By Jim Stanford on October 22, 2011
Demonstrators brave drizzling rain Oct. 16 to stand for equality.
Activists returned to the Town Square last weekend for a second round of protest in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street. The turnout was small, although the group continues to grow and a demonstration is planned for Saturday at the Capitol in Cheyenne.
Foster Friess, the conservative investor turned philanthropist and Tea Party activist, waded into the fray last week, saying protesters should take a lesson from the late Apple chief Steve Jobs. Friess circulated a post written by Joe Lindsley, one of several prolific bloggers he has gathered around his Campfire.
“Why don’t you follow the example of the man who created your iPhones, pull yourself together, and try to succeed, instead of screaming like two year olds for more cookies from the nanny state?” Lindsley wrote. (Lindsley, it should be noted, is the former small-town newspaper editor who quit after allegedly being spied on by his boss, Fox News overlord Roger Ailes.)
Never mind the co-opting of Jobs, who while he was alive railed against Fox News as a “destructive” force in America. Never mind that several of the more vocal participants in Jackson Hole are business owners, while another served in the Army and earned enough money through the G.I. Bill to pay for college.
These types of dismissive critiques miss the fact that citizens care enough, especially in a community known for apathy, to get involved in their government. It takes guts, in a small town, to stand on a street corner with a sign advertising your political views.
I attended the Oct. 16 protest on the Town Square and came away inspired. Rather than talking about the day’s outdoor activities or NFL games, citizens engaged one another over financial reform and income inequality.
Instead of dismissing such protests, we should encourage more of them. Our country was founded on demonstrations of dissent, and it’s exhilarating to participate. Don’t stop at Wall Street: Occupy the upcoming Comp Plan meetings, or Occupy the town council chambers the next time a pivotal issue is at hand.
For all their differences, the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street share a common disillusionment with government. Perhaps the two movements can find common ground on ideas for reform. Maybe follow the lead of the Coffee Party and its call to eliminate money from politics.
Pete Muldoon, who helped spearhead the Occupy gatherings in Jackson, has championed exactly that, saying the 1 Percent own Congress, the president, Supreme Court, both political parties and most media. Imagine if Tea Party and Occupy protesters upset about politicians being bought could join together to enact real campaign finance reform. Let’s see if Friess, regularly a max contributor to right-wing candidates, would agree.
Posted under Democratic Party, Economy, Politics, Republican Party
Foster Friess’s Wall Street is nothing more than a betting parlor that makes profits off of the hard work of others. And quite often that betting parlor is rigged to favor the house at the expense of everyone else.
The good news is that Foster has some things correct. If you want to be successful, go out and make it on your own. Don’t depend upon the marketplace to compensate you with a fair wage or life. The business community should take Foster’s advice too.
Too many are on the dole or pass the cost of doing business onto other taxpayers (those who hire visa workers) or demand subsidies and direct payments from the government (like Boeing, Farmers, etc)
No doubt Foster sees these OWS folks as the crazy ones. Here’s what Steve had to say about troublemakers:
“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things, they push the human race forward. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”
Steve Jobs
College Dropout
Here’s why the Tea Party will make progress and the equally annoying OWS brats won’t: the TP fights Washington (a favorite enemy) and they don’t stand around occupying anything, doing nothing, and making themselves easy targets.
Unless you can amass crowds in the 100,000 range, nobody is going to take drum circles, marchers, or occupiers seriously.
Even when half a million immigrants marched on downtown Los Angeles none took them seriously because they had no plan B, no ability to affect change because they feared to take the action necessary to do so (stop working to show their economic power) or they lacked the ability to take action (vote). They also lacked a clear moral position since many had broken the law to be here.
Individuals in the civil rights movement took actions that threatened their lives and livelihoods. They boycotted, marched, and voted successfully. They also had the power of moral position: equality under the law for all.
OWS needs a new methodology to address their concerns.
The Tea Party keeps it simple by focusing on politicians.
I can’t understand the refrain from the Tea Partiers that amounts to Boehner’s “Get a job” statement not long after asking Obama where the jobs are. Occupy protesters are not asking for handouts, they are simply trying to point out that the people who write the rules by which we are all supposed to live–the rules that ensure that those who pay a “payroll tax” pay a significantly higher rate of taxes than those who pay “income tax”;the rules that make it so people who can least afford higher interest rates on loans are paying the most for their homes and cars; the rules that put less money in the hands of everyday consumers (whose spending is absolutely critical to the recovery of our economy)–are written by the minions of the riches 1% of our society. I suppose that because many Tea Partiers are part of that 1% (or are deluded to believe that they either may become part of that group, or even more deluded to believe that a member of that 1% may give them a job), then it makes some sense. But not to the betterment of us all.
The reason the Tea Party has a clear message is because they are bought and paid for. It is well documented. OWS is going the same direction.
Paul Krugman recently had a nice quote summing up Friess and his ilk:”…it’s part of a broader syndrome, in which wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.”
Let them eat cake, Foster.
The average working stiff who works hard & plays by the rules while getting shafted by Washington & Wall Street has a right to be ticked off. Some of these folks align themselves with the Tea Party and some with the other group, but both are fed up with the status quo that individuals like Foster seek to profit from.
It’s slightly ironic that someone associated with Foster would attack the “nanny state”. Foster probably used nannies to raise all his kids and profited from the corporate nanny state.
These are the people Foster Freiss attacks:
“”OAKLAND — A 24-year old Marine Corps corporal and Iraqi war veteran remained in critical condition at Highland Hospital on Wednesday night with head wounds and brain swelling after being injured in Tuesday’s Occupy Oakland confrontation.
Friends say he was hit in the head with a police projectile during the protest in downtown Oakland late Tuesday night.”"
Skip said it well when referring to the “get a job” commentators who then turn around and complain that jobs aren’t being created fast enough.
It’s like rich folks complaining about carrying all of the tax burden when they take all the profits from the productivity of others and leave others with their crumbs.
This is the real World:
“An average-looking worker is likely to make $140,000 more over a lifetime than an ugly worker” (See link)
Foster thinks that everybody has the same opportunities as him. They don’t.
Prejudice is alive and well in America, as are all sorts of other factors that contribute to one’s success or lack thereof. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of who you know, not how hard you work.
Skip, where do you get the idea that people who pay FICA pay higher rates than people who pay income tax?
People who pay income tax also pay FICA in addition to income tax, at much higher rates than the approx 7% FICA rate.
People who pay only FICA taxes usually get a refund of ‘income’ tax via the earned income tax credit, funded by the people who paid both FICA and income taxes.
So money is transferred from income tax payers to FICA payers.
Before asking the 1% to pay more, let’s first ask the 47% who pay no income tax to pay something as well. Even if they pay only 2% rate… they would at least have some skin in the game and make a connection between government programs and expenditures and their paycheck.
I think a tax increase on the wealthy could get done if this additional tax on non income tax payers at much lower rate was part of the deal.
“Rather than raise taxes on individuals, we should “lower the amount of government spending the wealthy now receive.”
The “true sources of inequity in this country,” he continued, are policies “that enriche the powerful, and empty promises that betray the powerless.”
The real class warfare that threatens us is “a class of bureaucrats and connected crony capitalists trying to rise above the rest of us, call the shots, rig the rules, and preserve their place atop society.”
By PEGGY NOONAN of the WSJ with quotes from Paul Ryan
None of this is new. A certain aristocratic class deems itself above reproach. They become increasingly more outrageous in their bullying and sense of entitlement and exploitation. The masses, duly shat upon long enough, leverage their superior numbers to change the trend. Hilarity ensues. Guillotines are deployed.
Also not new: mass hysteria and popular delusions. For example, we already have plenty of history, plenty of data, to show how you build and sustain a wide-reaching economy, how you provide top-notch government services, how you create The American Century.
We also have data and history on how you trash giant economies.
The mass delusion belongs to the right wing, the Fox News Party, which argues for an ideology that is proven time and again to trash the joint. There are buckets of numbers showing just that. You also see goofy departures from reality, such as not realizing that the reason 47% (or whatever) do not pay income tax is because they have, in practical terms, no real income.
Those who claim to not understand the Occupy movement lack (or pretend to lack) even a cursory knowledge of history. Therefore their opinion of Occupy is kneejerk, laughable, dipshit, worthless. Ignore them. It’s become fashionable in their ranks to be against education in general, anyway.
Occupy is about teaching everyone how our aristocratic overlords gamed the system, how they bought Congress, how the national press is embedded cozily in their ranks, and how they delude the fear’n'ignorance crowd to do their bidding.
The Real threat to America is not Socialism or Communism But Laissez faire Capitalism…Somebody will always get Greedy.
Hey F.F.!
Philantrophy is no substitute for social justice!
Oh dear! I just said the S word.Does that makes me
a lazy good for nothing “red”?
From a retired speculator on financial markets for 22 years.
There has been a systematic transfer of wealth from the middle class to the wealthy over the last thirty years ever since Reagan took office. Trade deals have moved the blue collar middle class manufacturing jobs overseas, while unions have been weakened by law and propaganda. Does anybody think that the rich are somehow working harder for their wealth? There aren’t enough hours in a day to account for the shift in income and property.
i think wild bill clinton passed NAFTA.
A Visit To Wall Street, follow link.
While Clinton no doubt signed off, its important to know (from wikipedia)….
“Following diplomatic negotiations dating back to 1986 among the three nations, the leaders met in San Antonio, Texas, on December 17, 1992, to sign NAFTA. U.S. President George H. W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Carlos Salinas, each responsible for spearheading and promoting the agreement, ceremonially signed it. The agreement then needed to be ratified by each nation’s legislative or parliamentary branch.”