

First Official Statement from Occupy Wall Street Organizers - pedalpete
http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/first_official_statement_from_the_occupy_wall_street_movement/

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rick888
"They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the
farming system through monopolization."

really? REALLY?

"They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on
education, which is itself a human right."

It's sad to see that people can't take responsibility for their own actions.
Taking out a loan for a college degree is a gamble. You are not guaranteed a
job and nobody has ever told you that this would be the case.

"They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage
to cut workers’ healthcare and pay."

If I, as a software developer, protested because people on bittorrent are
outsourcing my labor (IE: downloading it for free from someone else), how
would people from this group respond? They would tell me that I'm not owed a
wage and that times are changing. My response to the above is exactly the
same.

"They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the
press."

LOLOLOLOL..sorry I'm still laughing about this one..LOLOLOL. You get more
freedom of speech in the US than anywhere else in the world. You can freely
say anything you want about any political figure and you won't get arrested.
There also isn't any firewall blocking political speech. No newspaper is
government-owned as far as I know. The funny thing is that most left-leaning
countries are all about more government control..including the press.

I could go on, but I don't want to waste any more time. It's just as I
thought: This group is mostly comprised of self-entitled brats. If they were
actually fighting for a real cause, I might be interested in taking them even
a little seriously.

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pedalpete
I think they should have stopped after the second paragraph. Though some of
their grievances are valid, others are not in the absolute control of only
corporations.

Let's not forget that these corporations could not exist if the 99% didn't
support them financially.

Starting off with the 'illegal foreclosures', this is the first I've heard of
this issue, and it makes them sound out of touch.

Have corporations perpetuated inequality and discrimination? I don't think so,
individual people within a corporation may have done that, but I don't see
that as a major issue in corporate America.

Outsourcing labor is a reality in the flattened world. The answer would be
protectionism, and everybody would complain about the costs of things. In
fact, they already do!

They have donated money to Politicians, but is that the corporations fault, or
the politicians?

Basically, I agree with their initial sentiments, but when you get into the
details, I think they still need to work on focusing on the change. If they
expect to tear down the capitalist system, I suspect the cure could be worse
than the disease.

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01PH
It is a really interesting phenomenon but attracting such a diverse crowd that
they are most likely end up protesting against each other. Sad to see. Reddit
had a great discussion about the situation and how different interest groups
are all trying to hijack the movement.

