occupy movement

[rustyrivers]

"We are lead to believe"
is a quote that gives a pretext to something you better not believe. Truth is in the eye of the beholder and is subject to changes as time goes by.

In that light, the question to awnser is"Waht will you believe". Of course you believe in what is good for you and in the things not good for you so you can go after or avoid thing to be able to servive.

So thinking you need gas electricety and oil makes you believe a lot of crap around 9/11 plus the following wars, the good intensions of BP in the Gulf spill not to speak of giving up you rights to prevent "terrorist smurfs" who are going to blow up there underware in a plane.

On the other hand leading people to believe that they can be independent and self surporting enteties living, loving and caring in a community, looks like the strongest way to make a statement in the world of today.

[bandler]

There is a little bit of a gap between what your poll question asks and what your post says.

For those unfamiliar with the situation that has developed, it may be useful to note that 'The Green Revolution', which is the name given to the fantastic increase in food production in the 1900s, was based on cheap fossil fuels. The Green Revolution allowed human population to explode.

At this point in time, we have burned through most of the easy to get fossil fuel deposits, so the price of fossil fuels is rising as the cost of extracting them rises. Rising cost of fuel translates directly into rising cost of food (see Green Revolution above). Consequently, the growing of food is something people should be planning for.

The alternative is to depend entirely on agribusiness and the machinery of the government.

As Henry Kissinger said, 'Control the food and you control the people'.

Of course, for those who have a hypnosis fetish and enjoy being totally controlled, THE FUTURE LOOKS BRIGHT!

[rustyrivers]

Thanks for filling that gap.

[bandler]

My Pleasure.

I have been thinking about the Occupy Wall Street folks for a while now.

When things started getting really weird back in 2008, what with the BANKS demanding 800 Billion from the taxpayers and all that, I started looking at Banks differently. I discovered the most amazing thing.

Banks make money.

Not the old fashioned way, by earning it, but the quick and easy way, by entering numbers on their balance sheets.

They use words to mean different things so people don't catch on.

Think of the word "Loan" for example.

If I want to LOAN money to a friend, I have to HAVE THE MONEY first.

NOT SO WITH BANKS.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVkFb26u9g8

As the movie Money As Debt explains in great detail, Banks create new money when they make a LOAN. And they create an 'asset' on their books - the borrower's promise to pay back the loan PLUS interest.

What happens if the borrower loses his job and can't make the payments? The Bank can legally TAKE his possessions (collateral) even though they contributed nothing to the deal.

Which explains how 1% of the population was able to rob 99% of all the wealth.

(Its actually .001% that owns everything, but that is not nearly as poetic as 1% vs. 99%)

My most recent file: Samantha Sez MONEY was produced with the Occupy Movement in mind.

[Storms]

That's the nature of capitalism and economies of scale. The rich get richer, faster. And the poor, unless with some extreme stroke of luck, stay poor.

There's alot at play right now. You have the over leveraged banks, and a world flirting with trading oil in Euros, instead of USD. I think it's interesting the Euro has become so volatile. Makes you wonder how coincidental it is.

We've elected officials that would stand their ground, and not back down on their core issues. And they haven't, even when they should have in the spirit of compromise.

Our system only works if our country is prospering.

Here's a pic from one of the occupiers that I really found moving:
[url]http://twitgoo.com/4tlqfl[/url]

[bandler]

That's the nature of capitalism and economies of scale. The rich get richer, faster. And the poor, unless with some extreme stroke of luck, stay poor.

Capitalism has its flaws, but HUMAN NATURE is what is causing most of our problems. People only follow rules when it is to their benefit. Rich people use their riches to break laws and get away with it while poor people go to jail when they break laws. The same thing happens under Communism, Socialism, and every other 'ism'.

... You have the over leveraged banks, and a world flirting with trading oil in Euros, instead of USD. I think it's interesting the Euro has become so volatile. Makes you wonder how coincidental it is.

Books could be written on each of these three sentences. Great way to start an argument though.

We've elected officials that would stand their ground, and not back down on their core issues. And they haven't, even when they should have in the spirit of compromise.

Really? Please tell me the Names of elected officials, other than Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, that have stood their ground and not backed down or knuckled under to big money.

Our system only works if our country is prospering.

I would say our country only prospers if the system is working. Sometimes the system gets overwhelmed with rich people's money and the 99% have to fight back.

[wymid]

That's the nature of capitalism and economies of scale. The rich get richer, faster. And the poor, unless with some extreme stroke of luck, stay poor.

Capitalism has its flaws, but HUMAN NATURE is what is causing most of our problems. People only follow rules when it is to their benefit. Rich people use their riches to break laws and get away with it while poor people go to jail when they break laws. The same thing happens under Communism, Socialism, and every other 'ism'.

What we have in this country is not capitalism. but a system of cronyism and corporatism. When it comes to OWS, a lot of people seem to get this, but there are also a lot of people that want to blame anyone who is rich. Human nature definitely played it's role, but it was a predictable role. People tend to be greedy, and they will take whatever government favors are granted to them. If someone is offered a bailout, chances are good that they'll take it. This becomes a moral hazard, where people lose sense of individual responsibility. Since the 1979 bail out of the Chrysler corporation, we've had banks engaging in very risky policy because they have good reason to think the government won't let them collapse. It doesn't always work out as planned, but they'll often think they are too big to fail and not worry about acting recklessly as the government will just come in and rescue them. With capitalism, the poor have a great chance to become rich. However, the rich also have a great chance to become poor, but you have to let them fail.

We've elected officials that would stand their ground, and not back down on their core issues. And they haven't, even when they should have in the spirit of compromise.

Really? Please tell me the Names of elected officials, other than Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, that have stood their ground and not backed down or knuckled under to big money.

Out of people currently in office, I would probably add Bernie Sanders. He impressed a lot of people with his filibuster. Although, I have a feeling Storms is referring to issues such as how many republicans pledged not to raise taxes.

Edit: Thought I'd throw this link here since it seemed relevant. Here is a clip from a recent Freedom Watch episode with back-to-back Ron Paul & Dennis Kucinich interviews. They talk about the federal reserve, but it shows that you can still work together and form coalitions on important issues, even if you are on opposite sides of the ideological spectrum. http://youtu.be/Vn_Tu4yMjng

Another edit: I just wanted to add that Ron Paul's son Rand has also shown he sticks to his principles. Today, he was one of only two republicans to vote against indefinite detentions provisions in the new Defense Authorization Bill. Overall, I think he might have made a couple mistakes so far, but I haven't seen him fold to special interests.

Our system only works if our country is prospering.

I would say our country only prospers if the system is working. Sometimes the system gets overwhelmed with rich people's money and the 99% have to fight back.

The best to way to take away the power of the rich to influence government is to take away the power of government to grant those special privileges to the rich. If the government is the bartender and the corporations are it's patrons, revoke the bartender's license to serve liquor and the patrons won't be able to buy it any more.

[Plaat]

Just to add on, banks are only able to make money if there's growth, no growth, no money to loan out for more growth. But as we should know growth has limits. So we have crashes, the only way to not have crashes is to not have growth. This is by far the most radical position and one I'm growing to identify with. To have robust economy, that doesn't grow, or does at a rate where such disasters happen between centuries and not decades. For more look up "There is no tomorrow" on youtube

As a part timer for occupy, I knew not of any exclusion unless it was drug selling or sexual violence. There was alot of rough goings arguments wise on but exclusion was only held for people bringing serious trouble.

[Jeshi]

To me, the Occupy Movement really highlighted the corruption and importance of the media in America more than anything. How quick and easy it is for anyone with money to turn a serious movement into a joke to be ridiculed for made up reasons. How easily they could turned the phrase "The 1%" to mean something entirely different from what the protesters were using it for.

Because of course, anybody who is on television probably has a lot of money, and probably get's payed down the chain of command by someone who falls pretty close to that 1% line if they aren't already in it. And the country is so large that nobody can really even see issues unless the media shows it to them.

Right now the national average income for a family of four is under the poverty line. Time Magazine is focusing on whether pets make good lifetime companions and a lot of the media is focusing on Iran lately for some weird reason. Like, nothing new is even happening in Iran right now but they're all covering it an awful lot.