On Fri, 21 Oct 2011, Yaron wrote: > On Fri, 21 Oct 2011, David Alanis wrote: > >> Sounds like you don't get out much! Maybe you should get out there and >> see for your self, rather then letting the TV tell you what to think. > > I was out there yesterday. There were signs against banks, against > forclosures, against fracking, against non-organic farming, against war, > against pharmaceutical companies, against the government, and those are > just the ones I remember off the top of my head. > > There is absolutely no coherent message here. Anyone can go almost anywhere and protest. The "Occupy" groups don't have a top-down governance with a central leadership directing their actions. A common criticism, say from NY Times editorialists, was that the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) people would do better to have some demands. The OWS people disagreed because a demands that isn't unanimously endorsed could turn off some people. They were striving for unity even though I guess you could call it "incoherent unity." In early October, OWS participants voted on and approved the first official “Declaration of the Occupation of New York City”: http://www.care2.com/causes/occupy-wall-street-issues-first-official-declaration.html So that's something. They also are working on a list of demands: http://occupywallst.org/forum/proposed-list-of-demands-please-help-editadd-so-th/ Their central concern is very obvious, though: They see Wall Street investment banks and other sorts of super-powered corporate types ("the 1%") as using their money and power to influence the government for their personal gain and against the interests of the average person ("the 99%") causing economic calamity around the world, the housing bubble, massive numbers of foreclosures, high unemployment and all sorts of threats to government services for the needy. During this, the richest of the rich have consistently gotten a lot richer. The coverage of all of this by the mainstream media has been a joke. The White House and Congress are barely willing to lift a finger to go after the people who caused these things to happen, partly because they've long been complicit in it. Someone had to stand up and say something. The talking heads and pundits came up with a million ways to ignore them and dismiss them (e.g., they are young, they are hippies, they play drums, the probably smell bad, they don't have demands), but in the end the OWS came out on top and spread their message around the country and around the world. They want an end to corruption, an honest news media and a government that represents the interests of the people. All I can say is that the Occupy protesters obviously are right and we should be on their side, if we have any sense at all (and make less than $1 million per year). Economics Nobelist Paul Krugman weighs in: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/opinion/panic-of-the-plutocrats.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/opinion/krugman-wall-street-loses-its-immunity.html Mike