Teh Protest Thread :)

[Ephraim]

I've been trying to avoid getting into arguments over the Occupy Wall Street protests, but been seeing so much "down with the corporate overlords" crap on Facebook over the last week that I feel the need to vent a little bit. Occupy Wall-Street is among the most retarded things I've ever seen. To me, it is a gigantic far-left circle jerk based around self-entitlement, which most attendees are using as an excuse to rage against something.

 

I’ve heard people describing Occupy Wall Street as a left-wing version of the Tea Party, but I don’t think that is accurate. Sure, they are both protests with somewhat amorphous goals, but that is where the similarities end. The Tea Party seems to have multiple goals, but the overarching theme is a reduction in federal spending and a desire for the government to concentrate on debt reduction. Meanwhile, I’m not all that sure what Occupy Wall Street actually wants. Their goals seem to include everything from prosecuting CEOs to bringing down capitalism to saving the environment. The closest thing I can see to an overall goal is that they wish to eliminate America’s capitalistic system and replace it with something more akin to European-style socialism, complete with cradle-to-grave entitlements and guaranteed jobs for everyone. In other words: one group wants to tear down the system in order to remake it as something it has never been before, while the other simply wishes to reset the system to a prior state (the spending practices of roughly ten-fifteen years ago).

 

Another major difference is the general attitude. While there have been countless allegations of racism and radicalism against the Tea Party, nothing conclusive has ever been proven. There are a few bad apples among them (like in any group), but generally, things have been peaceful. In the case of Occupy Wall Street, there have been hundreds of arrests and lots of property damage. That does not indicate a few bad apples, so much as a sizable collection of crazies. Unless I am mistaken, there has not been a recorded case of a Tea Partier *edited*ting on a police car. So, yeah. Consider that.

 

I think I'm done for now.

[MasterP]

I like Herman Cain's views on the "protestors".

 

This has nothing to do with wall street, CEOs, or corruption. In fact, they don't seem to have any coherent message or complaint. Typically when that's the case there's a well-established political faction behind it. In virtually every country where there's been random rioting and protests lately there was a political force driving it. Be it Muslim extremist groups in Egypt and Libya, the Labour party in England, or the Democrat party here in the US.

 

I guess the one consolation is that we won't be getting the London-style rioting. Over here it's legal to shoot someone in the face when they come at you with a baseball bat

[newrayz]

You have it all wrong with the Egyptian example. The general population as a whole was fed up with the whole regime. Coptic christians were just as present as the muslims in that case. I won't deny the muslim brotherhood had a hand in the protests i'm sure, but they weren't the political faction behind that movement. the whole country was fed up, muslims and christians.

Edited October 11, 2011 by newrayz

[MasterP]

And now the Christians are fleeing the country en-mass. Just yesterday Egyptian army APCs rammed through a crowd of Christian protestors, killing any that couldn't get out of the way. A number of churches have been destroyed by "ultraconservative Islamists" and they routinely break into the homes of Christians and kill all who live there. If they were "fed up" with Mubarak I can't imagine how they feel about the replacement regime...

 

It doesn't really matter who was protesting so much as who started it. People don't just go out and protest, someone has to plan and organize it. You think thousands of people just woke up on the same day and said to themselves "let's go protest today?" As idealistic as that might be, that's not how it works. The Muslim Brotherhood formed the snowball and pushed it down the hill. With the incumbent administration gone they became the dominant political faction in the country, all they needed was an "outraged" populace to toss a relatively peaceful (for the region) dictatorship out of the country and then they could roll in and take over. Within 15 years the country will be back under Sharia Law and they'll be wishing they hadn't tossed Mubarak out, that's assuming they ever get out from under military dictatorship. Elections were supposed to happen last month and, well, didn't. What did happen was in August 15 governors were appointed, most from the military. Yeah that country's screwed and they have no one to blame but themselves.

 

Almost the exact same can be said for Libya. Some random army/police just fired into a peaceful and unarmed crowd of protestors? Planes bombed the crowds? Yeah ok. You'll notice that out of all the videos posted online there wasn't a single one that had any of that. In 40 years the history books will read that the Muslim Brotherhood, or someone else like them, fired into that crowd. They knew all it would take to ignite that powderkeg was a few people dead in the streets and lo and behold people got shot. Coincidence? Maybe if Egypt hadn't just happened I'd be inclined to think so but after the extremely well played political manuevers that were done there I seriously doubt it.

[newrayz]

And now the Christians are fleeing the country en-mass. Just yesterday Egyptian army APCs rammed through a crowd of Christian protestors, killing any that couldn't get out of the way. A number of churches have been destroyed by "ultraconservative Islamists" and they routinely break into the homes of Christians and kill all who live there. If they were "fed up" with Mubarak I can't imagine how they feel about the replacement regime...

 

As you already know the media has blown all of this way out of proportion. The muslim and christian relationship in Egypt was already in conflict way before these protests started. They put that off to the side to get rid of Mubarak and now are back at it again. I agree with you, now that Mubarak's regime is gone the christians in that country are having a harder time. The way you describe it though, it's as if there is a genocide and exodus going on (6 million people are christian in Cairo alone). My dad lives over there, he works with the coptic christians, lives in a neighborhood full of them, hell his driver is a christian. From what I've heard from him, it's not as dramatic as it seems. Christians and muslims are both protesting in droves now because of the army's abuse of power. The army knew what they were doing from the start, with Mubarak out the way they can control.

 

i dont know about libya, but the egyptian protests were initial started by a facebook post by a google marketing manager. Now unless he is somehow tied to the muslim brotherhood, what else you got?

Edited October 11, 2011 by newrayz

[Lemm]

Yeah, I think it's pretty pointless when they refuse to submit any demands or official purpose. It's unorganized ignorance.

[MasterP]

From what I've heard from him, it's not as dramatic as it seems.

In Cairo I'm sure it's not. 60-75% of the Christians in Egypt live there and their population size is too large to oppress in any meaningful way. In the southern part of the country, where they're a significant minority almost everywhere, is where I'm talking about.

 

i dont know about libya, but the egyptian protests were initial started by a facebook post by a google marketing manager. Now unless he is somehow tied to the muslim brotherhood, what else you got?

You mean the facebook account he shared with AbdulRahman Mansour, member of the Muslim Brotherhood and avid Hamas supporter?

[Ephraim]

Guys, back on topic.

[Lemm]

lol at this:

 

The photo of " RAW SEWER " is a plant. Do you think that people are that STUPID ??? This tactic has been used by media to control viewers for many years. It was used during the Viet Nam protest , where a plant started riots to show how stupid " hippies " were. Give us a break. we are NOT THAT STUPID !!! ---- HAY Mike , pull down your pants now , turn your head ,so no one recognizes you .... CLICK ... Wow .... this IS going to make the protest look BAD... HA HA HA ---- Can't wait to post it ... All the STUPID people WILL Believe it. Great for FOX VOMIT to post it....

 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2046586/Occupy-Wall-Street-Shocking-photos-protester-defecating-POLICE-CAR.html#ixzz1aUnYPUMP

[MasterP]

Do you think that people are that STUPID ???

Yes. Anyone dumb enough to believe that privately controlled banks are the cause of any of our financial woes ARE that stupid. That's pretty much everyone out there, so...

[MasterP]

Btw, this is interesting...

 

http://img.ibtimes.com/www/articles/20111010/228475_occupy-wall-street-protests-protestors-paid-hired-jobs-volunteer-chicago-hispanic.htm

[Ephraim]

Hee hee.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsJPKMvWDmY

[MasterP]

Yeah...

 

From the crowd out there now you'd never think the movement was started by libertarians and Ron Paul supporters. Then again, they ran all of those off weeks ago.

[Lemm]

I work in uptown charlotte and I've yet to see a protester.. I see them on the news complaining about bathrooms..

[MajorMajorMajor]

I am in full support of Occupy Wall Street. It keeps *edited*tards busy while I apply for the jobs they vacate.

 

 

I'm also in support of Occupy Vaginas and Occupy Endzones.

[Ephraim]

This is probably stupid, so feel free to ignore it. Since the WCU Gaming forums have essentially been dead lately, I've been posting a lot more on this other forum. It requires a membership to view, otherwise I would link to it. Somebody started a political thread. It was here that encountered a supporter of OWS and had the fiercest political argument of my life. It's been kind of hard to get out of my mind, so I decided to share the argument with you lovely people (all two of you). I transcribed the debate to a Word file and tried to save as many of the links as I could. Basically, I'm just venting. Enjoy.

Occupy.docx

[MasterP]

TLDR; just skimmed a bit

 

Attempting to argue with an OWS supporter is a lesson in futility. A wall typically has a higher IQ. It appears as though you got hooked into arguing by a troll supporter, let this be a lesson. You can't win arguments against people who think Greece went belly up because of a lack of tax revenue and too many tax dodgers and not because they allowed their citizens to retire before 60 with full medical coverage and pensions higher than their working salaries.

 

Speaking of which, take a good look because we'll be there soon. We're currently 15.2 trillion in debt with a 1.3 trillion per year deficit and have 117.2 trillion in unfunded liabilities. It's to the point where if you increased taxes to 100%, seized every penny from every bank, retirement, and corporate account in America, and seized every home and asset from every American and corporation we'd still come up 40 trillion short of our outstanding liabilities.

 

I guess social security and medicare are worth it. At least, they *edited* well better be <_>