Topic: Bill Whittle on Occupiers

[fastfire]

 

He hit the nail on the head!



Afterburner with Bill Whittle: Three and a Half Days

[neby98]

I agree to a point, the up and coming generation has had lots of things handed to them. And it's hard on the them to hear that their future has already been bought and sold years ago in the form of government debt. Now that it's time for them to get out in the work force they are realizing that the hope of retirement for them is gone........... They were sold a bill of goods as well. They were told go to college, work your way up the ladder and you'll get part of the good life. Now they're realizing all they can hope for is to work to support all the entitlements government has already made, and eat mac and cheese for the next decade. They realize all these nice things given to them by their parents, they themselves will not be able to afford within the foreseeable future.

I'm guessing they're looking at that and thinking it's the evil corporations fault for them not being able to make enough to pay taxes, gas, and then rent let alone if they get sick or are forced to buy health insurance.



Looking at a number of friends who have recently graduated from college, and ones that started in the work force right out of high school, I'd say that there are a rather large number of people I know personally who are working 2 jobs, or can't find work including walmart and mcdonalds. I know one family right off the bat I can think of where my friend got out of the air force and has had a hard time finding work. He and his wife are both working part time jobs and together have to ask for help from family to get by.

[luvmy45]

Not only did he hit it on the head, he drove it home.

There are problems in America, but the rich people are not the problem. They saw a need, created a product/service that we (the occupiers) were willing to pay, and now were mad at them for??? oh yeah, being smarter than I was. Grow up people.

I know when I was growing up, my parents focus on retirement wasn't how much they would get from the government, it was how much they could save so they could retire.

I hope I'm as smart as my parents.

[DCR]

My take is that this guy is a smug, partisan hack who preaches to the choir in pre-packaged, owner-approved sermons filled with false stereotypes aimed at the useful idiots in his target audience.

His little 1% sermon made me retch - surely he can't be so stupid as to think people don't already know how veggies and meat get to the table.

He completely mischaracterized the aims and goals of the protesters, re-framing them to the specifications of the big business and "I've got mine so too bad for you" crowds.

I know a handful of the folks on Wall Street personally.  They're in their 40's and 50's.  One grew up right here in I-dee-ho, hunting and fishing by day, drinking beer by night.  None of them earned less than a bachelor's degree.  One's an anesthesiologist.  Each one of them smarter than this twerp by at least a factor of 5.  They aren't dirty little hippies with no real world experience or part of the "entitlement" class - they've been through and out of school, and working in the real world for over 20 years.  They're disgusted with corporate and Wall Street manipulation of government, manipulation to their benefit, and to the detriment of the working guy.

I think this smarmy little asshole's head would spin and explode if he actually went out and learned the facts...facts that don't fit his smug little world view...instead of parroting the approved Faux News party line.

[luvmy45]

I have tried to understand the Occupy movement, but every thing I have read/listened to/seen from them is comical at best, and none of them make any sense, or even agree with each other about what they are about, other than your too rich, give it back.

Surely your not saying that we should be redistributing wealth, taking it from the "filthy" rich and giving it to the poor people?

I mean, there is always corruption in a system, that is inevitable, but the majority is not corrupt. Wall street is a straw person, someone that we have invented to blame our problems on. I for one do not buy that someone that works in New York can choose if I succeed or not in this life.

Sure, Bill Whittle plays to the stereotypes that the right creates to frame the debate, what do you think the occupiers are doing? The difference is, the occupiers can't seem to put together a cohesive sentence that clearly states what they believe or don't believe.

Let me ask this, what is the greed and corruption that they are preaching about for the 1%? Are they talking about Apple being the largest computer company in the world? A company that Steve Jobs as the leader, pulled all philanthropic giving as a corporation, that charges a premium for all it's products and services, and give virtually nothing back to the world?

Or are they talking about the actors in Hollywood that stand next to them in solidarity that get paid millions of dollars to do nothing more than play dress up on a movie screen? And ban plasitc bags in San Francisco that puts hundreds of people out of work?

I just don't get what they want to solve? Corruption, it's not on Wall Street, they are in the wrong place.

[eddymunster]

The US government is the catalyst in this mess. Capitalism only works when the greedy are allowed to crap-out. The only thing worse than an immoral ceo/banker is a dirty fucking hippie.

[neby98]

Eddy, I agree, and I think that many of the 99% folks would agree if it was put into terms they could understand. You look at people on the left and people on the right and they hardly speak the same language when it comes to politics. The problem we have is that we're looking for differences not similarities. If the 99% and the tea party found common ground.... then we'd get somewhere. I've seen video of the 99% folks talking about bail outs and other things, how come they're getting written off as dirty hippies instead of allies in taking political action to change the screwed up government?

 I think if we sat down and had a civil discussion where we put America first and agreed as Americans that we needed to move forward in these different respects, that would be the day.

The more we discount our fellow citizens and look for division then we go further down the rabbit hole.

[AR10ER]

Solid Evidence That Occupy Wall Street Is A Communist Movement Run By Socialists Who Wish To Bring Down The Free Enterprise System

Is Occupy Wall Street a communist movement?  Is it being run by socialists who wish to bring down the free enterprise system?  As you will see in this article, the answer to both questions is yes.  Of course many of the people participating in these protests want nothing to do with either socialism or communism.  Many of the protesters are simply angry at the big banks or they just want something to be done about the economy.  But the truth is that when you take a close look at the "organizers", the literature and the stated goals of this movement, you see socialism and communism everywhere.  As our economic system crumbles, an increasing number of Americans are coming out of the woodwork and are proudly declaring that they are socialists or communists.  An increasing number of Americans truly believe that the free enterprise system needs to be brought down and that the answer to our problems is to fully embrace socialism and/or communism.  Sadly, this puts Occupy Wall Street in direct opposition to what our founding fathers intended.

If you want to know what these protests are all about, just go down and visit one of them.  The following is what Charles Gasparino of the New York Post found when he recently took a trip down to Zuccotti Park....

    It’s not an overstatement to describe Zuccotti Park as New York’s Marxist epicenter. Flags with the iconic face of the Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara are everywhere; the only American flag I saw was hanging upside down. The “occupiers” openly refer to each other as “comrade,” and just about every piece of literature on offer (free or for sale) advocated socialism in the Marxist tradition as a cure-all for the inequalities of the American economic system.

Wow.

Yes, there are millions upon millions of Americans that are upset with the big banks and with the rampant corruption down on Wall Street.

But is "socialism in the Marxist tradition" the answer to all of our problems?

Of course not.

During his visit, Gasparino also picked up some very interesting literature....

    Maybe the worse-spent dollar I have ever spent in my life was on a propaganda broadsheet titled “Justice,” which advocates “Struggle, Solidarity, Socialism.” On the front page of the newspaper-like document, beneath the headline “Capitalism: System Failure,” was a tease for a story on the economy and how “influential business economist Nouriel Roubini” recently said how “Karl Marx had it right. At some point, capitalism can destroy itself.”

But it is not just in New York where you find this sort of thing.

For example, a stunning report from a visitor to Occupy Charlotte was recently posted on the Economic Policy Journal blog....

    An organizer began reading a script in the way that a minister reads wedding vows, with pauses for the audience to repeat each phrase. The first order of business was an agreement that organizing committee names would be drawn from a hat. The inner circle were known to each other in advance. I could not see the hat, or the people drawing the names, so I can't say exactly what happened, but I can conjecture.

    In any case, organizers were selected from the hat. The very next order of business, I kid you not, was "All socialists will huddle at such-and-such area."

    Silence. The rest of us are wondering, OK, are they going to suggest any other groups? Next announcement: organize in small groups any way you want.

    The self-identified socialists huddle. By some miraculous coincidence, the anointed leaders are all socialists.

Much more here: http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/solid-evidence-that-occupy-wall-street-is-a-communist-movement-run-by-socialists-who-wish-to-bring-down-the-free-enterprise-system

[eddymunster]

@neby98

How do you have a civilized conversation with people who defecate on cop cars? How about fornicating in public or smoking dope? Most of these adult children have never held a job or raised a family? Their actions speak loud enough to know that I would not have a sit down with the so called 99%. Honor and integrity mean more to me than a free ride.

[DCR]

Eddy, I think you've swallowed the 1% and the posted video twerp's bait...if you think the majority of the protesters fit your description (Faux News, Rush, Hannity and other bots want you to view the protesters that way), you've been sold a bill of goods.  The crazies are just that - the fringe - just like the racists, tin-foil-hatters, and conspiracy theorists are the fringe of the Tea Party.  My group of friends there are all highly-educated (real fields - remember I mentioned the anesthesiologist?), hard-working (largely self-employed), intelligent, reasonable people who would run intellectual circles around the video twerp, and would thump and turn in anyone they saw crapping on a police car (not that it isn't entirely deserved...have you seen the videos of the white-shirted inspectors violently attacking peaceful protesters on the sidewalk without provocation?  I have...expand your mind).

Try not to paint with a broad brush -

[luvmy45]

DCR... you are talking about the Occupy people right? What you are describing sounds like some great people that would have the same ideals and beliefs that we do, and your saying they are part of the Occupy movement? Really?

I'm missing something here

[FSTDoc]

DCR, I would suggest that your friends are on the fringe.

[eddymunster]

My reality is different from yours. Maybe I come from a different generation, hell I'm only 40. Maybe growing up in a conservative state around conservative people and values makes me not see the magic happening at Wall St and the like. The geniuses running our country are "highly educated" as well, are they right? I don't condone crony capitalism or fascism. I do believe in a free America and less government. These protesters want a European style of governing ie, cradle to grave entitlements. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend. This shit will sort itself out soon enough and I know where I stand.

[neby98]

I followed your link, and I think you're probably right. We should write these folks off.

This was an interesting link from today's paper:


http://www.idahostatesman.com/2011/10/19/1844689/protest-gets-nampa-man-jailed.html

[eddymunster]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/17/liberalisms-unwashed-last-stand/



WOLF: Liberalism’s unwashed last stand
The hippie-critical new faces of the Democratic Party


By Dr. Milton R. Wolf

-

The Washington Times

Monday, October 17, 2011





Liberalism is dying before our eyes, not with a whimper or a bang, but with a grand unbathed and so apropos whine-fest. The central tenets of statism are in free-fall, and its benefi- ciaries, namely those who live off the fruits of other people’s labor, are in a panic for one last round of government handouts before they completely bankrupt the nation.

Consider for a moment the tortured psyche of today’s American liberal. The 2008 election promised that “the smartest guy ever to become president” would “fundamentally transform the United States of America” into some liberal utopia. Wars would end. Seas would calm. And Barack Obama would spread the wealth. Instead, all he spread was misery as he unleashed the twin terrors of redistributionist economics and government-controlled health care. Hope and change became despair and more of the same.

The failed Obama presidency, however, is just the beginning. The most liberal president in history, with an assist from his predecessor, has unmasked the structural flaws of liberalism itself. All told, nearly $5 trillion of government bailouts and stimulus spending between the two presidents failed to rescue our economy. Their $5 trillion bought the most expensive lesson in human history: Government cannot create wealth, and an overtaxed and overregulated private sector can’t, either.

Keynesian economics, as it has evolved, is the debunked belief that government can stimulate, direct, regulate and bail you into prosperity. This failed religion is now so thoroughly disproved that it simply cannot survive the collapse of the Obama presidency, except perhaps on the calcified pages of the New York Times. After all, if $5 trillion isn’t a large enough stimulus, what is? And if the smartest guy ever to become president can’t manage liberalism, who can?

Enter the disillusioned “Occupy Wall Street” protesters. Suddenly the 1970s “Me Generation” seems altruistic, and the ‘60s hippies seem hygienic. What a perfect name for their movement: “Occupy” - to take up space. If there’s one thing these overcredentialed but undereducated people excel at, it’s taking up space. They occupy university campuses for years without learning skills that can actually contribute to our society’s economy. They demand to occupy a child’s place on their parents’ health insurance plan and then can’t understand why everyone’s premiums have risen further out of reach. They occupy a place in their mothers’ basements and can’t believe their fathers have become little Eichmanns in a capitalist world. Heck, at this point, I’d be happy if they’d just occupy a shower once in a while.

Somewhere between the occupiers’ curbside sex and public defecation, many of them have begun listing their demands. Brace yourself. Truth is more hilarious than fiction. Years ago, the parody news website the Onion ran a fictitious (but spot-on) point-counterpoint piece. Point: “America’s homeless want a hand up, not a handout.” Counterpoint: “I want handouts! Hey, speak for yourself, buddy. I want handouts! I want other people’s money, I want it in my pocket, and I don’t want to work for it!” Rarely in real life, however, is truth laid so bare - until now. The public sex performers have demands: They want handouts.

Among the occupiers’ demands is a “living wage” of $20 per hour that should be bestowed whether or not the recipient chooses to work. Another demand: Forgive all student loan debt. Imagine this thought process: A hapless student goes $75,000 into debt pursuing a worthless degree in community organizing appreciation and then blames not the university that swindled him out of his money but instead, the bank that gave him a loan. Other demands include free single-payer socialized health care, free college education, open borders and trillions more in spending for infrastructure and the environment.

More than 800 arrests later, the occupiers predictably have become disruptive and even violent. One wishes they opposed violence with the same fervor as they do bathing. Evidently, years of practice denying their mothers access to clean their filthy rooms has finally paid off as the occupiers successfully prevented New York City workers from cleaning their encampment in Zuccotti Park. How did these upstanding citizens celebrate their victory? By throwing bags of garbage at police.

Where’s Mayor Richard Daley when you need him? Maybe Nurse Bloomberg would start cracking skulls if we could somehow convince him that Occupy Wall Street protesters are cooking with trans fats and salting their food. Then again, if this is the face of liberalism, let’s not. Let’s hope these occupiers stay around until Election Day.

The whole thing would be comical but for the fact that, from the president on down, Democrats are openly embracing the “I want handouts!” coalition. At the nexus of the liberal universe, these refugees of their own failed statism are agitating for yet more state control, and the ruling class is eager to oblige them.

“God bless them for their spontaneity,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi gushed. “It’s young, it’s spontaneous and it’s focused. And it’s going to be effective.” Yeah, it’s going to be effective, all right. The Occupy Wall Street crowd, while defecating on police cars and demanding giveaways, has effectively become the face of the modern-day liberal Democratic Party.

Dr. Milton R. Wolf , a Washington Times columnist, is a board-certified diagnostic radiologist and President Obama’s cousin. He blogs at miltonwolf.com.

[DCR]

We're not so far apart, folks...my friends are there protesting the crony capitalism and corrupt corporate lobbying...as are the majority of the protesters.  Problem is, the whackos moved in, and hacks like the video twerp, Faux News, Rush/Hannity/Coulter and this self appointed expert Doctor (shoulda stuck to medicine...he's long on rhetoric, short on facts and reasoning) seized on only the fringe, and are trying to define the entire Occupy protesters as these whackos.

My friends, and the real, original Occupy Wall Street protesters, are more like the Tea Party - they want to end the crony capitalism, and support a constitutional amendment to prohibit corporate contribution in any way to campaigns and lobbying, in order to get around the stupid Supreme Court decision that effectively gave corporations unlimited campaign contribution and lobbying abilities.  They strongly opposed the Wall Street/Bank/Automaker bailouts (but have grudgingly acknowledged their necessity), like many conservatives and Tea Party members.  Their issue was not "living wage" nonsense, or any of the crap the crazies have brought; they didn't come to support the aims of Occupy - they brought their own pet causes and, being attention-whores, have caught the media's eye...especially right-wing media, which, blindly supportive of anything business, wants to vilify the protests and protesters any way it can.

My real issue, I guess, is that because I know real people, the original people of Occupy Wall Street, and their aims, I get a little huffy when some blowhard like the video twerp, or this idiot doctor (MD does not automatically equal intelligence, especially in any area outside that field!), or the TV and radio guys and gals (which bothers me because I love O'Reilly, and he's so freaking wrong on this one), try to paint them all as dirty, uneducated (or with basket-weaving degrees), inexperienced, marxist hippies, when I know better, my buttocks get righteously chapped with indignation.

Especially when those guys howled with anger when the Tea Party was broadly characterized by the media as racists, Birchers, nazis, skinheads, camo-wearing-with-buttcrack-showing-fat-rednecks, bible-beating, undereducated conspiracy theorists, because those were the ones who carried signs, chanted loudest, and got filmed and interviewed at some of the rallies.  I knew better then, just as I do now, because my friends were, and are, involved in both.

I guess that'd make ALL of my friends on the fringe...man, am I lucky - ordinary people are so boring!

[fj40mojo]

If there is one thing we should all get out of the OWS movement it's that the conservative right is not alone in our dissatisfaction. We are not the only people who recognize that we are witnessing the demise of the American Dream. It's slipping away from us. Why? Because we are letting it. The clock is ticking down folks.

[High Wall]

DCR, I see it very much the same as you do.  The image of both movements is being manipulated by those who have a vested interest in keeping the status quo. 

[charlie76]

The movement may has started with good intentions but just like the teaparty stuff it has been perverted by those who want to stay in power.

[RGinIdaho]

DCR, I see it very much the same as you do.  The image of both movements is being manipulated by those who have a vested interest in keeping the status quo. 

 

[Leanwolf]

DCR - " ... (MD does not automatically equal intelligence, especially in any area outside that field!)..."

Nor does being "highly educated" such as your "highly educated" friends who are in the OSW protests, necessarily establish any common sense, nor "equal intelligence outside their fields" in those individuals.

Over the years, I've known quite a few "highly educated" men and women who didn't have enough common sense to come in out of the rain, nor even knew to put on a hat.  They did, however, have high degrees out the gombie.  (I only have a B.A., so am not "highly educated.")

Your vituperative disparagement of "the twerp," Whittle, and the "doctor," Wolf, who in your superior judgement, should just stick to reading Xrays, is extremely indicative of one who is far more want to indict the banks, Wall Street denizens, and the [evil] corporations, than the real culprits in this mess, the rotten, corrupt, politicians in D.C., and their bureaucrats. 

It was and has been for many, many years, the Democrats in the main -- wallowing sanctimoniously, incessantly in "political correctness" -- who have thrown my, your, our tax money at every idiotic, useless, and damaging "feel good cause" they could think of to buy themselves more votes.  No matter that these feed-at-the-taxpayers'-trough, pernicious politicians had no more idea of the Law of Unintended Consequences, than a pig's knowledge of how to build a wrist watch.  Nor did they care. 

It was Democrats Frank and Dodd, and Clinton and Reno, who forced the banks to give out unsecured, worthless loans to millions of people who could never pay the mortgages on their homes... but who cares?? The Democrats could feeeeeeel sooooo gooooood!

So it all crashed.  Who do the "highly educated" OWS protesters blame?? That's easy.  Geo. Bush and the "evil" banks, corporations and Wall Street, notwithstanding that Bush tried to get the moronic program stopped but the  far left Democrats refused to stop the wasting of hundreds of billions of our dollars.  They just continued to throw our tax dollars down a bottomless rat hole.   Not a word about the far left politicians who've brought this mess down on our heads like an anvil dropped from the sky.

As for lobbyists, there is no law that demands a  politician take money from a corporate lobbyist.  But politicians do anyway, don't they?  Laughing all the way to bank, too.

Anyone who has no more common sense and knowledge of history than to think that if lobbyists are outlawed by the politicians, there will be no more lobbyists, just in a different form and name, is as naive as a five year old child.

I noticed your harsh and insulting criticism of Limbaugh, Hanity, etc., of the conservative radio medium, blatantly excluded any criticism of the far left commentators and administraters of the rest of the media.  Nothing about the extreme left bias of those at ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, PBS, NPR, and the newspapers and magazines controlled by the lovers of "the Great Collective."

Of course, the "highly educated" with ultra-superior intellect," would never criticise those who know what's best for us mere "boring, ordinary" worker peasants, huh?

L.W.

[eddymunster]

My thoughts as well Leanwolf. Talk about painting with a broad brush DCR, you make an awful lot of assumptions about me because I disagree with your assessment of the situation.

Now to stir the proverbial pot. I present OWS in our beloved state of kalifornia:           http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2011/10/24/is-occupy-oakland-as-bad-as-they-say/

[High Wall]

That was awesome.  A flashback to the '60s.  I kept thinking "neutron bomb" while reading that for some reason.

[RGinIdaho]

As for lobbyists, there is no law that demands a  politician take money from a corporate lobbyist.  But politicians do anyway, don't they?

Ah, the crux of the problem, I think that the Tea folks and Occupy Wallstreet folks have some common ground if either side could get their heads out of their...

[charlie76]

Ah, the crux of the problem, I think that the Tea folks and Occupy Wallstreet folks have some common ground if either side could get their heads out of their...

........collective, smelly, festering corn holes.