned from my parents would probably seem very European to you. Nor was it uncommon. That's the way people were here 60-70 years ago. A pity it only took about twenty years of incredible prosperity to upset the apple cart.

Thanks for getting back to me on it, Kat.

Edited by ouzel on 10/12/2011 17:14:52 MDT.