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Is the OWS against Capitalism?

Is the OWS Movement against Capitalism?

  • Total voters
    69
Catawba said:
It wasn't front page news until the OWS
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The Universal Health Care debate wasn't front page news until OWS? You're joking right? That's is laughably ridiculous to even suggest.

Public financing of elections still isn't front page news.

What do you find so revolutionary about restoring some of the progressiveness of our tax rates and re-regulation of the banks?
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I never said those things were revolutionary.
 
Mycroft said:
That's why I called the people in the parks useful idiots. I don't give a wit about what they say or do. I look to those behind them...directing them. And those behind them are against capitalism.
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I agree. I think the plan all along has been to destabilize the economy, hence why they refuse to make any real commitment as to what they want. Asking any supporter directly the purpose and they will stonewall and point at wall street and insist that all things corrupt start from these. Yet when pressed to show exactly how that is so and they start repeating Leftist slogans.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Source?
Proof?
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My source and my proof are the actions and writings of the originators of OWS.

I gave you a starting point for your research. If you need more direction, let me know...I'll give you a few more links.
 
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Catawba said:
Great, let's address those.
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I'm fine with regulating banks in such a way as to assure they can not become such large entity that they are "too big to fail". I'm also fine with seeing Tax rates, ACROSS THE BOARD, return to a Clinton era level once the economy continues to improve and we see Washington actually taking steps to cut spending and reform entitlements. I have no problem with taxes increasing a bit across the board and giving up some of my money if Washington starts giving up some of theirs as well. Raising them as opposed to going to something like the Fair Tax isn't my preference, but I'd not be 100% against it.

We've had regulation on banks in the past and still have some now...suggesting more regulation isn't revolutionary, its something we clearly have had recently and still have. Our taxes ALREADY ARE progressive so its not revolutionary in the least to suggest we should have a progressive tax situation. Suggesting a raise to our taxes isn't revolutionary as they're lowered currently due to a temporary cut anyways.
 
I visited an OWS encampment and attended one of their general assembly meetings, just to see for real what they were all about.

OWS isn't against capitalism anymore than fans who can't afford a ticket are against baseball.

OWS is against the rogue elephants of capitalism who, like the rogue elephants of baseball have violated our sense of decency via steriods in the name of higher stats and more money, have violated our sense of decency via off-shoring millions of our jobs and other indecent acts in the name of higher profits.
 
Wake said:
I have heard that the OWS is not against capitalism at all, though I have seen many OWS groups and signs that indicate they are indeed against capitalism. What is the truth? Are they against capitalism or not? I wuld reason that during their earlier days they came to protest against businesses and corporations, which are all a part of capitalism. What do you think about this? I see OWS members on YouTube chanting against the crimes of capitalism while holding their signs that reflect their belief.
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The crazy ones sh*tting on police cars are probably against capitalism. But there are plenty others who are just against corporate corruption of the political system.
 
Zyphlin said:
I'm fine with regulating banks in such a way as to assure they can not become such large entity that they are "too big to fail". I'm also fine with seeing Tax rates, ACROSS THE BOARD, return to a Clinton era level once the economy continues to improve and we see Washington actually taking steps to cut spending and reform entitlements. I have no problem with taxes increasing a bit across the board and giving up some of my money if Washington starts giving up some of theirs as well. Raising them as opposed to going to something like the Fair Tax isn't my preference, but I'd not be 100% against it.

We've had regulation on banks in the past and still have some now...suggesting more regulation isn't revolutionary, its something we clearly have had recently and still have. Our taxes ALREADY ARE progressive so its not revolutionary in the least to suggest we should have a progressive tax situation. Suggesting a raise to our taxes isn't revolutionary as they're lowered currently due to a temporary cut anyways.
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Check out HR 1489, it does what the Glass-Steagall Act did for half a century, kept investment banking separate from commercial banking. The majority of the US agrees with you that it would be a good idea to eliminate the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. Of course we are also going to have to cut spending as we come out of the recession, and the area of biggest waste is in the military industrial complex.
 
Zyphlin said:
Your /thread would work better if Matt didn't make broad generalizations about what "people" want that is clearly documented to be untrue. If he wants to say the movement by and large doesn't want handouts then more power to him...I don't think handouts are the groups primary purpose. But there most assuredly ARE people within the movement who absolutely DO want a handout.
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The same is true of the teabaggers
hands+off+medicare.jpg
 
Zyphlin said:
The Universal Health Care debate wasn't front page news until OWS? You're joking right? That's is laughably ridiculous to even suggest.
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There was no debate about universal health care. From the beginning, none of the plans that were actually debated were universal.
 
Mycroft said:
That's why I called the people in the parks useful idiots. I don't give a wit about what they say or do. I look to those behind them...directing them. And those behind them are against capitalism.
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So convenient! You can just ignore everything they say!
 
 
Catawba said:
Check out HR 1489, it does what the Glass-Steagall Act did for half a century, kept investment banking separate from commercial banking.
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Yep, I know of it. Haven't looked extremely closely yet. In a general sense don't have a huge issue if it came back but like I said, I'd need to look more into it.

The majority of the US agrees with you that it would be a good idea to eliminate the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.
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Don't really care what the "majority of the US" thinks in regards to taxes and especially that a "majority" of those who aren't wealthy think that its honkey dorey to raise rates on everyone else for more free stuff for themselves. I'm okay once the economy picks up to go back to the Clinton rates....ALL the Clinton rates. I would choose to remain at the current rate rather than go down the ridiculous road of significantly scape goating the "wealthy" to pay for every idiotic entitlement people like you and Thunder seem to want to add to our debt such as free college, free health care, and free elections.

Of course we are also going to have to cut spending as we come out of the recession, and the area of biggest waste is in the military industrial complex.
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Matter of opinion as to where the "biggest waste is".

I would say that the best place to start would be the portion of our spending that takes up 75% of it...namely Entitlement programs (SS, medicare, SCHIP, etc) and the Military. Reform entitlements and tighten things up in the military to bring spending for both down by 1/3rd.
 
sangha said:
The same is true of the teabaggers
hands+off+medicare.jpg
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Sorry, I'm not a 8 year old or a college freshmen, so not familiar with any "tea baggers" asking for handouts aside from possibly handouts of free natty ice.
 
Zyphlin said:
Sorry, I'm not a 8 year old or a college freshmen, so not familiar with any "tea baggers" asking for handouts aside from possibly handouts of free natty ice.
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They just think that by calling handouts "tax cuts", that legitimizes it. It's still a desire to obtain a greater portion of the collective wealth.
 
Paschendale said:
They just think that by calling handouts "tax cuts", that legitimizes it. It's still a desire to obtain a greater portion of the collective wealth.
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I find it odd that you would consider a tax cut to be a handout...and wealth is not collective in this country...at least, not yet...regardless your desires.
 
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misterman said:
So convenient! You can just ignore everything they say!
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Aderleth said:
Yes. And by myopically focusing on Adbusters, which really has very little to do with OWS at this point, you can ignore pretty much everything else.
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As I said before...who cares about the useful idiots? I don't.
 
Mycroft said:
As I said before...who cares about the useful idiots? I don't.
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I've noticed. You probably should, though, if you had any interest at all in honestly addressing this issue rather than concocting bull**** conspiracy theories.
 
Aderleth said:
I've noticed. You probably should, though, if you had any interest at all in honestly addressing this issue rather than concocting bull**** conspiracy theories.
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Speaking of conspiracy theories, those occupiers really like their own conspiracy theories.
 
FreedomFromAll said:
Speaking of conspiracy theories, those occupiers really like their own conspiracy theories.
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This is you from two pages back:

FreedomFromAll said:
I think the plan all along has been to destabilize the economy
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Now, I know that you won't understand why I'm bringing this up, but pretty much anyone else reading this post will.
 
Thunder said:
Personally, I believe most OWSers would be MORE than satisfied if we simply brought back Glass-Steagall, had more tax-brackets for the wealthy, millionaires, 7 billioniaires, had more regulations on banks & the mortgage industry, had a national health care system, had govt. funded college education to public colleges, had publicly financed elections and stripped corporations of personhood rights.
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No, they won't. Because neither will give them high paying jobs.

This movement is not about capitalism, it is about greed. Which is people who are mad because they think they are entitled to a high standard of living.
 
Zyphlin said:
Don't really care what the "majority of the US" thinks in regards to taxes and especially that a "majority" of those who aren't wealthy think that its honkey dorey to raise rates on everyone else for more free stuff for themselves. I'm okay once the economy picks up to go back to the Clinton rates....ALL the Clinton rates. I would choose to remain at the current rate rather than go down the ridiculous road of significantly scape goating the "wealthy" to pay for every idiotic entitlement people like you and Thunder seem to want to add to our debt such as free college, free health care, and free elections.

I would say that the best place to start would be the portion of our spending that takes up 75% of it...namely Entitlement programs (SS, medicare, SCHIP, etc) and the Military. Reform entitlements and tighten things up in the military to bring spending for both down by 1/3rd.
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I have to agree with you to some extent. It seems to me that there is no easy way out of our current economic situation. I think that the idea that taxing the rich alone will solve our problem is wishful thinking (and I do wish it was true). In December 2010 the New York Times reported that

"extending [the Bush tax cuts] for the next 10 years would add about $3.8 trillion to a growing national debt that is already the largest since World War II. About $700 billion of that reflects the projected costs of tax cuts for those in the top 2 percent of income-earners."

700 billion is less than 20% of 3.8 trillion. Over ten years, that's an average of 70 billion, which is a drop in the bucket. According to the CBO, our 2011 deficit is 1.3 trillion. Even if we cut our entire military budget for 2011 (700 billion) we would still owe 500 billion. The fact of the matter is that we probably need to raise taxes for everyone AND cut spending significantly. Maybe not now, but eventually.

...and in response to other sentiments expressed in this thread: I feel that the narrative that people from OWS are lazy, don't want to work, and are looking for handouts from rich people is largely false. It seems to me that two of the main reforms OWS wants is campaign finance reform and the reinstatement of the Glass-Steagal Act. They also want the people who created, and profited from the financial crisis to be held accountable, and they want other regulations put in place to keep it from happening again. Those are really the main goals it seems to me, and none of those goals can be considered someone asking for handouts.
 
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