quote:

ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy

quote:

ORIGINAL: kdsub

I thought the movement was supposed to be apolitical ..at least in reference to party. And open to all ideals that share the wealth. Why start talking about republicans and tea party members as being limited to what you think relevant to the movement? Who the hell are you?

Butch

I think it is a recognition, as I said above, that the only way OWS will ever have any meaningful impact is to align itself with one of the two parties. Since they fancy themselves 21st century hippies, that naturally will be the Democrat party, The few ideals they profess are actually better aligned with conservatism, but the results they actually want are socialist. Its difficult to talk out of both sides of your mouth at the same time.

quote:

ORIGINAL: FirmhandKY

quote:

ORIGINAL: DarkSteven

Interesting.

The Tea Party ... Ideologically, they are against "big government" and especially out-of-control, government spending.  They have so far worked entirely through the political process.

OWS is a bunch of protesters.  They are getting press and some sympathy.  Ideologically, they are against government influence of the lobbyists, banksters, and wealthy.

Their agendas are not that dissimilar.  They both arise from a feeling of powerlessness, of getting screwed.  But their modi operandi are very different.  If they joined forces in some way, they could become much more effective by combining approaches.

I agree, but also believe that they won't, and the majority of the reason is the unthinking hatred that the OWS towards any type of authority, or that a majority of the OWS movement has for anyone that they consider "conservative".

Look at the hatred and animosity toward Palin, in my "Can You Guess Without Googling?" thread, when she simply stated almost exactly what appears to be the major OWS line of thought. It appears that the posters here who support OWS would rather insult her and alienate her and her supporters, rather than attempt to find common ground.  She's "not pure enough" ideologically for them, it seems.

Look at HillWilliams "TEA and OWS have a meeting" thread, where a Memphis tea party group invited OWS reps to meet with them.  I've read TEA partiers blogs, where they've went to OWS protest and engaged in conversation, and encouraged other TEA partiers to do the same, to see if they could work the common ground.  Seen any results, except venom from OWS to the TEA parties?

And you do not see anything going the other direction (OWS seeking out common ground with the TEA party).  Eventually not many members of the TEA parties will have anything to do with OWS. And I won't blame them, either.

It's just a damn shame, though.

Firm

quote:

DC to fix itself or get the fuck out?
Because we haven't ruled out that option.

quote:

ORIGINAL: SternSkipper

quote:

The worst you can find is when I posted a blog story, in order to highlight how someone can fuel their own prejudices by quoting anything - something - on the net, when someone (tazzy?) tr0 ied to make hay about some Facebook posts talking about doing illegal shit, and threw it on the Republicans. Like 4 or 8 people out of 30million is representative.

Dude,  by 'promoting' I was this analysis you offer which I think many will argue is well weak, if not faulty, but it sounds like promotion when you cite those items and offer the analysis you did.
If you feel slighted I apologize. My remark of  "if you say so", was meant to basically convey we can go our separate ways with out much grief on this issue.

I happen to know many of the minor incidents are not only inflated, but definitely slanted a certain way and at the same time know that support is anything but dwindling for the movement.
Perfect example was the other night when they raided Liberty Plaza... up the street at the baracades they set up there were not a bunch but rather thousands of New Yorkers who came in from neighborhoods all over manhattan in response to hearing on WBAI that Liberty park was under attack. These are people who aren't what you would call "OWS Activists" they were people like me and you. Who heard it on the radio or got a call from a friend and left their homes at 2 in the morning and went into the streets.
But you're entitled to your opinion. I wouldn't dream of denying you that.

quote:

ORIGINAL: rulemylife

What a bunch of bullshit.

The first thing I find interesting is this "hatred" theme that has become common among conservatives.

You are all just the innocent victims of a widespread liberal conspiracy.

Laughingly pathetic.

But let's go back to the town hall meetings where teabaggers shouted down every Democrat that dared to speak.

Why weren't you defending those candidates' right to free speech?

quote:

You do think highly of yourself...as if you could do it...I mean apolitical in your rhetoric and recruitment. You must be political to change existing policy however. You just don’t NEED to align with or against any party… and don’t tell me you are not… that is bull.
A goal should be to get your platform on ballots along with politicians. Politician is not a bad word… you just need people who think your way to run.
The above is the only way you will make a difference… you are not now.

quote:

Homo Sapiens is a hierarchical animal. You simply can not have an "organization" of a large group of humans without leaders who give directions and set priorities. It is not in our genes. Research generally indicates that the "maximum comfortable size" of a human organizational entity is about 200 members. Anything larger is generally broken down into sub-groups, either officially, or unofficially.

For "action groups", the number is generally maxed out at around five people.

If the "movement" wishes to remain "leaderless", then the "movement" will either disintegrate, or leaders and sub-groups will form. The question is, what will these disparate leaders and groups have as aims?

That is the basis of my prognosis.

quote:

ORIGINAL: SternSkipper

We're developing several plans built around that possibility already.

On Sunday, October 23, a meeting was held at 60 Wall Street. Six leaders discussed what to do with the half-million dollars that had been donated to their organization, since, in their estimation, the organization was incapable of making sound financial decisions. The proposed solution was not to spend the money educating their co-workers or stimulating more active participation by improving the organization’s structures and tactics. Instead, those present discussed how they could commandeer the $500,000 for their new, more exclusive organization. No, this was not the meeting of any traditional influence on Wall Street. These were six of the leaders of Occupy Wall Street (OWS).

Occupy Wall Street’s Structure Working Group (WG) has created a new organization called the Spokes Council. “Teach-ins” were held to workshop and promote the Spokes Council throughout the week of October 22-28. I attended the teach-in on Sunday the 23rd.

According to Marisa Holmes, one of the most outspoken and influential leaders of OWS, the NYC-GA started receiving donations from around the world when OWS began on September 17. Because the NYC-GA was not an official organization, and therefore could not legally receive thousands of dollars in donations, the nonprofit Alliance for Global Justice helped OWS create Friends of Liberty Plaza, which receives tax-free donations for OWS. Since then, Friends of Liberty Plaza has received over $500,000. Until October 28, anybody who wanted to receive more than $100 from Friends of Liberty Plaza had to go through the often arduous modified consensus process (90% majority) of the NYC-GA—which, despite its well-documented inefficiencies, granted $25,740 to the Media WG for live-stream equipment on October 12, and $1,400 to the Food and Medical WGs for herbal tonics on October 18.

At the teach-in, Ms. Holmes maintained that while the NYC-GA is the “de facto” mechanism for distributing funds, it has no right to do so, even though she acknowledged that most donors were likely under the impression that the NYC-GA was the only organization with access to these funds. Two other leaders of the teach-in, Daniel and Adash, concurred with Holmes.

Ms. Holmes also stated at the teach-in that five people in the Finance WG have access to the $500,000 raised by Friends of Liberty Plaza. When Suresh Fernando, the man taking notes, asked who these people are, the leaders of the Structure WG nervously laughed and said that it was hard to keep track of the “constantly fluctuating” heads of the Finance WG. Mr. Fernando made at least four increasingly explicit requests for the names. Each request was turned down by the giggling, equivocating leaders.

The leaders of the Structure WG eventually regained control of the teach-in. They said that they too were unhappy with the Finance WG’s monopoly over OWS’s funds, which is why they wanted to create the Spokes Council. What upset them more, however, was the inefficient and fickle General Assembly. A major point of the discussion was whether the Spokes Council and the NYC-GA should have access to the funds, or just the Spokes Council.

quote:

ORIGINAL: SternSkipper

quote:

I believe in order for OWS to succeed they must separate themselves from all political parties and especially political platforms of established parties. They need to stick to the economy and division of wealth . Preach that the economy must be fixed first and all political parties and independents are welcome.

Were you to keep track through our channels you'd learn in very short order that's exactly what we're doing. Any suppositions or claims otherwise come from outside the movement and are based entirely upon faulty info.
  And I also think that sure as Firm wishes to promote there ARE increrasing ATTEMPTS to paint the movement in a bad light. he's just mistaken about the effectiveness it's had.. unless he's speaking about matters local.
   As a person involved, I think it's sort of nice you are apparently no longer cherry picking the movement, or should I say less so, anyway. And what I am curious about is do you actually DO anything to try and resolve problems in our society/political system yourself? I mean something on a regular basis with real structure.