[General Battuta]

I'm one happy degree of separation away from having been maced! And she was just walking by, she doesn't even have a problem with cops! PIGS (most of the NYC cops are actually pretty cool, she did some level headed blog posts and interviews and **** about it)

As the finer souls of this forum have already elucidated income inequality seems to be a major driver of recessions and thus seems a rationally sensible target for protest

but it remains to be seen whether the nascent Occupy **** movement will translate into real political action -- and whether the movement's intentionally decentralized ideology will be able to isolate the problem of corrupt or counterproductive business practices from the obvious benefits large corporations provide. In order to make their point, the protests desperately need to avoid being pigeonholed as neo-Marxist anti-corporate generalists.

****posters please queue behind the yellow line, the rest of you give me your thoughts: will we have a Tea Party counterweight come election season or is this an unsustainable outburst without any coherent agenda or ideology?

[Beskargam]

remains to be seen. don't think the movement will get organized enough to be a counterpoint for the tea party. I think that's one of the appeals of the movement. I could see the movement being co-opted by somebody else and taken in a direction which was not originally intended.

[General Battuta]

The Tea Party movement was quietly assimilated by political interests very early in its lifetime, but it wasn't apparent to the general public. Setting aside the ****ty conspiracy theories that will inevitably be posted, I wonder who's attempting to compromise Occupy Crap right now? Who would benefit from having the movement as an asset for astroturfing?

There are a number of agents provocateur pretty apparent in the crowds, either agitating, looking for **** to narc on, or blocking meetings by exploiting the communal rules. Pretty interesting power dynamics at play.

ed: i am dyslexic

[Beskargam]

you sound rather angry. where do you think it will go? also i remember reading about a televangelist, Al something? maybe. he was there giving a speech and it I was left wondering what connection he had to the movement at all. some people are using it just for publicity but that's true of most things. the accusations of the demonstration being a means of "class warfare" are rather irritating though. while the statement is slightly true in the sense that one socioeconomic class is railing against another one.

[General Battuta]

you sound rather angry.

Nope this is pretty much ordinary conversational

[Beskargam]

scary

[Bobboau]

the company I work for is bidding on making a social media site with Micheal More related to this.

[Klaustrophobia]

an unsustainable outburst without any coherent agenda or ideology?

i'm gonna go with that one.

[MP-Ryan]

Tea Partiers are politically organized and motivated.  We're not seeing that level of decentralized-but-present control in this group (which is unfortunate).

That, and the political left in the US is a desolate wasteland, so I don't see an entrenched political movement ready to take up the cause.

[JCDNWarrior]

It's a good idea but Wall Street is too nebulous and broad to go after, in my opinion. I'd suggest occupying the Federal Reserve instead seeing as they're in charge of the monetary policy for the USA. I also notice political organizations trying to co-opt Occupy, MoveOn.org for instance. I am more interested in the wider Occupy movement across the world, I wonder what may come from this aside from sending a message that people seem to have had enough.

It's similar to the Tea Party, started by the Ron Paul campaign and grassroots, now mostly co-opted and changed, some for the better, some for the worse. (Herman Cain as a tea partier, for instance, is a little strange being a Federal Reserve chairman (?) in the 1990s).

No movement starts and solves things in one night though, politics is like a game of subterfuge, so we'll see what the end results will be.

[IronBeer]

Haven't really been following this issue as of late. I DO recall reading that the Occupy Dallas protest ran into trouble with the local authorities, something to do with ....I want to say permits, almost.

Spending 7 hours today on a Heat Transfer assignment (roughly indicative of current workload) pretty effectively blocks serious analysis, but on the surface, the "Occupy ______" movement appears viral in nature, feeding on a long-festering agitation among the "ordinary folk" of the US. [/obviousness]

However, preliminary observations (and how preliminary they are) suggest no substantial conclusions as of yet- this could easily snowball into a strong political movement with sufficient organization, could potentially cascade into violence with the correct rhetoric and catalyst, or it could implode with an embarrassing whimper.

Things are too early and I'm not really tuned in enough at the moment to make a real guess, so I'll leave that to the more informed commenters of the Hard Light Hivemind.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

Haven't really been following this issue as of late. I DO recall reading that the Occupy Dallas protest ran into trouble with the local authorities, something to do with ....I want to say permits, almost.

Spending 7 hours today on a Heat Transfer assignment (roughly indicative of current workload) pretty effectively blocks serious analysis, but on the surface, the "Occupy ______" movement appears viral in nature, feeding on a long-festering agitation among the "ordinary folk" of the US. [/obviousness]

However, preliminary observations (and how preliminary they are) suggest no substantial conclusions as of yet- this could easily snowball into a strong political movement with sufficient organization, could potentially cascade into violence with the correct rhetoric and catalyst, or it could implode with an embarrassing whimper.

Things are too early and I'm not really tuned in enough at the moment to make a real guess, so I'll leave that to the more informed commenters of the Hard Light Hivemind.

Yeah, there's a lot of possible directions this thing could go in. I'm gonna invoke Godwin's Law, although with some actual justification this time. The conditions in the U.S. right now aren't too far off from Germany in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Inflation and poverty mixed with distrust of the system and the government paved the way for a particularly charismatic figure to seize causes and organize the sentiments into a fairly coherent (at least in the early years) sociopolitical movement.

Sociology isn't my area of expertise, of course, but I can see the parallels and recognize the possibility of something similar happening - although it doesn't necessarily have to be a coup with a ranting lunatic at the helm. If someone with strong leadership skills shows up, they could turn the amorphous discontent into a focused resistance. I don't really foresee a second revolution or anything quite that drastic, but this has the potential to drive reform if it's harnessed correctly by the right person. We just have to be exceedingly careful.

[Nuke]

no level of protest can beat good old fashioned violence.

[StarSlayer]

Winter is Coming...

[Sushi]

Yeah, there's a lot of possible directions this thing could go in. I'm gonna invoke Godwin's Law, although with some actual justification this time. The conditions in the U.S. right now aren't too far off from Germany in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Inflation and poverty mixed with distrust of the system and the government paved the way for a particularly charismatic figure to seize causes and organize the sentiments into a fairly coherent (at least in the early years) sociopolitical movement.

I'm no history expert, but I'm pretty sure that things in the US are not even remotely as bad as they were for Germany in the 20s. IMO things need to be quite a bit worse before any sort of sweeping movement can gain real momentum.

I won't speculate on whether such a change would be for the better or for the worse.

[Grizzly]

but I'm pretty sure that things in the US are not even remotely as bad as they were for Germany in the 20s.

To clarify: The bread price leaped up into the thousands (and beyond). Germany was dependant on the USA for money, and for obvious reasons the USA did not have any money anymore, and the French seized Germany's major industries because Germany could not pay their ridiciously high 'repairment payments'. Unless the Taliban starts occupying Detroit and a sandwich costs millions, then we are talking about a similar situation.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

You have to keep in mind that the average person is also much more spoiled than people were back then, and it's their perception that matters, not the actual reality of things. I don't think the perception is that pessimistic yet, but we're getting there.

[Turambar]

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-wall-street-protesters-are-so-angry-about-2011-10?op=1

Here's a good reference on why people are angry.

[Grizzly]

This Occupy Wall street thing actually has spreaded to NL as well now.

You have to keep in mind that the average person is also much more spoiled than people were back then, and it's their perception that matters, not the actual reality of things. I don't think the perception is that pessimistic yet, but we're getting there.

Fair point. I think the world has been a lot more wealthy due to the baby boomers. Now that those baby boomers and hte economic benifits they gave are getting old, there's suddenly a whole lot less money available. So we all have to settle for... the meagre years (although it could be worse).

Then again, that is no reason not to complain about people who pulled a lot of money out of financial bubbles...

[JCDNWarrior]

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-wall-street-protesters-are-so-angry-about-2011-10?op=1

Here's a good reference on why people are angry.

Great reference there. Since (the) 2008 (bailouts) it seems every negative chart has been going up enormously. I wonder if there's a causation in that correlation.

Furthermore, I do think it's better to compare it to Germany just after WW1, having enormous debts to pay off and it's economy in ruin from a long war. I think people are also very upset and protest because it's -becoming- like 1929. No one wants a repeat of that.