Feudalism got us where we are today.
So did Capitalism. And communism. And theocracies. And Hitler.
Wait, what were we talking about?
You know what really got us all where we are today? Time.
That is a picture OF three Veterans out of how many? You can count me in as a Veteran who supports the protests right there along with hundreds of others as well.
Edit https://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/10/11/occupy-boston-police-veterans-beatings/
“Some historians and political theorists believe that the many ways the term feudalism has been used has deprived it of specific meaning, leading them to reject it as a useful concept for understanding society.”
Nice try though.
The most truthful of all comments. But, no one at this point in time should be concerned where we came from and/or how we got here. And besides, that kind of deviates from the topic of this thread.
You know what they say about people who are serious on the internet?
I guess one problem we have is how elections are being run. The only way to get into congress is with a shit load of campaign donations, and once your guy gets into office they serve the interests of their campaign contributors instead of the general public. I know it’s cliche, but the War on Drugs is a really good example of this. Totally disastrous and privately acknowledged as thus by most politicians, but you won’t be seeing any serious efforts by the federal government anytime soon to remedy the situation, because as soon as you take a stance like that your time in office will be short-lived.
In-depth research on my part tells me that this is all about a bunch of jobless, lazy hippies wanting shit for free because they’re too busy smoking weed and singing songs in forests. No time to work!
So, jobs are available?
Of course, people just don’t want to do them and then blame the Mexicans/Turks/Africans/Pakis/WhateverForeignCulture for stealing all of their jobs.
And can you prove that?
Also, how knowledgeable are you, as a Belgian, on the US job market and economy?
No, but I still believe it.
So Gladstone over on Cracked wrote an article about OWS, and it’s done a better job of educating me about the protest than any of the protesters have.
A lot of thats pretty accurate, although he’s approaching it from the angle of someone who agrees with them, so doesn’t really see quite how simplistic their aims are. The second biggest thing many of them are doing to hurt their own cause (after opening their mouths) is not having a reasonable alternative.
Basically what it boils down to right now is tax the rich. Thats it. I realize taxing the rich may help, but it is decidedly not the single solution to the problem. It certainly won’t prevent the budget cuts that Washington is currently taking on, anyone claiming that clearly doesn’t understand simple math.
Constantly espousing that solution makes the protestors, to my mind, look naive, not really understanding the situation and just asking on unthinking impulse, which, to be honest, most of them are.
I think the problem is that people want the protestors to have a single cause/single goal in mind and when someone is individually asked to come up with one, they don’t give the full depth and breadth of what OWS is about. Tax the rich is one thing, but they also want things like holding people responsible for their actions (which goes to government) and ending or scaling back on the things that have caused this economic turmoil in the first place. And other things.
The “tax the rich” is just one small facet of OWS. And, unfortunately, it gets the most attention from the media. Because it’s short and simple. But, again, OWS’s goals are neither short nor simple.
As I’ve said before, OWS has no cohesive goals in the first place. The entire thing is a collective concept, and thus only simple bits of message can be pulled from it, and the only really major one is taxing the rich. There is some vague stuff about regulation, but regulation is so complex OWS can’t even start to get a cohesive position on it before they are in way over their collective heads. It all comes back to having no real leadership.
Maybe that’s their goal, not wanting the few to have all control over the many. Corporations can pretty much decide how things are done by funding politicians’ campaigns.
There isn’t a “cohesive message” because, well, it’s hard to get a cohesive message when the base being represented is so large.
Yeah, and thats the main problem with them that the article missed.
“Oh no, the government is being heavily influenced by corporations! Let’s get the government to do stop it!”
If the people band together, they can have more influence than the corporations. Remember, it’s ultimately the people that vote for the politicians, not the corporations.