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Subscribe to RSSHere's a look at the latest developments in Occupy protests around the country.
At least $13 million spent on enforcement, services
During the first two months of the nationwide Occupy protests, the movement demanding more out of the wealthiest Americans, cost local taxpayers at least $13 million in police overtime and other municipal services, according to a survey by The Associated Press.
The heaviest financial burden has fallen upon law enforcement agencies tasked with monitoring marches and evicting protesters from outdoor camps. And the steepest costs by far piled up in New York City and Oakland, Calif., where police clashed with protesters on several occasions.
The AP gathered figures from government agencies in 18 cities with active protests and focused on costs through Nov. 15, the day protesters were evicted from New York City's Zuccotti Park, where the protests began Sept. 17 before spreading nationwide. The survey did not attempt to tally the price of all protests but provides a glimpse of costs to cities large and small.
Broken down city by city, the numbers are more or less in line with the cost of policing major public events and emergencies. In Los Angeles, for example, the Michael Jackson memorial concert cost the city $1.4 million. And Atlanta spent several million dollars after a major snow and ice storm this year.
Singers, filmmaker to occupy soundtrack
Occupy Wall Street has a benefit album planned with Jackson Browne, Third Eye Blind, Crosby & Nash, Devo, Lucinda Williams and even some of those drummers who kept an incessant beat at Manhattan's Zuccotti Park.
Participants in the protest movement said Wednesday that "Occupy This Album," which will be available sometime this winter, will also feature DJ Logic, Ladytron, Warren Haynes, Toots and the Maytals, Mike Limbaud, Aeroplane Pageant, Yo La Tengo and others.
Activist filmmaker Michael Moore is also planning to sing.
Plans vary for Occupy Black Friday
Some Occupy protesters don't want want people to shop at all. Others just want to divert shoppers from big chains and giant shopping malls to local mom-and-pops. And while the actions don't appear coordinated, they have similar themes: supporting small businesses while criticizing the day's dedication to conspicuous consumption and the shopping frenzy that fuels big corporations.
Nearly each one promises some kind of surprise action on the day after Thanksgiving, the traditional start of the holiday shopping season.
Saul Loeb/AFP - Getty Images
Occupy DC demonstrators receive a pre-Thanksgiving meal Wednesday from volunteers at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C.
- In Seattle, protesters are carpooling to Wal-Mart stores to protest with other Occupy groups from around Washington state.
- Washington, D.C., is offering a "really, really free market," where people can donate items they don't want so others can go gift shopping for free.
- The 75-person encampment in Boise, Idaho, will send "consumer zombies" to wander around in silent protest of what they view as unnecessary spending.
- In Chicago, protesters will serenade shoppers with revamped Christmas carols about buying local.
- The Des Moines, Iowa, group plans flash mobs at three malls in an attempt to get people to think about what they're buying.
UC Davis chancellor: Pepper-spraying cops defied orders
University of California, Davis, police defied orders when they pepper-sprayed peacefully protesting students last week, says the school's chancellor who is under pressure to resign over the incident.
"We told the police to remove the tents or the equipment," Linda P.B. Katehi told The Sacramento Bee newspaper. "We told them very specifically to do it peacefully, and if there were too many of them, not to do it, if the students were aggressive, not to do it. And then we told them we also do not want to have another Berkeley."
The 57-year-old chancellor has apologized for Friday's incident and suspended the police chief and two officers, but has no plans to resign.
Los Angeles to evict protesters
The Occupy Los Angeles encampment around City Hall will be cleared sometime next week, a city official and a lawyer for demonstrators said Wednesday.
Attorney Jim Lafferty and Occupy LA organizer Mario Brito made the announcement after a meeting with officials they said included a deputy mayor and high-ranking police officials. Lafferty said the camp would be given 72 hours notice.
Deputy Mayor Matt Szabo told The Associated Press that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, after consulting with police, decided the encampment on City Hall lawns will be closed at some point next week, then cleaned and restored.
"The encampment as it exists is unsustainable," Szabo said.
London eviction plan in court
The City of London corporation took a step Wednesday to evict protesters camped outside St. Paul's Cathedral, insisting in court that the issue is not about protecting banks but protecting the rights and freedoms of others.
The organization — which controls the area around St. Paul's — says the ongoing Occupy London protest camp is harming nearby businesses. It also says protesters are drinking late into the night and creating an unpleasant atmosphere. It wants Britain's High Court to issue an eviction notice to force the protesters to move.
Protesters have camped outside St. Paul's since mid-October and say they will fight any legal bid to evict them.
Their proximity to Christopher Wren's 300-year-old icon has embroiled the church in a conflict between bank-bashing protesters and the city's finance industry. The church's position on the protesters has shifted several times, and the cathedral's dean and a senior priest have both resigned over the crisis.
S.C. protesters allowed back at Capitol
Occupy Columbia protesters can return to the South Carolina State House grounds in Columbia after a state judge on Wednesday issued a temporary restraining order blocking Gov. Nikki Haley's attempted eviction of the movement. See the full post here.
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It seems that these OWS people are dependent on handouts from others.
I am not surprised.
Some OWS people are dependent on handouts from others. Does that negate the message? They'd like everyone to know our government follows the orders of corporations. But we all don't care, we just want to focus on some of them not having a job and taking handouts.
Everything is OK everyone. Spend your weekend shopping!
The government follows the orders of special interests groups. wow...did they just figure that out now?
Thats the way of the utopia of the left, spend other peoples money until its gone and then universal poverty
Some people who post here are now upset because protesters are protesting consumerism. Our corrupt governments cure of the ailing economy is to have consumers spend more!
Well, our damaged government proves every day how well it can spend, should American Citizens take financial advice from our corrupt government?
Note: I do not support either corrupt political party. Vote out the incumbents, for true term limits.
I've seen quite a few homeless and others with physical and mental ill being at occupy camps. Perhaps if other services and shelters were available they would occupy them. It's quite telling when a society has so little compassion for the unfortunate that they continue to make jokes about them. Get a job, really? Are you personally offering one? Foreclosures, unemployment, and many other economic factors are coming to play, and the ows movement is a sign to us all that something is terribly wrong. This article suggest additional costs to society, really? Have new positions been created? This is false accounting.
There are religious and spiritual leaders becoming active in this movement as they recognize it is their ethical calling to support the poor and disadvantaged which many of the 99 percent are becoming. Here's a clip of some of their involvement. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2CZZ0vhS8U
Well. finally TARP is showing some results! We the People got S**t from the deal of the Feds with the Wall Street A**S. At least now people are getting some of our tax money...The bankers in wall Street are just laughing their asses off.....They will not do anything, as usual.
Depending on hand-outs, alan-static, is a sure sign that this movement is garbage from day one. It is easy to protest and dislike while you are not contributing to the tax base of this country!!!! You are useless maggots from a gene pool that should have been eliminated a while back.
I can use that sentence for all the Republicans in Congress....Good line! They only serve Norquist and not WE the People!
The "useless maggots" are the people who don't get it and are so brainwashed they buy into the P.R. the 1% purchased for $850,000. Occupy people are trying to HELP YOU, not suck up some kind of welfare. It's its welfare they were after, they wouldn't be spending time at an Occupy camp! Maggots, get with it and figure out that YOU have been screwed. Pretend you have a mind and THINK about how badly you've been done! 40 years of stagnant wages...and you don't get it?
ONE worker should be able to support a family of 6, and send their kids through college, pay their medical bills and retire comfortably. If you don't get that, they there is very little hope for you, you're already morally and clinically brain dead. Before Reagan, that was how it was. Since Reagan, it's been poverty and more poverty and more poverty while corporations took total control of the government. Are you people REALLY this stupid that you can't see reality?
And how would you describe your own gene pool there, gdvegas? You like the idea of seeing people "eliminated" - people you disagree with perhaps? Come on, don't be shy, let it all out.
gdvegas,
Social Darwinism wasn't cool a century ago, and it is especially quaint nowadays. Of course, I would never suggest that people such as yourself be "eliminated" as a solution to any perceived societal ill, no matter how ugly.
Funny you say that as I was just thinking that the largest corporations and the wealthiest in this country act dependently on handouts from the federal government. Would you care to guess the $$$$ comparable amounts?
"Trickle down" was a scam.
The government is who makes the rules and will continue to do so as long as they are getting bribes.
OWS is just a bunch of rowdies trying to get something for nothing. They have done nothing to hurt corporations, but have destroyed public property and harmed those who say they are supporting. The bulk have no message, are unemployable because they are drug users. Those whining about college debt chose degrees that would lead them to nowhere and are now complaining about the bill.
The poor, idiotic OWS whiners had better get all the handouts they can while weather is decent, as it's getting colder and they're all going to be getting sick, then wanting free medical care. This whole sad, something-for-nothing crowd had better wise up FIND some jobs, even if they think they're too good for them, and actually WORK for something instead of expecting handouts.
The costs of policing OWS protesters is a result of mismanagement by city personnel. The protesters have been peaceful and committed to nonviolence. Why hundreds of police to knock down a few tents and rough up a few protesters? Taxpayers should be irate about unnecessary expenditures.
Why get angry at the protesters when they are so right? Get angry at your elected officials who take bribes from industries they are charged with regulating and focus on making money through insider trading on their jobs? They get paid nearly $200K yearly, with benefits to die for & take 2 weeks vacation every month. They can't even come up with legislation that would help improve economic conditions for people--human people, not corporations.
BlueBurner
"The costs of policing OWS protesters is a result of mismanagement by city personnel. The protesters have been peaceful and committed to nonviolence."
I agree that there is a misplacement of resources, using police on overtime to clean up the mess of these derelicts. The should be arrested and force to clean up after themselves just like any other litterer.
@StevenB:
did you actually read the article? How does this mean that we are dependent on handouts? None of the money mentioned in the article is going to us, but rather for police overtime so they can beat and pepper spray us.
I think it's great that the cities are finally paying their police and other services more money. Maybe they can get better gifts for their kids this Christmas.
So ONE worker should be able to support a family of six,send them to college,and retire comfortably?
What the hell have you done robtice to make that your story? (voting for hope and change bull@!$%# doesn't count)
We are the 99%
@StevenB:
"did you actually read the article? How does this mean that we are dependent on handouts? None of the money mentioned in the article is going to us, but rather for police overtime so they can beat and pepper spray us."
The money is all going to you. You didn't pay for permits. You didn't pay to destroy parks. You claim you are against WallStreet but taxpayers are footing the bill because of you. DO you even pay taxes? If so, then why do you destroy what you have paid for in a revolt against someone you can't harm?
I'd be out there with these people protesting but I have a day job to pay bills, I have classes so I can learn new skills, and a bunch of other obligations so then I'm not RELIANT on others.....oh wait
@We are the 99%.
NO, No your not. you are the 1% maybe 2% of the 99% who have been through this before. Your still in the wrong places. Destroying the parks, and public property with your lackedasical protest. There are a few that are starting Dialogue, and there was a group that protested directly to OBAMA. The bankers work in their job to make money, and to pay their bills. The POLITICIANS make the rules on how they are allowed to do that. They even voted to bail out the failures in the first place.
wanna2know
i think u hit it right on the bulls eye. People now a days have replaced the spiritual with the material and instant gratification at all costs and then want to lie to themselves so they dont have to feel any guilt or shame. I should know im a reformist i was once a very selfish person and a criminal, only when i started to care for others did my life have meaning and purpose.
What Steve? As opposed to the 2% who receive billions of dollars from subsidies? Why don't you look into who's getting subsidies for oil, ranching, ethanol and even foster care among other things. Then come back and report to us about handouts. Your view seems rather myopic to me.
Robtice is right. Before the Reaganomic trickle down scheme became our national policy, there really was a fairy tale life where one parent worked, one stayed home and raised the kids ( the most demanding and time-consuming job if it is done correctly), and things worked. Now we wonder what in the world is wrong with our kids. You can't ship them off to someone else while you are trying to make ends meet and expect to get the best results. The whole line of dominoes began falling.
The right is trying to create the new and improved American migrant worker lets bust unions destroy the middle class send jobs overseas but everyone can go work the fields and follow the crops just like good little serfs and so many of you don't "understand" OWS you will when it's your turn to lose a job a house a chance at the American dream due to wall street and more is coming wait till the credit swaps come home to roost around what's left of our lives
I wonder how much the banksters have cost this country? I'd say it's trillions of dollars.
most of the cost you claim banksters have cost are due to Barney Frank and Chis Dodd mandating banks loan to people who did not have the ability to repay house loans.
So, it had absolutely nothing to do with hedge fund managers bundling these mortages and selling them ?
You're on the right path harold. You've named two out of thousands involde.
harold-
I am sorry but you have been grossly misinformed. The Frank-Dodd Act is about holding banks and mortgage firms accountable for bad loans and insuring that people applying for loans get clear and precise information when applying for things like credit cards and mortgages. It's a consumer protection act that if anything makes it more difficult for banks to make risky loans. I highly recommend actually reading it, or at least a summary of it before commenting on something you clearly do not understand.
Yes, Harold - I am so glad that you have been paying attention to the last few years of events, let alone the previous 25 years...
Capitalists also built this country, not to mention the modern world... But yes, the 'banksters' have cost this country trillions, because you say so...
... You are, after all, the same nitwit who quoted a picket sign in an earlier post.
Do the world a favor. Go take a bath with a hairdryer.
selfmade,
Capitalists didn't build anything. They just footed the bill with the intent of siphoning more money off of the people who actually generated wealth.
I disagree Harold. Oh sure, they made loans to people of lower income, but they were making their payments up until a certain point that is.
You see, the loans were rigged. Whoever heard of an 'interest only' loan, or who in their right mind would take a variable interest loan when interest rates are already low and could only go up?
These people took what loans they could because they knew they were lucky to get what they could, and the banks took advantage of them by offering them crappy loans that were setups for loss, hoping to cash in on the booming real estate and the foreclosure of the properties. Lotsa money made here.
I took one of these loans, though I was one of the lucky ones. As the bank attempted to reel me in, I fought them, and they handled me like a pro. Came pretty close to cashing me in with their tactics, but the property sold just one year before the economy crash.
The banks used several dirty tactics on me including holding my checks and cashing them late (I proved this by sending them in certified mail after their first trick), and they even sold my loan to some sub-entity owned by the bank which looked little more than a shady foreclosure business, another fact later proven by the media a few years later.
Ah no... the banks are the ones that caused this fiasco with our economy, not the poor that they took advantage of.
No one was complaining about tax payer money being spent on the tea party protests. Not to forget that the OWS protest wouldn't even be taking place if the banks would have worked with their consumers fairly and not cost tax payers trillions of dollars in their bail outs under the TARP bill, which completed put America into a recession.
Now I've heard it all. The banks didn't have anything to do with the melt-down, regulation created afterward caused it. That goes into my book with: "The moon landing was fake," "The holocaust never happened," and "Trickle-down, supply-side economics works, and tax cuts for the wealthy creates jobs."
I will say this: along with starting a conversation on the inequity in America, OWS is generating money for public servants to put into the private sector. Good for them.
Harold:
I understand your point about the banks lending to people who are/were not qualifiedl to purchase a home, but you miss the point. Part of the American dream has been to purchase your own home rather than enrich landlords. Over the years various things have been done to encourage this goal. When regulations were loosened in an effort to expand home ownership, many banks lowered their lending standards. No one MANDATED the standards be lowered, there was no legislation. The smart banks held to their standards and suffered no consequences when the market tanked. The banks that lost were the greedy ones that made no effort at all to vet borrowers. You cannot reasonably blame any legislators for voicing their support for what has promoted as the American ideal for the last century.
Leading reason for the wall street meltdown was repeal of "Glass Steigel" and if you think we only owe billions I'm sorry to brake your bubble but if Europe goes down we are exposed for tens of trillions no one know exactly since some banks and firms do not have to disclose all their actions good luck explaining it when that happens rememeber Obama had nothing to do with it all of that was done on Bush's watch.
wow...if the OWS spends at this rate, they may have to borrow from China to continue.
Billy,,you just joined Harold as the most mis-informed the article is about what the cost for police and control of the OWS movement is,,,,,not the cost of demonstrating, join the read in with Harold ok.
OK, second comment posted, and both have shown that the people posting are not in any way reading (or at least, understanding the article). Nice work.
Right, because these hippies are such a threat to everyone's security that spending $13 mil during this recession on beating and pepper spraying them can be justified. Any questions as to why your country is in the postion it is?
I believe the $13million includes fire prevention, drug overdose medical, crowd safety policing, theft prevention, cleanup costs and pest control (rats etc).The beating and pepper spray is more along the lines of self-defense.
Self-defense? Right. I'd feel the need to defend MYself with pepper spray if I was faced with a bunch of people sitting down. It doesn't get much more threatening and life-endangering than when people sit at you.
Pepper spray is better than guns oops I hope I didn't give them any ideas.
What does it matter what the costs were made up of? The protestors are executing their constitutional right to peaceful assembly. The cops are on duty and being paid anyway, the parks people are on duty and being paid anyway, so what they are doing is just renaming normal work duties as occupied incurred.
I'm waiting for the viral video of a OWS protester getting between a Black Friday shopper and a discounted big screen TV and the ensuing beat down they will get. Should be good for lots of laughs.
It's nothing next to the Tickle Me Elmo Massacre of 1996...
Keep an eye on me then. I am going after a 70" Walmart has for sale at $998.00. Send some OWS kids and a videographer.
You are too young Toasty. Nothing compares to the almost apocalyptic mayhem and slaughter by the 1983 Cabbage Patch Kids.
I want to know who is responsible for eradication of Trailer Trash Barbie! I demand an investigation.
Still way less than what obama blew on his friends at Solyndra. Lets peeper spray those guys too. Better yet a raffle! We could raise enough to pay some of the other costs.
And even MORE less than we had to pay your owners the oil companies during the gulf spill last year. But yeah, I'm sure there's a reason you'd attack the American company first.
BP is a conglomerate Toasty. I still believe they had a great influence on the release of the Lockerbie Bomber. However, all culpable... yeah lets raffle a chance to pepper spray them too. Don't care what order you cal them in.
Actually the one I would like to see pepper sprayed or dazed ( with everyone who last a job during this recession) is Larry Summers, currently Obama's Senior Economic Adviser.
"Peeper spray?" You want to throw chicken shaped marshmallow treats at him?
Oh Please...You guys are hanging out on that Solyndra money and can't let go because you have nothing else to throw at Obama. Never mind all the billions that were lost during the bail out of the F banks at Wall Street. They were supposed to help us -including you- and never did.
Yet, the people that live in trailer parks and can't afford to have a root canal, are the ones that are for the Republicans, and keep voting for them.
God bless America!
Proud.... Summers left the administration long ago! Get with it.
@irespond: leave it to a radical left wing liberal to engage in hateful stereotypes.
Good thing I didn't mention all the hood rat obama supporters,because if I did you would call me a racist.
Criminal Immigrants were taken care of properly under every administration before Obama...
Grand Jury waiting....wish Obama would have put Bush Cheney up on war crimes....and since waterboarding is not torture....let us do that to those two bozos.
Illegal unprovoked attack.......??????? can we say Iraq? Libya was handled is a way where we did not occupy, make more enemies.....Iraq was on all lies.....And they knew it....
Don't miss Rush or you may run out of non-sense to spew......there is always Fox Spews to fall back on tho...
And the blind shall lead the sighted.........
Just look at photos of the 'occupy' group. not a good looking American in the group. In general, they all look like low life bums trying to get more "free stuff". They probably have access cards and get food stamps and collect unemployment. get rid of them. They can't handle pepper spray but they can lay around streets, parks, etc. in freezing weather. To them : "get a job and pay off your own debts. free b's are over!!"
I kind of resent your generalization. I apologize if my recently showered, jeans and polo style shirt with a baseball cap look somehow offends you. I also have a job and other than my mortgage and new student loan (went back to complete my MBA) I live debt free. I don't get food stamps, I have never collected unemployment- even a long time ago when I qualified for it- and I don't even know what an access card is. I am not asking for any "freebies," simply a fair playing field for all. I do prefer cold weather to pepper spray in the face, but thats probably because I can just put a coat on if I am cold.
Please tell that to these A****S:
The people at OWS just want some food to keep them going. GET a grip!
@RebatsPA:
Really, my fellow graduates, some with PhDs, engineers, veterans, nurses, teachers are not a 'good looking' group. Yes, there are hippies with dreadlocks in our movement. This somehow means that our movement is not valid, that its time has not come, and that it will not prevail? I wouldn't count on that.
'Probably have access cards..' Probably? So again, you're assuming that we do? I don't. I'm employed full time. I joined the movement because I believe in what it stands for and is trying to accomplish. You don't have to be unemployed, lazy, or a freeloader to believe that there is great economic injustice in our country. What do you stand for?
'Get rid of them?' What exactly do you mean by this? Why don't you come down to Liberty Square or your local Occupy camp and try to 'get rid of us?'
'Get a job and pay off your own debts' Done and done. I work five days a week and pay my bills every month. Got any other baseless accusations?
And don't forget the popularity of the movement, it would be much larger if logistics allowed for it. I mean alot of working Americans who have not enjoyed the same level of growth as the top 1% over the last thirty years or so, even though they have worked just as hard. Let's face it, corporations know the jobs are not here anymore to let someone walk off and find a better one, so they can pretty much do whatever they want.
As soon as the bill reaches $700 BILLION, the cost of the bank bailout, we should reconsider the tactic. But that will take several hundred years.
I guess MSNBC hasn't figured out yet that democracy and freedom are expensive or at least comes with a financial cost?
Arrest them, clean them up a fire hose, and send them home to live in their parents basement; spoiled communist brats.
I agree. The Republicans in the Super Committee are useless!
Wakeup 2840, how is that practicing democracy by demonstrating to get your voice heard, you are considered a Communist? How do you connect democratic actions with communism?
Here's an idea, leave them alone and bill for any services utilized. The city is wasting its own money and resources. A self-made problem. It's like me slapping myself in the face over and over, then complaining that my face hurts.
I will now go out of my way to shop at Walmart just to help prove that the OWS morons are not even close to representing 99% of Americans.
I'm sure we''ll see you in a "People of Wal-Mart" email pictorial in the very near future..
Oh, they represent you all right. You're being ripped off just as much as everyone else. You're just so blinded by the blather from Fox News and Conservative Talk Radio that you refuse to see just how much poorer you are today than you were twenty years ago while the 1% are 200 times richer than they were then. Where do you think that money came from? Your pocket. And the pockets of the 99%. You can make all the cracks you like but it doesn't change the facts. Like it or not, you ARE the 99%.
That many of the paid commenters keep mentioning communism in association with ows is interesting. Look around your house and computer and tell me if you find anything made in the past 10 years that did not come from communist China! Seems like the commies are beating the capitalists at their own game.
Where's Obama??? I'm surprised he has not come out and support his occupier base. They people expect to live on handouts from others and govt and that's the way Obama likes them. Why isn't Obama coming out to make a speech, he loves talking about everything else.
lighten up on obama! He has a heavy schedule of golf coupled with party night at the Whte House. He does not have time to sup[port every inane movement.
The people in that thanksgiving line image look like they hold personal hygiene in high regard.
Bull crap. I'm an Occupy and I made $110,000 in 2009, and am retired now. More crap from the brainless right wing. Occupiers are just normal people, with jobs, families, etc. Naturally, if you're camped out, you're not a home to cook so of course you depend on others for food, etc. Are you people so brainless and brainwashed you can't see you're falling for the 1% line (for which they paid $850,000 to a P.R. firm to denigrate the Occupy people.)
Brainless and brainwashed? Only if I accept your statement as truth. Sorry but I don't know any "normal people" that crap on police cars, rape young women, vandalize property and assault innocent passer bys. Guess your version of "normal" is different than many others.
proudamericanveteran,
Get any large group together and there will be jerks who ruin it for everybody. It is human nature. Think back to the stuff the left was complaining about during the tea party rallies. They are guilty of the same intellectually bankrupt argument you are making: guilt by association. The actions of the small number of jerk do not define the majority.
Here's why it is intellectually bankrupt. How many robberies did you have in your town last year? I'd bet more than one. Would it be accurate to say everyone in your town is a thief based on the few robberies you've had? Of course not.
The cost of doing nothing about corporate control of our government is much higher. Too bad so many miss that.
You are so right!!! Yep that multimillionaire living in the Hamptons, with a summer home in Sun Valley is really affected by 75 people terrorizing the staff of a McDonalds and public defecating and masturbating in Zucotti Park. Keep up the fight my brothers the streets will flow with blood of the aristocracy. The proletarian uprising shall free the shackles of the worker. Btw.. we have chosen Josef Stalin as our new human rights councilor.
Give us a break ... please. George Soros, one of the most corrupt bankers and nazi collaborators is the organizer of this little movement. No matter what yo claim it is his goals you are serving.
proud,
George Soros was 15 at his oldest during the nazi regime. I don't buy it that he's a collaborator in any meaningful way.
It is amazing to me that people do not see what is going on....
When I was young, a long time ago, we learned about brainwashing and I thought we were too smart for that. Now I see Fox with 50/50 lies ( conservative? ) and righties repeating it over and over.
Turn on conservative radio and they repeat the same lies. Come on here, same lame lies.
I am sure I do not know the extent of the brainwashing I have....all I do is try to check the facts. When a so-called fair-balanced news? org tells me one lie, I get skeptical. When they spew more lies, the credability is gone. If Fox or limbaugh or hannitty or any of those losers say the sky is blue, I think I would have to go outside and check for myself.
The OWS group is a very diverse group, you have a cross section of most of the country there. You will have druggies, free loaders, etc. there but they still have a constitutional right to assemble and free speech. The government has no right to suppress the rights of ANY American.
I work hard 40+ hours a week and would have to travel to an occupy site or I would be there. It is about time to try to wake up everybody.
Some are so brainwashed they vote against their own interests.
The Dems are not much better but out of the two, they do represent my interests more than the GOP.
Here is hoping for a fillibuster proof Dem majority. Even the blue dogs must go.
Then, after four years, I will know for sure if they truly represent me or not. I know the GOP does not!
Let's take away the pensions and bennefits for all public employees cause, darn it, I am all about me.
They do have social security and medi-care to fall back on.......oh wait, righties want to take that away too. Sorry grandpa, you are just freeloading......go get a job. one of these whining college kids really does not need one. Take his!
Righties make me sick!
ok Freefaller, since your statement says that you check facts. Let me ask you, How would you solve the Social Security/ Medicar problem, knowing that A. IT IS YOUR MONEY B. Someone else is investing (or spending it ) how they choose, and C. How effecient are Government agencies at being cost effective money managers for your 401k (since the Social Security funds will be gone by the time most bloggers on the vine reach 65. Let alone the new 70 year age they are voting for.)
I hope the protesters can figure out who their enemy is and then do something about it.
They know who the enemy is. The objective is the dictatorship of the proletariat..............
proletariat ???????????? Hell I can't even pronounce it.
I lived through this crap in the 60's...it hasn't changed. The people even look the same. I can't wait until we get to the Kent State part.
Wow Bill....you seem to be such a good person.....much better than the occupy folks.
You sure are intelligent.
NOT!
OWS are Moochers and Free Loaders and Cost Tax Payers Millions to clean up their messes and stop there Anarchy, it is time to kick them out of American Parks and send them packing !
Good Riddance to those Creeps !
Since OWS Hates and Bashes and Trashes America and they love and want Socialistic and Communistic lifes.. Let them go live in Russia, China, North Korea, where they will be Welcomed and fit Right in and be Dog Dirt and Lackeys to those Governments !
Call your police department. Tell them to let these people rot and save some OT on the overworked PD. Bill them for services utilized. I don't complain my face hurts when I keep hitting my face.
These morons are demanding handouts from the government. At the least, the taxpayer should demand a refund of all these expenses from any handouts these losers receive. Hopefully, on balance, the taxpayers will get the better of the deal.
The real truth:
I have a small recycle operation. I make about a load a week to the recycler. Each load brings in aprox $1800.00. The girl that loads gets 25%. The driver gets 10%. Taxes, insurance, tires, repair, gas/diesel, etc, get 58%. That leaves me with 7%, or approx $126.00, per trip/week.
If I were to borrow some money and spend about ten years at it, I might be able to get 1000 of these operations going, across the land. Then I'd make $126,000 week or $6,552,000 per year.
But then an azzhole would come along and tell me I was making to much, and needed to give it to him.
This azzhole is TO GOOD to gather scrap.
Or you could go to business school for four years, become a trader at some hedge fund brokerage, and lament your $300,000/yr salary + bonuses here on newsvine. It is so much easier than working hard and borrowing money to grow a business.
Some people can run a business without a degree and a student loan and even if tumbleweed had a student loan, it's probably paid off because some people actually work hard and take care of responsibilities instead of whining and demanding that all debt be forgiven. Traders and hedgefund managers make people rich and aren't evil. They are necessary to make capitalism work but socialists like yourself want government to do this. Worked well in the USSR didn't it? How's that hope and change working?
They shouldn't have bothered with the 13 million paid to the police. There never was any trouble until the police showed up.
There is always trouble when it involves Liberals. Peacefully and Lawfully is not in their dictionary
Guess you think rape, looting and stealing is the norm for Liberals
viknat,
I suppose the segregated south, along with its lynch mobs and vigilante justice was a bunch of liberals.
viknat.. As my uncle used to say, "Wuz you der Charley?" I would bet that you get all your info from Fox.
Well there go pragmatic and louie with ad hominem attacks. That means you don't have an answer to viknats question. It's obviously all about racism or sumthin'.
viknet,
So a few very singular cases means that everyone is doing it? Just like the lie that all OWS are @!$%#ting on police cars, are druggies, or are commies?
All protests have some dark spots, even the Civil Rights protests had people that acted rashly (the Black Panthers and Malcom X supporting violent protest). The actions of a few do not invalidate the validity of the many.
The police are the problem, not liberals or Conservatives. Until you guys quit fighting that stupid battle nothing is going to change in America. So, unless you like things like they are you have to change.
The people at OCCUPY are defending your 1st amendment rights to speak, say and lie about any one you wish and take any position you want. It reminds me of the story about King Solomon, when two women came before the King with a child! During the night two women, each had a baby and one of the babies died and both women claimed the remaining child. One women told the King to cut the baby in half, the other women asked the King not to cut the baby in half but give the child to the other women. The King knew which women was the true mother. In this case America knows who the real patriot's and defenders of the U.S. Constitution and that evil things are said of those who would give their life to defend it!
I don't agree with OWS and I'm not even sure they all would agree with each other or even a major part of each other but this is the price of freedom. I'd rather pay this sort of a price than the price of the corruption that goes on in DC each day. These folks are occupying the wrong people. They need to Occupy Congress since most of our elected representatives have so much time off they hardly occupy anything. And when they do they do it poorly.
Freedom in action; it always antagonizes someone- but it also makes them think.
In America, that's a miracle- believe me, if that only took an act of Congress, we'd all be spending a lot of time thinking.
They aren't even trying- in fact, the folks holding the reigns would rather we just stupidly reelected the same sock puppets so they wouldn't have to train the next batch.
You lose your mind and your morals when you seek election- and replace them with money and masters; but the second time around, you already know how to say "Yes, boss!" to the rich.
Of course, if you've proven untrainable, or even worse, you've been incorruptible- you won't get the contributions you need to run again- and your opponent gets every dime they need to defeat you.