Support the Occupy Wall Street Protest Movement?
Supporters say “We are the 99%,” but critics say the group has much less than 99% of the nation’s support. We want to know how you feel about the Occupy Wall Street protest movement. Do you support it, or not, and why?Do You Support the Occupy Wall Street Protest Movement?
The movement represents the frustration of blue collar, Main Street America, alongside much of white collar, impoverished to middle-class America, with Wall Street and much of corporate America and the advantages and power these elites wields in Washington DC. But some say the Occupy Wall Street movement is just a bunch of bums looking for a reason to party and raise a fuss. However, judging by how quickly and how far the movement has spread, with protests now running across most of metropolitan North America and Europe, it seems there’s solid issue and reasoning supporting it.
Due to my own very personal experiences with the evil side of Wall Street, its lying, cheating and stealing, which I hope to someday write about in an important book about the inner workings of Standard & Poor’s, I sympathize with the movement. I know why nobody has gone to prison over this financial crisis, and I’ll write about that here shortly, on a thread we’ll label “Occupy Wall Street”.
Personally, I was insulted by the Supreme Court decision that overturned the campaign finance limit legislation, an act that gave Wall Street and corporate manipulators an open spigot to fund and influence politicians. I’m also unhappy with job creation by corporate America, and I’ll write about the reason these companies choose to hoard cash and create jobs overseas, before helping to lift our economy at its core through domestic support.
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Please see our disclosures at the Wall Street Greek website and author bio pages found there. This article and website in no way offers or represents financial or investment advice. Information is provided for entertainment purposes only.
Labels: Occupy-Wall-Street, Wall Street, wall street news
posted by The Greek | 3:57 PM
20 Comments:
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I do not. I would support a OCCUPY WASHINGTON effort. I think OWS is totally misguided. People are drawn to WS because of the money. WS employees should not be villified for doing the jobs that our government allowed them to do. Our elected officials in DC have completely failed to do their job in efectively governing. The SEC failed, the regulators failed. Our legislators have taken huge sums of money from all of corporate America, not just WS. If our leaders in DC had ANY interest other than seizing more power and being re-elected we would not have the class warfare that is igniting our country today.
Yes I support the "Occupy Wall Street Protest Movement. Corporate greed and the buying of our senators and congressmen is ruining America. Get rid of Lobbyists and demand term limits for our elected officials Support the 28 Ammendment being distributed on email.
Jack The Greek says, I do not support the OWS movement , If people are unhappy with the way Washington runs things they should get out and vote. Year after year the percentage of americans voting continues to plunge. Just vote people OWS is a waist of tax payer money.
Absolutely not. They want to tear apart the fabric of our society with that which would make us a 3rd world nation. Free this and free that; give me this, give me that...precisely how is such largess to be paid? By those who have the determination to be financially successful, while the nanny-state whiners demand ever more? They want a socialistic state, indeed communistic ...did they not note how that political debacle has fared anywhere in the world it's been instituted? Have any of these self-righteous nitwits read anything other than Marxist leaning materials? Greed and avarice are abounding in our administration...try protesting t-h-a-t, and place the blame where it truly belongs.
I suspect they deep down know the government cannot continue to support them...and they are doomed to a lifetime in poverty.
The problem of course is Washington, and this administration. And the corporations they complain about are now not really capitalist...they are all on the government take! Hahaha
Those who blame the govenment only but not WS have ignored the revolving door between Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and this Dynamic duo:
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/01/john_paulson_aquires_an_alan_g.html
Google: Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Treasury, Glass– Steagall
The OWS people are just the first ones with any Cajones to show up and speak up.
I support them.
Politicians can't get elected without corporate sponsors and many corporations seek their profits through lobbying now.
- This corrupts capitalism, because we are buying things that are overpriced and/or unneeded.
- This corrupts our Republic, because politicians only represent the 1% who ensure their re-election.
It needs to be stopped from outside the system using non-violent civil disobedience. It is like a cancer that will eventually kill the host if not stopped.
'Occupy Wall St.' is a creation of Adbusters, a publishing co. in Vancouver BC Canada.
It is a publicity stunt.
After reading through the first slew of comments, one point rings true with me. If we're upset with our representation, we should be protesting our Congressmen. If we want our lobby to weigh evenly with Wall Street, then we need to flex the muscle we have, which is civil disobedience or protest to let politicians know that their decisions which favor corporate greed over our interests will cost them. For too long, there was no penalty, but idleness is over.
In other words, we need to lobby our politicians for what we want by standing outside their doors en masse with our message. I can put a nice list of demands together for OWS, because I'm aware of the dysfunction and the unfair play. Looks like it's time to get to work making government work for the people. There's nothing wrong with profit, except when it comes through cheating and stealing, and it should never cost Americans their jobs while enriching others.
Yes, democracy is a 2500 year old process, needs some rework.
Look at democratic-socialist countries Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway,Germany
You need to eliminate lobbying and stimulate middle class. Increase taxes on over 1,000,000.00...take 50 to 60%
i strongly support.
Absolutely!
I do.
THERE MUST BE A
CHARTER OF DEMANDS on the Placards Or Bill Boards-
General statements like income disparity doesnot convey the GRAVITY of the message-
examples should be quoted.
Dear Greek, your position seems to be moving toward the center and left, I have read many times your defense of the walll street philosophy and the defense of the foreign department, ex. Iran, Venezuela, etc. this time you feel the bells ringing and you correct your position a little, it sounds like the OWS are right, which I am in agreement as well. The police action, Greek, this is America, think how is the life of people that face the American soldiers in Bagdah, Kabul and other places, they are subject to abuse.This is the unknown face of America, and the rule of a country directly from the Cafeteria of a bank in wall street, yes the cafeteria of Goldman Sach and its offices working in Washington.
I kind of support the movement but frankly I do not know what they want. Maybe if I knew I would support the movement wholeheartedly.
It's a shame about CM Rodriguez. As a New Yorker, he should have figured out that: 1) you do not go near any mob scene; 2) you do not go near any mob scene that has already gotten out of control more than once, 3) you do not challenge any armed and uniformed police officer in a street protest and 4) you do not breach any barricade in 1,2 and 3 above. That being said, yes the NYPD is on "alert". I am thoroughly convinced that only police officers, their families and anyone who has ever been inside a mass crowd can understand what the dynamics are and how fast a situation can change. (I can claim yes to two of three). Did the situation get out of hand? Two thousand clueless protesters, several hundred cops, one politician, World Trade Center; yeah things probably did get out of hand.
But, consider this: is the Councilman that naive to walk into a confontational setting expecting safe passage or was this an opportunity to bait the law and gain some personal recognition courtesy of OWS?
One's position as an elected official does not exempt one from the reaches of common sense or the law.
God bless America - this is a democratic republic where everyone is equal in the eyes of the law (and the NYPD).
Blame? For inequality? There has always ben inequality- seal with it. That blame belongs to us all. We elect our representatives who write our laws. We choose how we live and what we do with our lives. There are no guarantees in life; there is no handout and most definitely no "free lunch". Blame? For the disaster in Zuccotti Park? Blame Mayor Bloomberg who forced his third term as mayor. These nogoodniks should have been run out of the park back in September. Mayor Bloomberg is as much at fault for this disgrace as the ACORN-like leaders organizing OWS. His job is to protect the city, not let things go just because he doesn't care. Notice, he only acted when OWS decided to physically go to Wall Street AND when the Health Department also threatened to go in without escort.
As a New Yorker, I am tired of protests, especially when a nice oasis as Zuccotti Park is hijacked and destroyed. I am tired of peoiple screaming and threatening to shut down this or shut down that. When your first amendment right crosses mine, to travel to get to and from and work or even my physical safety, then let slip the full fury of the NYPD. No one, no group should ever, ever have the ability to close or threaten the city and its people. When the safety, security and economic vitality of this city and region are threatened, then the City or the State has to and must act, in whatever way necessary to restore order.
This isn't 1968 and there is no Viet-Nam war. Why is it that so many of the OWS people are actually employed? Why are so many others there instead of looking for work. Are our taxes now paying for unemployment benefits enabling otherwise able bodied human beings to protest instead of seeking work? This just does not add up.
Their purpose is lost on me. I understand the frustration, but what the OWS people do not understand is that the politicians really do not understand and do not care. That is point one. Point two is that the ordinary Joe and Josephine really don't care about OWS either. They are struggling to make ends meet and don't see the value of a protest doing nothing more than making noise, stinking up a city block and making life difficult for small store owners, residents and regular low-level office workers.
Nope. No sympathy. Close it down, sterilise the park, and let's move forward with life.
I do support it and thank all those people for sitting outside. I closed my bank account at Wells Fargo, I have signed every petition that I can supporting, I even brought cookies to Oakland. I am just so sick of bad people with lots of money. They are so much more harmful than your average criminal. Their tentacles so far reaching.
Kate Gallagher
What has become of us! Occupiers unite again. Fire up the engines!
Hmmm. Why are you asking our opinion? Respondents to your question are self-selecting, and I suspect that the readership of Wall Street Greek leans toward Wall St. insiders and sympathizers. So if you consider respondents to be a sample, it is clearly a biased one. But perhaps you view it more as a focus group of your readers. . . .
That said, I support the OWS movement.
Saying that we should protest Washington instead of Wall St. is posing a false dichotomy. It is not a contradiction to object to both those who corrupt the political process with excesses of cash, i.e. lobbyists retained by corporations, AND the politicians who happily take the cash (or for thsat matter the Supreme Court justices who redefine the cash as speech, thus guaranteeing that those with more cash have a "right" to more speech).
And to some of my fellow respondents, as for the OWS folks using publicity stunt tactics, so what? PR techniques are just a process to get press coverage. They are well and frequently employed by corporate America, for both financial and political reasons. But they are not the exclusive property of corporations. If regular people recognize and use them too, deal (or seal!) with it!
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