For those who say OWS needs to define their message

[OffWithTheirHeads]

Over the last thirty years Bush's base, the haves and have mores have declared war on every American who does not belong to their club. Starting with the Air Traffic Controllers, they have been crushing unions to drive down wages and are now going after the public service unions to destroy them too. They have destroyed our entire manufacturing base and shipped all of our jobs to India and Communist China and anyplace else where they can exploit labor for subsistence wages and increase their profits.
They have raised taxes on the working people by eliminating things like the ability to deduct the interest on credit card debt and raising the cap on Social Security on everyone who makes less than $107,000.00 a year while giving tax break after tax break to themselves to the point where some of the biggest corporations on earth pay no taxes at all.
They have mad a college education so expensive that only the very rich or the very indebted can afford it and once you graduate, unless your daddy is rich and your mother is good looking, you cant find a job anyway.
They have closed the mental hospitals, throwing the least among us out into the street to fend for themselves.
They have started war after pointless,endless war, creating armies of underemployed, unemployed, physically and mentally fucked up vets that they have no intention of taking care of. Wars that have drained our treasury while our infrastructure falls apart beneath our very feet.
They have wiped out the equity in our homes and foreclosed on them in numbers never before seen.
They have stolen our pensions.
They have taken federal bailouts in amounts that most of us can't even comprehend and used it to pay themselves obscene bonuses and instead of using it to save jobs or rescue the economy they've moved it offshore and increased credit costs and banking fees in amounts that would make loan sharks blush.
Even as I write this they are trying to destroy the FDA, FCC, USDA, OSHA.FHA,FEC , AFDC, WIC and everything else that might serve to protect us from them.
They are polluting and destroying our planet in the name of the God of profit at a rate that, if not checked soon, will lead to our extinction.
And that's just off the top of my head.
You wonder what the message is?

What part of THAT WILL NOT FIT ON A FUCKING BUMPER STICKER don't you understand?

[TheWraith]

1. I believe "define their message" means "have a goal."

Nobody can seem to explain what specific reform goals or new laws are the point, beyond expressing general anger and dissatisfaction.

[emcguffie]

2. How about prosecuting those bankers who committed crimes? n/t

[TheWraith]

3. Okay, for what crimes?

Lest we forget, the primary reason this happened was deregulation and the legalization of unsafe practices.

[truedelphi]

18. Actually, anyone with a big enough wallet and some will power

Could impeach Tim Geithner for his lying to Congress on more than one occassion.

When an appointed official lies to Congress - it is an impeachable offense.

[TheWraith]

24. Lying how, exactly?

"Shit made up on the internet" doesn't count.

[emcguffie]

34. Robosigning. All that fraud with the mortgages changing hands.

You can't tell me that's not illegal. Hiring people to sign papers that they have no authority to sign?

[Gin]

4. I agree that one message would be better than being all over

the board....but the roots are deepening and a coherent message will be the outgrowth...

the average folks are mad as hell and we just aren't going to take it anymore......

we have reached what I call critical mass....laugh if you want MSM,wall street and politicians...the joke will be on you!

[vets74]

28. OWS SPEAKER will address DU members Saturday at 11 AM, Broadway & Liberty Street -- Y'all come !!

Southeast corner. At the Big Cube on the sidewalk at Brown Brothers Harriman.

-- Arrangements made for this event today with the OWS organizers.

-- Easily 250 DU attendees can be addressed at this site.

-- As many as 1,000 DU attendees can be incorporated directly into OWS plans for peaceful protest early Saturday afternoon.

We will have an invitation posted using the main occupy_wall_street account.

Check the General Discussion thread for statements and bulletins.

[banned from Kos]

5. The risk for Democrats is this is turned into an ANTI-CORPORATION movement

then it will fail.

Americans like their corporations. Wall St? Not so much.

[BulletproofLandshark]

21. Really? Whose stock is getting traded up on Wall Street?

Who are the people lining Congress' pockets? Anyone loyal to a corporation that does dirt is a sucker.

[Proud Public Servant]

6. The Communist Manifesto wouldn't fit on a bumper sticker either

But it still had a message, clear goals, and even a soundbite ("Workers of the World Unite!"). OWS has a soundbite ("We are the 99%") but could use a little work on the rest.

[Jim Warren]

13. False premise

but nice try equating the Marx and Engels dialectic of 1848 with a modern event exercising freedom of speech.

[U4ikLefty]

7. The haters here on DU need something simple to attack & show "concern" over

They don't have it and therefore are attacking a ghost.

It frustrates the trolls & cheerleaders.

[moondust]

8. The 1% wants to know

how much it's going to cost them to make those fucking hippies go away!

[HughBeaumont]

11. Now THAT'S a bumper sticker, albeit a long one.

[CJCRANE]

9. My message is:

we don't want to pay for the banks' mistakes.

The banks received trillions. The people got nothing. Now we're left with the bill.

[TheWraith]

12. "The banks received trillions"? First off, no, they didn't.

The banks didn't receive trillions.

Second, they were obligated to pay back what they did get--and the federal government made a profit on that, actually.

Want to try that again?

[CJCRANE]

14. Globally, they did if you take into account quantitive easing

emergency loans and various other sleights of hand.

[TheWraith]

16. Care to post proof?

Reputable sources, please.

[CJCRANE]

22. So there haven't been bailouts

quantitive easing and secret loans by the Fed annd central banks around the world?

That isn't in doubt.

If you want to argue over the exact amount that's fair enough but it doesn't negate the main point: taxpayers the world over provided the safety net for the banks' mistakes.

[TheWraith]

25. You're trying to change the topic. Prove there have been trillions in secret giveaways.

Paid back loans don't count.

[Luminous Animal]

17. From Forbes...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/traceygreenstein/2011/09/20/the-feds-16-trillion-bailouts-under-reported/

The Fed's $16 Trillion Bailouts Under-reported

"The audit of the Fed’s emergency lending programs was scarcely reported by mainstream media – albeit the results are undoubtedly newsworthy. It is the first audit of the Fed in United States history since its beginnings in 1913. The findings verify that over $16 trillion was allocated to corporations and banks internationally, purportedly for “financial assistance” during and after the 2008 fiscal crisis."

[TheWraith]

19. Do you imagine that the fed actually has $16 trillion dollars laying around?

That's more than the annual GDP of the United States. The word that you're missing, and which Forbes is ignoring to make a juicier story, is LENDING. A big part of what the Fed does is very short term loans (often overnight), mostly to large banks. A few million dollars at a time, in loans hundreds or even thousands of times a week, adds up very fast, so you can say that they "lent $16 trillion dollars to big banks." But the reality of it is that that amount of money was never involved, nor was it just given away. The idea that you could disappear $16 trillion dollars without anyone noticing is laughable.

[truedelphi]

20. Are you really unaware of the many fine OP's up the week that

The audit of the Federal Reserve that Bernie Sanders insisted upon, as watered down as it ended up being, found that

NINE TRILLIONS OF U.S. DOLLARS WERE HANDED OVER

BY BEN BERNANKE TO THE TOP FINANCIAL FIRMS ??

And then, if you admit you know that, the next thing you will want to go on record saying is: those Nine Trillions of dollars have been paid back. (Sort of the "Your Honor, I don't have a dog," and then "the One I have has very old, worn down teeth."

This money has NOT BEEN really paid back. The Federal Reserve offered up American dollars, represented by Bernanke's creation of digital accounts, off the funds available to the Federal Reserve, and then those firms receiving this plunder paid us back with the same worthless invetment papers that had gotten the Amerian economy into a log jam to beign with.

[TheWraith]

27. I'm aware that you apparently don't understand what you're referring to.

Get back to me when you can provide credible proof.

[truedelphi]

32. Well Bloomberg news good enough for you? They obtained thousands of

Pages of doucments through the FOIA

And then, a very nice piece on this issue jsut came out today


http://www.nationofchange.org/first-federal-reserve-audit-reveals-trillions-secret-bailouts-1314633089

The first-ever audit of the U.S. Federal Reserve has revealed 16 trillion dollars in secret bank bailouts and has raised more questions about the quasi-private agency’s opaque operations.

"This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you’re-on-your-own individualism for everyone else," U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont, said in a statement.

The majority of loans were issues by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY).
(my comment here: And that might allow for another impeachment of Tim Geithner - he was really amanipulator above and beyond what laws would allow. He could not only be retroactively impeached for his holding the office of Head of The fed of NY state at that time, he very well might RICO'ed into a quite non-flattering outfit of stripes or bright orange.)

back to the article:

<snip>The GAO report noted on Sep. 19, 2008, William Dudley, who is now the President of the FRBNY, was granted a waiver to let him keep investments in AIG and General Electric, while at the same time the Federal Reserve granted bailout funds to the same two companies.

"No one who works for a firm receiving direct financial assistance from the Fed should be allowed to sit on the Fed’s board of directors or be employed by the Fed," Sanders said.

[monmouth]

10. "Enough is Enough!"..n/t

[EFerrari]

30. When they say cut back, we say fight back.

[Kahuna]

15. You need a bumper sticker instead of a 50 point screed. nt

[spanone]

23. it's a way the media is being dismissive of the movement. ..as if it matters less

it's the meme

when they all say it, you know it's been faxed, emailed, tweeted, phoned, skyped...

[fascisthunter]

26. ignore them

[vanbean]

29. The part that I don't understand is the font size. If you get my drift.

[saras]

31. Any philosophy that will fit in a nutshell - belongs there.

To me, the essential message seems to be "Thinking in soundbites IS the problem. It is NO PART of the solution."

After this, everything else follows.

[chillspike]

33. It all adds up to one conclusion:

Competition is a danger to the survival of the competitors.