Occupy Wall Street

[Andrew]

So this has gone viral over the past month, and possibly tomorrow will probably be the apex of it.

It has even reached my small province, but I doubt many will be there (I have no idea why they had the person organizing it on the local news).

During CBC The National televised broadcast last night the commentators were asked about whether it will make an impact in Canada, and they all said no.

Reasons (which I agree with):

1. We just had a federal election, if people wanted change they could have done it then.

2. We have some of best banks (or banking system) in world that easily survived recession.

3. The protestors are same people that complain about everything all the time (G8 meetings, any protest possible)

I'm of the opinion that the protests will do nothing to make change. There were protests against going to war in Iraq that had 100,000(?) people, yet soon will be 10 years there. And I don't necessarily agree with the protests, mostly because they're just unemployed people with nothing better to do expecting handouts, and targeting the wrong group (banks and big business), when they need to specifically target the government for giving out the bailouts to banks in the first place. Isn't there a presidential election in 2012, if it is supposedly 99% vs the 1% shouldn't it be easy to form a political party and win the election?

One theme is that OWS (occupy wall street) have no clear goals or message. Past week people trying to defend that there is a theme etc, mostly on fark/reddit and other social media.

CHARTS: Here's What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About

Lots of charts from awesome St. Louis reserve.

EDIT:

I particularly like where a couple nights ago a group was antagonizing the cops, one guy says "fuck the police" or something similar when cops were trying to clear the roads, then there was a scuffle and all the protesters were like "videotape it, police brutality!!!". They seem to be seeking attention and just trying to annoy as many people as possible. They seem to think there is some big conspiracy against them (police raids against the group couple nights ago) etc.

[Sneakgab]

''1. We just had a federal election, if people wanted change they could have done it then. ''

Less than half the enfranchised populace voted. It is possible they have no interest in any of the parties or their policies.

[Andrew]

''1. We just had a federal election, if people wanted change they could have done it then. ''

Less than half the enfranchised populace voted. It is possible they have no interest in any of the parties or their policies.

In Canada it was 61% turnout. If not interested in parties or policies (in most areas there were 3-4 to choose from) these "protestors" could have created their own party or ran independents. In Canada the OWS crowd are just piggybacking on the success of US version, without there being any good reason to hold these protests in Canada. Such as our banks being successful and nicely regulated, federal government is much stabler than American counterpart even though we just finished having a bunch of minority governments. Their just your typical protesters that seem to be at every event that can cause a confrontation.

That guy who had his foot run over by police motorcycle yesterday seemed to be faking it big time.

[Lord J]

I feel split regarding the Occupy Wall Street movement. On the one hand, I really don't care. It's miles and miles away, and I feel like the people "occupying" Wall Street are essentially a bunch of hippy bums.

On the other hand, there's clearly something wrong with our society for people to do this. Yes, it's clearly overacted in a lot of ways (I mean, really, you're prostituting yourself to pay student loans? Really?), but the people aren't being properly controlled. The workers aren't working, and capital isn't moving properly.

Whatever's wrong, I don't completely think it's something in the power of any politician to solve. Part of me feels like this is a response to the Tea Party nonsense, but that doesn't really explain everything.

[Sneakgab]

``In canada it was 61% turnout.`` Whoops, I was thinking of the ontario provincial election. Sorry about that. (edit: posting from a cellphone is horrible)

[TMA_1]

Did any of you see the Daily Show skit they had on OWS? It was pretty awesome.