Posted on 10/09/2011 5:25:18 AM PDT by Kaslin
As Occupy Wall Street activists clogged New York's Zuccotti Park protesting "corporate greed" and Occupy SF hit San Francisco's Financial District on Wednesday protesting "corporate greed," the world learned that Steve Jobs, perhaps America's most beloved modern capitalist, had died at age 56.
The protesters claim to represent the working people, the 99 percent of Americans who, according to their blog, are getting kicked out of their homes, must choose between groceries and rent and "are working long hours for little pay and no rights," if they're working at all. They "are getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything."
"We are the 99 percent," they proclaim.
Jobs was probably about 0.000000000001 percent.
Yet Jobs and the 99 percenters have much in common. These activists represent the iGeneration. They grew up with iPods and laptops. They're tweeting from smartphones. They've grown up with pricey new gadgets and monthly plans that keep them plugged into Wi-Fi and 4G.
They carry signs and post their stories on the Web about the five-figure debt that they've incurred -- some for tuition that hasn't landed them a good job, others in credit card debt -- and they're angry that Washington bailed out Wall Street but hasn't done much for them.
Like members of the tea party, they're angry with Washington. But they're also scared, not the way tea partyers fear losing their hard-earned assets, but in the way young people are fearful in a bleak economy. "Is 'Following Your Dreams' supposed to be this Terrifying?" one young woman's sign reads. "$60,000-plus in debt from my student loans and 11 percent interest rate."
At a news conference Thursday, President Barack Obama said the OWS protests express "the frustrations that the American people feel."
Tea Party Express strategist Sal Russo sees the "occupiers" as yet another effort, bolstered by organized labor and MoveOn.org, to establish a tea party on the left -- with the help of a complicit news media that often painted his co-believers with unflattering stereotypes. "They would say that (the) tea party is people who wear Colonial hats, have signs and are a bunch of nuts," Russo observed.
Obama played that game two years ago when he quoted a letter he had received from a woman who told him, "I don't want government-run health care. I don't want socialized medicine. And don't touch my Medicare."
The Occupy Wall Street movement has its standouts, too. Its website features an unofficial list of demands, which include not only a universal single-payer health care system and free college education but also open borders, "immediate across-the-board debt forgiveness for all" and outlawing all credit reporting agencies. Former Weather Underground radical Bill Ayers issued a "collective statement" that "a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power." So don't tell me that the right has a monopoly on crazy talk.
Or that the Dems, unlike the GOP, don't have a problem with their base.
Besides, though the manifestos provide plenty of fodder for scoffing, they distract from the protest's sad personal stories. The "We Are The 99 Percent" shows a gallery of anguish felt by people who are struggling -- even losing the struggle -- to stay above water.
Now, I think these folks are wrong to believe that more government from Washington is the answer to their problems. They say they want to restore the American dream, but their remedy looks too much like the Greek nightmare.
As Russo noted, "their big claim is that they think we need to have a bigger, more intrusive government in our lives." After four years of George W. Bush and Obama's increasing federal spending exponentially while the economy floundered, it should be clear that model has failed. Mainstream America will not follow the occupier playbook.
Voters may sympathize with these unemployed kids -- but they're not going to toss them the keys to the car.
As Jobs advised students in his famous 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University, you may be scared and you will make mistakes, but "don't be trapped by dogma.
Hey, I have debt too, and I'm struggling to get out from under it. But I know whose fault it is. Mine.
If they truly believe that things like this will help, they are beyond hope. Who do they think would pay for "debt forgiveness? Without credit checks, do they think they would still be able to get loans from those lenders they just bankrupted with their mandatory "loan forgiveness" plan?
The utter stupidity of these people continues to amaze me. I was never that young and dumb. 'Course when I was most of their ages, I was a veteran.
The credit checks also keep them out of apartments. Credit alone is enough to legally reject them or require first, last if you can, and a guarantor.
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Ditto that Graybeard.
Team Obama Anti-capitalists
| Let the Occupy Wall Streeters rant so America can clearly see progressives as the vapid lunatics they are.
Liberalism has finally succeeded in creating an entire generation that feels they are entitled to other people's stuff without actually having to work for it. Forever trapped in the entitlement mentality, they want to reconstitute the Soviet Union in modern 21st century America. |
All patriotism aside, when my husband joined the military, one of the deciding factors was that it was what he could do to support his family. We stayed after September 11 because welove this country, of course, but I would be lying if I said the benefits the military offered continued to be a draw. But my husband being willing to do a job that could kill him to support his family and achieve more for his children than he had (we both grew up pretty poor) to me was the ultimate in love and Patriotism. I have no fancy degrees, so I have worked in retail almost all my life. When my children were young (daycare age), I worked nights and weekends so that we could avoid the extra cost of daycare. It was a sacrifice as my husband and I hardly saw each other. But now that my girls are older, we have managed to provide them with a modest home (that we can afford, no more), small vacations, and many things they love, along with the knowledge that their parents will do whatever it takes to provide for them. I now work for MCCS, which offers me room to move up to better jobs based on my performance, which is always the best I can give. My husband and I were raised to know the value of hard work and to know that sometimes you have to do things you may not want to do to succeed in life.
so I repeat, these jerks do not represent me. If they did, they would be out there starting from the bottom and EARNING a living instead of demanding one for no effort. BTW, because of what we have earned and saved, hubby and I do not usually get much of a tax rebate, and I don't mind. I'm aware that the services we use in our town and my husband's salary are paid for by those taxes. I don't want to be taxed into oblivion, but I have no issue paying what is fair. What kind of taxes do these losers pay?
“The utter stupidity of these people continues to amaze me”
Now we know why employers are specifically NOT hiring the unemployed, but post want ads for those currently having jobs.
Who would hire these idiots? I hope none of these deadbeats get hired. We got them all on camera. Corporate headquarters take notice.
These people are beyond stupid. Debating whether to buy or sew sleeping bags, asking for volunteers to do their laundry, social networking with iPhones but not knowing who Steve Jobs is - like Michael Oher, Baltimore Ravens lineman who recently tweeted about who this Jobs guy is that just died. This is the same Michael Oher from the movie, The Blind Side.
The chasm of ignorance of these people plumb unimaginable abysmal depths.
Bill Ayers “collective statement” that “a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power” is flat wrong!!
The peoples consent to part with their wealth occurs when they willingly buy goods and services from businesses and corporations that provide them.
True democracy occurs in a free market economy; i.e. when consumers purchase goods and services at the highest price they are willing to pay from producers who offer them at the lowest price they are willing to sell.
It’s a free market “collective” process.
Did you see the picture of the kid holding up the poster on which he had written Honk if you’re in debt? As if this is Wall street’s or the banks fault
Spam
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I know this is tangential, but when I see these pictures of these people, they look exactly like undead from zombie movies. It’s freaky, and they’re basically the same, these shambling, aimless, blood-sucking monstrosities seeking out destroying all that is normal.
Well that shows you the ignorance of these spoiled idiots
If mommy & daddy got 'em through college, and mommy & daddy supported them while they ran up their credit cards, mommy & daddy can co-sign for the apartment.
For those who don't know, this "letter" was a fraud cooked up by Pat Schroeder a feminazi Congresscritter from Colorado back in the 1970's when she made a short-lived stab at running for president.(She couldn't take it and melted down in public amid much weeping and gnashing of teeth.).
Just another one of those democrat lies they recycle like aluminum cans whenever they need to.
What I find objectionable is these irresponsible parasitic zombies who would have you believe those student loans wrote themselves and those credit cards charged themselves up when no one was looking.
Gimme Michael Oher any day-- at least he's good at something and is fully employed.
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