Occupy this thread

[Andy Wilson]

Any thoughts from the 99% ?

[Steve Balog]

G/f and I just donated 30L of water to our local large city's (Chicago) version of the protests. The g/f (she's a self-proclaimed "socialist", and I feel weird being to the right of her both economically and socially somehow) and I also are sending a box of useful stuff to New York City's protests.

I can't occupy anything as of right now, as it's a bit of a drive and a substantial parking fee to do more than deposit water to Chicago.

[Ian Volante]

What did I miss?

[Lesley Hines]

What did I miss?

A long fat one with Andy. Still, looks like he enjoyed it

[Andy Wilson]

What did I miss?

This?

[Ian Volante]

Oh right. That'll show em.

Edit: Aye, it's great that people are actually giving a shit and trying to do something about it. I just wish there was some chance of it actually making a difference.

[Andy Wilson]

Yeah, I'm having difficulty in seeing what it might actually achieve. I was actually kind of hoping someone with more of an understanding might jump on this thread. I'm all for the principle though and the initial heavy handed treatment from the NYPD in the face of peaceful protest showed that they were anxious not to allow it to take off. Also, it wasn't even in the news for the first week. Someone posted their photos on the web to be shared and that's how I first found out about it, after 5 or 6 days of it. I was pretty shocked that it hadn't been a bigger news story. It wasn't until the initial police brutality became a story in itself that the event seemed to start to receive coverage.

I am right behind them though. I will attend Saturday's solidarity march in Cork and, well, they don't seem to be going anywhere, do they!

[Steve Balog]

This is a relatively new movement, so it's really that most people are just not happy with the way things have been the last few years. Major corporations in America have tons of taxpayer money when they had bad years (~2008), but normal people don't get this "insurance". A lot of major corporations have used ridiculous loopholes to avoid paying any taxes at all on profits, and a lot of the 1% can also use these loopholes to pay a lower percent of their personal income in taxes than the middle class. There's people my age, protesting because the job market for us recent college grads/students are just not there. There's people in their 50s, 60s, and 70s protesting over the reforms that our right wing party wanted to make to the safety net for older people (basically, completely obliterating it for the advantage of the super rich). There's other people with other motives of all ages.

The problem with new movements like this, though, is that there's such a diverse population and goal set that it is disorganised right now. I've heard one person involved in planning explain it as "trying to herd PCP-addled cats". Of course, the media has been trained to trying to have everyone in the movement dismissed as lunatic hippies or whathaveyou, but they are of course sensationalists.

That said, I myself am a bit skeptical as to what this will accomplish. I mean, it's something more than I've seen from anyone in the last few years, which is really nice, but are a bunch of people protesting really going to change anything when the pocketbooks of lobbyists have been the real wheels of change (for the worse) in this country for years now?

Also, it appears the police are actually raiding protests in some of the cities in what appears to be a coordinated effort. This is pretty recent, like last night, so I'm hazy as to the details of what happened here.

[Andy Wilson]

Someone sadly died on site in San Diego in an accident, falling off some scaffold I believe. Perhaps that's been a factor in the Police's renewed efforts to break them up. Cheers for that little summary.

[Andy Wilson]

There's a Cork encampment now, has been for over a week. Have been dropping by every now and again and offering minimal support but plenty of good cheer. Shit is cold in all fairness. Tis no weather for camping. In other news: