Occupy Wall St Says 'Rolling Jubilee' Raises Enough to Abolish $6 Million in Debt

[graham4anything]

109. OK...so in effect I can back OWS now, however- this is OWS2, a new offshoot of OWS1

So can one like OWS2 not much having agreed with the tactics of OWS1?
(so maybe a new name for OWS2 would get rid of the negative connotations of OWS1

(In the same way Cindy Sheehan did a wonderful job up to the start of Katrina, and it was quite admirable.
However, the respect for her diminished greatly once Bush left Crawford for the west coast in the days after Katrina, and even furthered devalued the time after it.

So I can back OWS and their accomplishments now, forgetting about how they overstayed and overplayed the OWS Wall Street.

So they are a work in progress, can we agree on that?
You have convinced me this indeed is admirable, and they have learned and grown.

Now, let me ask you something-
I have not liked the treatment of Mike Bloomberg here. And the hatred and stereotyping of him.

Being that there are 4 different Bloomberg's-
the man himself-who has and will keep giving his money (that he earned fairly and squarely, with the help of many others) all away before he dies. (He is giving billions away to those causes, and the needy and as charity).
the mayor of NYC-which has as all positions have, needs that have to be looked at in context with the job, the law, and the powers given to the position in, and also, what is not able to be done in the context of the job
the company he runs (the news organization that is extremly far to the left of Murdoch's News Group i.e. Fox News)
and his new Super Pac for the issues he himself wants to see accomplished

Now, if you asked me, what Bloomberg has done in 2 of the four is quite the same wavelength so to say OWS is. (Though at this point Bloomberg has given many times the amount that OWS has raised.)

So why the hatred for him?
He is after all on the same side of the issues of OWS2.

One thing that has to be taken into account with regard to OWS1 is that he (and me) are NYC (though he is a Boston raised liberal democrat, now in NYC).
And those in NYC have different needs than say those who own/run Wall Street companies

You do realize how 9-11 happened in NYC?
And you do realize how many billions and billions of dollars were lost after 9-11, in NYC and the global financial markets don't you?
And that after 9-11, you just cannnot do things that were done pre-9-11.
Cops are different (and the mayor only in name runs the NYPD, everyone knows they are more powerful than the mayor and run themselves from time started).
And that NYC in the 1990s and pre-9-11 vastly improved on the late 1970s/1980s NYC, with regard to income, with regard to crime, with regard to image.
And that 9-11 took alot of that away.

So you have the Bloomberg, who was elected after the failed power grab by Rudy Giuliani,who anyone and their mother would have to admit was 100 times worse on his best day, than Bloomberg on his worst day, needing to govern in a post 2001 world/city.

And you do realize that Bloomberg is along with Al Gore, probably the #1 Green candidate ever.
(Wanting to make Times Square into a concrete beach and remove cars/trucks from polluting the air and atmosphere.
Wanting to better Americans diet (another area derided, but people seem to be missing the big picture.
Wanting to help those that cannot afford healthcare by changing the message from post-problems to wellness (the point of the 48ounce soda ban), one that is working
Wanting to rid as should be, cigarettes from the equation
And, much to my happiness, now wanting to be the Equalizer against the NRA super pac, by having an even bigger funded pac of his own.

Seems admirable to me and the majority of New York City'ers who support Barack Obama, though of course because of politics, not everyone can publicly admit it.

the election in 2004 and his treatment supposedly of OWS1 were necessitated by other factors that any mayor in these times would have done. As Mayor he was acting under the law, and was more than generous with OWS1 than most others would have been.
(I suspect Rudy would have on day one removed them.)
The OWS1 people should have on their own retreated much earlier to plan for the future.
By the time of the problems(which for the most part were not major problems anyhow),they had used up the vast majority of their good will capital and were a nuisance and no longer accomplishing.

The stereotyping of Wall Street as a whole, something NYC itself needs to survive as they count on that money from those workers/companies for their own way to pay the bills needed that cities need- after all, Wall Street pays rent and taxes.
That is how government is funded and works.
After 9-11, with billions lost for a good decade, wanting to punish 100s of thousands because of 10 CEO's who may or may not be good people, when the same 9 to 5 people were the actual ones who died at the WTC
(Canter-Fitzgerald was housed in the WTC, major Wall Street group and lost more people in the WTC than any other company thanks to the faulty directions given from the Fire Department that morning).
I don't think for one second that anyone in OWS1 remembered that the 9 to 5 workers, the 99% of Wall Street were just regular average Joes and Josephines, getting a normal NYC salary to pay their bills in the 2nd most expensive area to live in the nation.
And probably a great number of those inconvienced were akin to being the parents of the youngsters protesting (the rebels without a cause as most of them, honestly, did not know what it was they were protesting. A % knew, but a great % also were just there from the soundbytes.)

So it turns me off when I see Mike Bloomberg being called the same ugly things that the NRA folks on the gun thread call him, when in fact, Mike and OWS2 are working for the same goals.
Even if they don't see it.

Much like the Civil Rights protesters were Blacks and Jews marching together, strategizing together, not working apart, which made the movement even that much broader.
(Same like Dr. King and LBJ working together.)

SO I can admire OWS2 even if I was not a fan of OWS1.

Bloomberg the person, and his new super pac, are doing (in major $$$ amounts) what Abbie Hoffman and others have done.
You might not agree on all his issues, but you have to admit he is making headway too.

And as climate change makes NYC the new Florida for bad storms, there will be more and more destruction and devastation.

And btw, I am a strong union person, and you have to remember that the Mayor of NYC has their own issues with unions that a personal person would not have. There are rules, and there is only a limited amount of funds available.
(Much of which is provided by the tax money from those "Wall street" firms/workers that are so hated.

It all works hand in hand.

But I give OWS2 credit.
I just hope minorities are getting their fair share from this. Being that their education funding is worse than any other group in NYC (and the nation).

I wonder, if you or anyone in OWS had a billion dollars, would you give away every single last penny before you die?(like Mike Bloomberg is doing, and a select few other mega rich people?
Not all of them should be lumped together as bad people. Money is not evil, unless the causes with the money used are bad.

It's like seeing a needy person in the Bowery asking for money. I would rather give a sealed package of food to that person. and/or if I had the funds, find out the cause behind the person being on the street, and attempt to find a solution for them and their families, be it homelessness, be it alchohol, drugs, etc.

Again, as Bob Geldof found out, two big events did not solve anything, and in fact, led to major charity fatigue for a few years after, thereby making matters worse, not better.

as this post took me more than 65 minutes to compose, and is stream of conscious style topic wise, feel free to pick just parts of it to respond to if you care to respond at all.
I think I will post this on the gun thread topics too as the vast majority of this is similiar to as I am anti-gun to their pro-gun(much like Bloomberg is anti-gun and hated by the NRA gun folks, as the NRA pays millions to have professional publicists posting short concise retorts to anyone who disagrees with them, something I don't have the luxury of having (a press agent that is).

Are you OWS fans so sure you want to be so similar in your absolutes to the NRA groupies/disciples? It would seem the two are polar worlds apart. One from the left, one from the right, with nothing in between.
(If I had to guess, I would suggest most NRA fans outside of NYC think like Hank Williams Jr. negatively sings about NYC,(in his deriding but great song "A country boy can survive" and would eagerly love to bring their guns into NYC and rid the city of any/all protesters,along with any and all minorities including the one Mike Bloomberg himself is that stereotyping people lump him and the bankers as.)