The 99% doesn't mean anything to us....We are the 0%!!!!

[Redd Capp]

I also might add that last stat I have is that 52% of Americans owned shares in some company or mutual fund for 1998-
http://www.pbs.org/fmc/book/14business6.htm
------
http://www.americanshareholders.org/about
shows that 50 of Americans own shares of stock and that 12,000,000 get divideds
Also State Pension funds like Cal Pers and the Indiana State Teachers Pension fund own a huge chunk of America

 

[katbastard]

no i am not the 99%, i am the 0%. i live in the desert, i am squatting on land that is not mine, i do not have a job, the only tax i pay is sales tax, my "income" come from things that i make and sell tax free

 

[finn]

[quote="Redd Capp, post: 86329"]...What I know is that the CEOs are clueless about everyday operations at there company's. There job is too think more macro. Its middle management thats pulling the wool over the bosses eyes...Any CEO who tries to reform a company is accused of micromanaging....well who gets the blame when the shit hits the fan?[/quote]

So you're saying we should pity the poor CEO's because they have become powerless overpaid scapegoats? I don't care if you put an entire golf cart and a sand trap on a freight, your thoughts don't make any sense. I'm for the OWS movement, because when things get better for most people, generally things get better for us. I don't like having to scrounge for stuff (don't get me wrong I like scrounging, just not being forced to) because I think we're headed for some hard times because the economy is tanking due to your beloved CEO's cluelessly making off like a bandit.

At the same time, I'm working to get the hell out of dodge when things really come down, so no time to protest.

 

[Jimmy Beans]

I'm not 100% certain but pretty sure he was just kidding. I don't really get the humor all that well it's written up sorta odd but one thing I'm pretty sure of, nobody rides freight with a set of golf clubs.

 

[Nelco]

 

[Redd Capp]

Is there anything that we can do in the more conventional sence such as writing letters and making appointments with Goverment and the corperations that we have a issue with?
http://www.directorsandboards.com/ There is a program here run by the United Way that trains people sit on a local non profit boards. If you make a name for yourself there you could be recruited to work for a for profit Board and thats where the big money comes in the form of stock options and 10,000 a meeting.
http://www.bbodproject.com/ is one such project that gets blacks and those with disablities on boards.

 

[latcho drom]

i could write much more,just two things to mention:-general strike is a powerful weapon against the system,-everyday life,small,personal revolutions are essential and so fucking important,and we all have the responsibility for this...and last but not least:"the revolution will not be televised"gil scot heron...

 

[Jimmy Beans]

"Is there anything that we can do in the more conventional sence such as writing letters and making appointments with Goverment and the corperations that we have a issue with?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JlxbKtBkGM

I'm not so much a pack rat as, I simply don't like fussing with junk mail all that often, I have a huge bankers box full of credit card offers and junk I usually let fill up and toss the whole thing. I saw this video and I'm excited to finally get back to these people with some correspondence. I'm sure they've been dying to hear from me anyways and it's just not right to throw all this paper away, even recycling it doesn't seem to really justify the trees they used to fashion these envelopes from. I'll be damned if I'm gonna go out and spend money on shingles like this guy has but I have 10 acres of manzanita with heaps of naturally fallen branches some 10 inches thick, real old growth shit. I think I'll take a big log of that manzanita and fire up the miter saw, cut some nice little planks ya know. That wood is pretty heavy and dense, it should not only get the rigid flag but a good couple/few bucks per envelope in weight as well.

 

[BobbinGoblin]

I would recommend heading down to your nearest occupation and seeing what it's like. We're just kids building models of the world that we want to live in, right? Well, go down and build it, then (or at least lend your solidarity). The ground is fertile. True, the generalization of 'the 99%' is a little watered-down for my taste and I am shy of the term 'occupy,' but... do you want the world at large to remain how it is and/or barrel onward in the same direction? Modern society does provide some infrastructure for the travelling lifestyle, but it's not exactly necessary... especially if you can hunt deer.

When I saw that this was taking place on Wall Street, I was cursing being in Ireland instead of America. But class separation and ignorance not only an American issue. On 15 Oct, the Eyre Square camp in Galway, Ireland began, and has been creating dialogue and becoming more organized ever since. People have been coming out from behind their curtains and their televisions and meeting each other, talking about the world that they see and the world that they want. I have met people I would've otherwise never met. Now there is a place to go in town to have compelling conversations without the pressure to purchase some sort of something - in fact, it is a place to share food and tea and contribute without asking why. People are learning from each other.

The previous lack of this cooperation and discussion has depressed me for too long not to celebrate this movement.

 

[BobbinGoblin]

"Is there anything that we can do in the more conventional sence such as writing letters and making appointments with Goverment and the corperations that we have a issue with?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JlxbKtBkGM

^the shit.

 

[Jimmy Beans]

Also I personally am highly against this whole "we're the 0%" concept, for one because on mathmatical terms it just sounds stupid as fuck and a bit too emo if you ask me (though I hate the newer use of that word and perfer the days it more so related to Embrace, Avail, bands that had highly emotive changing tempos). Two, it's absurd to think you can go off in your little exclusive "0% neutral party" sect and think you're not accountable. Now they gotta love you for you to fight them? They have to acknowledge you for you to fight them? Fuck that! You're accountable, period! If you can't see the injustice going on here then you're fucking blind! If you can see it and you're claiming you're not part of it on some bullshit "they never acknowledged me anyways" well, I personally think that makes you a puss, a coward looking for any excuse to remain right where you are, as comfortable as can be rather than standing up for what you know god damn well is the right thing to do. Everyone is accountable for this shit, We let them get us here, and they orchestrated it. Now we gotta stop that shit, there's no other options. I know we can't all be in the streets kicking the doors down on the fed, some of us have kids and shit tying us to some po-dunk towns that have no movement to begin with, that's fine... So at least participate in the dialogue online, debate this thing. Bring focus to it, start looking for alternative ways you can still do something from where you sit, something other than making yourself out to be a victim ya bitch.

 

[Vixious]

These people claim to be 99%, they should try to get organized a bit, and try to get even 50% of the population to make a general strike, for even just one day, once they finish developing their list of demands.

In response to this, i think a large part of the problem here is that there are so many damned problems in the US, and how the government/corporate entities govern/do business, that there is too large a pool of valid points to choose from. I agree that a set short list of goals needs to be decided on, and as much as i enjoy the amorphous hodge podge of classes/incomes/religions/ideals/etc actually coming together in ANY capacity, an organized, defined infrastructure needs to be established for this to go any further, especially with the media spinning things as fast as they can. But as we've all experienced at some point or another, deciding where to eat, crash, what have you, how hard it can be to form a consensus, and thats with just a handful of people in the same location, let alone spread across the US, and with no real intercommunication.

 

[plagueship]

this might be a good time to have a second look at that book 'the coming insurrection' which was written by some extremely nerdy euro radicals about the kinds of protest movements they saw coming out of the economic crisis that was then just starting, and about the kinds of choices they would face. despite all the energy contributed by anarchists and all those who want to think this is going to go their way, this thing seems to be very clearly dominated by authoritarian liberals and leftists. this type of tactic may be relatively new in america but it's very characteristic of the european left, and ideologically it's nothing new at all, just a bunch of vague slogans that some lowest common denominator of the vaguely-leftist can rally around, run out and go 'do something' and feel like they are 'creating new forms of politics' & etc. i wonder whether any of them have considered how such new political forms will solve effects that are so intrinsic to the structure of the economy. it really just seems to be an expansion on the suggestion-box aspect of democratic capitalism.

 

[Sen]

@plagueship - I agree with most of what you said.. it is a pretty watered-down, generic movement. A lot of the folks involved realize that, and (at least in Pittsburgh) are starting to become discontent with the vagueness of it all, and are slowly starting to acknowledge what they're NOT there for, which is an indirect realization of what they really want.

I think the key issue is the lack of acknowledgement from the government. They do what they want, corporations do what they want, and we're stuck following the rules and funding it. There was a really good graphic out there in the form of a Venn diagram (I'm sure there's several) that compare and contrast Occupy with Tea Party. That part in the middle is what the "99%" is about. If people focus on that issue and resolve it, we can all happily resume arguing over the usual political bullshit. But we'll never make any progress until that core issue is settled.

http://silencedmajority.blogs.com/.a/6a00d834520b4b69e2015392ac8931970b-450wi

 

[acrata4ever]

i have to agree ceos are members of the proletariat

 

[Jimmy Beans]

compare and contrast Occupy with Tea Party. That part in the middle is what the "99%" is about. If people focus on that issue and resolve it, we can all happily resume arguing over the usual political bullshit. http://silencedmajority.blogs.com/.a/6a00d834520b4b69e2015392ac8931970b-450wi

I have to disagree. I think if you're still setting up sides, be that liberals vs. conservatives, gay vs. straight, black vs white, ows vs tea party, etc, etc, etc, you're doing the best they could hope for, which is still attacking horizontally at your brother. You're still not looking up in those buildings, you're aiming sideways at the next man and they're looking down with a smile pulling your strings like the puppets we've been for the last century. It's not these guy's over here and their views, vs. us and our views and how we gotta resolve that in order to take the next step. No, we've done that with all those stereotypes I listed above, we've squashed them all and there's only love between those lines now, yet shit still isn't working. Now they're trying to seperate us again with labels. I don't think it should be so distorted, kick in the doors on the fed and cut the throat on that bitch, end this Keynesian economy for good. There's really no greater enemy at the moment as I see it. We end that, shit is changing, period!

 

[up2eleven]

99% is not an ideology, it's an income bracket. If you make less than $500,000/year, you're part of the 99%. $0 is less than $500,000 so we're part of the 99%.

 

[Nelco]

if you guys say so

 

[Sen]

No, we've done that with all those stereotypes I listed above, we've squashed them all and there's only love between those lines now, yet shit still isn't working.

I think I'm missing something here.. maybe I can rephrase my original post:
"To the people still calling OWS a bunch of hippie kids who need to get a job and making your "I'm too busy in Iraq to occupy wall street", wake up and realize we're all fighting essentially the same battle."

Now they're trying to seperate us again with labels. I don't think it should be so distorted, kick in the doors on the fed and cut the throat on that bitch, end this Keynesian economy for good. There's really no greater enemy at the moment as I see it. We end that, shit is changing, period!

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprized to see the US at this point in a year or two. People are starting to wake up.

 

[RVLG]

I dunno, mostly I can dig the OWS thing, but 99% sounds so homogenous. Obviously the 99% is not just one group. It's lots of people in lots of groups that most likely have different goals.

Indeed. Watching videos and reading reports of OWS show that the protesters include angry yuppies, Democrats, Republicans, "Libertarians", Libertarians, Environmentalists, Anarchists, Marxists, hippies, Stalinists, Randians, centrists, apoliticals, and probably many more.