New York's "Tahrir Square".

[John F]

Nobody's "manufacturing" the Occupy Wall Street and sister demonstrations in the US, and the movement does not support any candidates for office. The analogy with the Tea Party is false. In a way, I wish it were true - Democrats could use some of that passion in the coming election.

Politicians who agree with the protesters' aims will naturally associate themselves with the movement. One of the things politicians do is find out where the parade is headed and try to get out in front of it. Mitt Romney is doing just that on the Republican side. Interestingly, the President hasn't done so, but I expect he'll be questioned about it at his next press conference.

[lennygoran]

> the President hasn't done so, but I expect he'll be questioned about it at his next press conference<

I heard him on the news:


"President Obama on Thursday called the "Occupy Wall Street" protests a reflection of a "broad-based frustration about how our financial system works" and pledged to continue fighting to protect American consumers.

The president, speaking at a press conference, said he had heard about and seen television reports on the recent protests on Wall Street, and noted that "I think it expresses the frustrations that the American people feel."

"We had the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression - huge collateral damage throughout the country, all across main street. And yet, you are still seeing some of the same folks who acted irresponsibly trying to crack down on abusive practices that got us in the situation in the first place," Mr. Obama told reporters. "I think people are frustrated."

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162- ... 03544.html

Regards, Len

[John F]

Ah so - he held a press conference while I wasn't looking. Thanks for the summary.

President Obama hasn't associated himself with the demonstrators, let alone gone out to meet with them. Instead he's pointed out that they are protesting many of the same circumstances that he's been fighting against. Judicious as ever, and smart too. When the demonstrations end and the protesters go home, they may be potential volunteers for his reelection campaign.

[Agnes Selby]

Where would Obama's campaign be without the hefty financial
donations of the very people the crowd is demonstrating against?

Who else could sit down with the President for dinner and pay, do tell, I can't remember anymore?!

Associating himself with the scum will not serve him well.

[jbuck919]

Where would Obama's campaign be without the hefty financial
donations of the very people the crowd is demonstrating against?

Who else could sit down with the President for dinner and pay, do tell, I can't remember anymore?!

Warren Buffett. David Geffen. George Soros. The list does go on.

Associating himself with the scum will not serve him well.

Why Agnes, you've been holding out on us. We had no idea that you were one of the respectable ultra-rich. (Now those scholarships your progeny had to American universities, should we.... Well, no, I'm sure the statute of limitations has expired.)

[Agnes Selby]

Where would Obama's campaign be without the hefty financial
donations of the very people the crowd is demonstrating against?

Who else could sit down with the President for dinner and pay, do tell, I can't remember anymore?!

Warren Buffett. David Geffen. George Soros. The list does go on.

Associating himself with the scum will not serve him well.

Why Agnes, you've been holding out on us. We had no idea that you were one of the respectable ultra-rich. (Now those scholarships your progeny had to American universities, should we.... Well, no, I'm sure the statute of limitations has expired.)

Wow!!! I did not know I was rich either! But I do feel RICH, John, because of those
scholarships my kids earned both in Australia and America. And it continues!
Nicholas has earned a full scholarship to study Medicine at Sydney University which makes
it easier for his parents. He was on sholarship right through high school at Sydney
Grammar. Anna is on scholarship at her high school, and guess what, John?
They have all WORKED for this honour and continue to do so.

Yes, I do feel very rich!

When I say "scum", I see those youngster in your "Tahrir Square" setting an example
to youngsters all over the "civilised" world. Obama's philosophy on social justice
is not helping it, however, do those kids in your "Tahrir Square" have an alternative
to Capitalism? They are 100 years too late as Socialism/ Communism has failed Russia, Europe
and they are all struggling to survive. As for the Sydney demonstrators today, with
unemployment figures at 5% no wonder they are hiding their faces in masks
so that their employers do not make them a part of the 5% unemployed.

When the demonstrators come up with plausible solutions they will gain my respect.

And don't forget, riches are relative to how you feel about yourself. It is rarely
counted in money.

[RebLem]

Where would Obama's campaign be without the hefty financial
donations of the very people the crowd is demonstrating against?

Who else could sit down with the President for dinner and pay, do tell, I can't remember anymore?!

Warren Buffett. David Geffen. George Soros. The list does go on.

Associating himself with the scum will not serve him well.

Why Agnes, you've been holding out on us. We had no idea that you were one of the respectable ultra-rich. (Now those scholarships your progeny had to American universities, should we.... Well, no, I'm sure the statute of limitations has expired.)

Wow!!! I did not know I was rich either. But I do feel RICH, John, because of those
scholarships my kids earned both in Australia and America. And it continues!
Nicholas has earned a full scholarship to study Medicine at Sydney University which makes
it easier for his parents. He was on sholarship right through high school at Sydney
Grammar. Anna is on scholarship at her high school, and guess what, John?
They have all WORKED for this honour.

Yes, I do feel very rich.

When I say "scum", I see those youngster in your "Tahrir Square" setting an example
to youngsters all over the "civilised" world. Obama's philosophy on social justice
is not helping it, however, do those kids in your "Tahrir Square" have an alternative
to Capitalism? They are 100 years late as Socialism/ Communism has failed Russia, Europe
and they are all struggling to survive.

I do not wish that on the USA or on Australia.

Few of the demonstrators are seeking an alternative to capitalism. I associate myself with them, and I certainly do not seek an alternative to capitalism. But capitalism needs to be regulated far better than it is at the moment. Some of the bankers who got us into this need to be prosecuted. We need a constitutional amendment to say corporations are not persons. No entity that you can't put in jail for a term of years for wrongdoing should be a legal person. We need lots of other reforms, too.

I do have one bit if advice to the demonstrators: Abandon the chant "The people united will never be defeated." I confess it sets my teeth on edge. It is old and hoary, and smells of 60's mold. And besides, the people are seldom united and usually defeated. I abandoned going to demonstrations a few years ago because I simply did not want to be associated with that sentence. I suspect there are many others like me.

[lennygoran]

>Associating himself with the scum will not serve him well.<

Isn't this a bit strong. Don't get me wrong--I'd like to see the park eventually back to normal but within that crowd of protestors there must be many different kinds of people--scum seems like a very big generalization? Regards, Len

[lennygoran]

>When the demonstrators come up with plausible solutions they will gain my respect.<

Same way I feel about the Tea Party! Maybe the best solution is just 9-9-9! Regards, Len

[RebLem]

>When the demonstrators come up with plausible solutions they will gain my respect.<

Same way I feel about the Tea Party! Maybe the best solution is just 9-9-9! Regards, Len

When our revolution started, we didn't have much of an alternative solution in mind. The Articles of Confederation proved to be unworkable. Our soldiers often didn't get paid, and desertion was a constant problem. In 1782, only the eloquence of George Washington kept his troops from marching on Philadelphia and forcing the issue. If they had done that, our democracy might well have died in its infancy. That incident, in Newburgh, NY, was, in my opinion, George Washington's greatest service to his country.

[lennygoran]

>That incident, in Newburgh, NY, was, in my opinion, George Washington's greatest service to his country.<

I thought it was all the places he slept! Regards, Len [on the move]

[diegobueno]

I think by now the protesters have made their point. People know that a lot of folks are angry at how the financial institutions got away with wrecking the economy, and a lot of people around the country have responded with their own protests. Now it's time to go home and organize. The longer the protesters stay, the more the immature kids among their ranks are going to do stupid things and turn the focus of attention away from Wall Street and towards their own misdeeds.

[jbuck919]

>That incident, in Newburgh, NY, was, in my opinion, George Washington's greatest service to his country.<

I thought it was all the places he slept!

He did that there too.

[lennygoran]

>He did that there too.<

Nice to know Newburgh has that going for it--it's a city in terrible shape--okay they're making some progress over by the water front. Regards, Len

[jbuck919]

I think by now the protesters have made their point. People know that a lot of folks are angry at how the financial institutions got away with wrecking the economy, and a lot of people around the country have responded with their own protests. Now it's time to go home and organize. The longer the protesters stay, the more the immature kids among their ranks are going to do stupid things and turn the focus of attention away from Wall Street and towards their own misdeeds.

I don't want an unruly element to come to prominence in this movement, but the worst thing that could happen would be for them all to go home thinking they've made their point (not to mention that this is exactly what the people they are trying to discomfit want to happen). Winter will probably put a damper on the demonstrations, but I hope it will be temporary. OWS will have made its point when it materially influences the 2012 election in the direction away from impending disaster, and that won't be before the end of this month, or this year.

[RebLem]

Seven Snappy Comebacks For Those Lame Anti-"Occupy" Talking Points

Total gibberish.

I wish those know-nothing "occupiers" would get the heck out of, and stop despoiling, pretty little Zuccotti Park - a place I always have loved from my days working downtown - and also want them out of my way when I walk through to meet ex-colleagues at the Wall St area lunch clubs. What a nuisance!

I imagine they, eventually, will find another "cause" to fill their otherwise unproductive day.

The above is just another one of those statements which I have, on multiple occasions, described as Pure Assertions. "Pure" because they are unsullied by any association, even tangetial, with anything remotely resembling fact or evidence. To dismiss a well reasoned and long commentary with two simple and inaccurate words shows nothing so much as the writer's prejudices. And you have a proprietary feeling about public places which is revelatory of an unjustified and disquieting arrogance. You present no evidence that any of the occupiers are know-nothings. Certainly, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Steiglitz is not a know-nothing. I will agree with one implication of your statement; if you have the feeling that you are the enemy of the demonstrators, I can assure you that you are right.

[Febnyc]

Who cares how you describe what I "assert?"

And you're damn right - I do have, if you will, a "proprietary feeling" since that square is, as you state, a public place - and I cannot, as a card-carrying member of the public, enjoy it. I cannot walk in it or even get near it because a ragtag bunch of vagrants has "occupied" it. Considering this situation - that these people now have overrun and trampled across the park (and are despoiling it to their pleasure and costing the city god-knows-how-much in police pay, clean-up costs, etc.) - considering this situation I would venture to say it is the protesters who have the proprietary feeling and, in fact, presently are the proprietors of Zuccotti Park. Wouldn't you agree?

What a shame. If I didn't have more important things to do I think I, too, would start a picket line to occupy - to occupy what? - to the unemployment line? - to the local Starbucks or any place where there is a WiFi access for them to network or play video games? Hmmm....it is to wonder.

[jbuck919]

Who cares how you describe what I "assert?"

And you're damn right - I do have, if you will, a "proprietary feeling" since that square is, as you state, a public place - and I cannot, as a card-carrying member of the public, enjoy it. I cannot walk in it or even get near it because a ragtag bunch of vagrants has "occupied" it. Considering this situation - that these people now have overrun and trampled across the park (and are despoiling it to their pleasure and costing the city god-knows-how-much in police pay, clean-up costs, etc.) - considering this situation I would venture to say it is the protesters who have the proprietary feeling and, in fact, presently are the proprietors of Zuccotti Park. Wouldn't you agree?

I originally posted a smart response, but perhaps it is time to address this directly. Obviously you disapprove of the disruption caused by the demonstrations, and if I had to cope with them on a daily basis as well, I probably wouldn't like that aspect of it either. But this is the recourse of desperate people--not a fringe, but mainstream people--who feel powerless to move the political system to do something it needs to do. If you disagree with that assessment, then the movement is a nuisance, but if you agree with it, as I do, then this is the only recourse we now have to move a government that is doing nothing to relieve a national emergency when there is a clear course of action it could and should be taking. When it gets to the point where public protest is the only option, people are going to be inconvenienced and made uncomfortable. That is the point.

[lennygoran]

>They belong in Central Park, where there's a lot more space for them.<

No way--leave my beloved Central Park alone--bad enough they allow the speeding bikers in there--maybe send them to Grant Park in Chicago--they know how to handle these matters! Regards, Len [quick sprint away]

[Febnyc]

I originally posted a smart response, but perhaps it is time to address this directly. Obviously you disapprove of the disruption caused by the demonstrations, and if I had to cope with them on a daily basis as well, I probably wouldn't like that aspect of it either. But this is the recourse of desperate people--not a fringe, but mainstream people--who feel powerless to move the political system to do something it needs to do. If you disagree with that assessment, then the movement is a nuisance, but if you agree with it, as I do, then this is the only recourse we now have to move a government that is doing nothing to relieve a national emergency when there is a clear course of action it could and should be taking. When it gets to the point where public protest is the only option, people are going to be inconvenienced and made uncomfortable. That is the point.

Assuming that public protest is the "only option" then your point, of course, is valid.

But I neither can agree nor disagree with the movement since I have no idea what are its goals. And, therefore, I cannot determine if there are any other approaches - although I am sure the ballot box is one way to work towards whatever "reform" these people are seeking. I understand it is an expression of frustration and anger and, if you will, desperation. Beyond that I know nothing except that no clear program - no specific end - has been developed, or so it appears to me.

[RebLem]

If I didn't have more important things to do I think I, too, would start a picket line to occupy - to occupy what? - to the unemployment line? - to the local Starbucks or any place where there is a WiFi access for them to network or play video games? Hmmm....it is to wonder.

If you would picket an unemployment line, then you are simply an Enemy of the People, no other way to put it.

I am not sure, but I think few of the protesters are at Starbucks as you have to buy things to be there, and few of the protesters have the money to do so. Unless, of course, Howard Schultz is allowing them to use Starbucks to build goodwill and because he agrees with some of them. Would you, as a conservative, oppose his right to use his business property as he sees fit? Hmmm?

Assuming that public protest is the "only option" then your point, of course, is valid.

But I neither can agree nor disagree with the movement since I have no idea what are its goals. And, therefore, I cannot determine if there are any other approaches - although I am sure the ballot box is one way to work towards whatever "reform" these people are seeking. I understand it is an expression of frustration and anger and, if you will, desperation. Beyond that I know nothing except that no clear program - no specific end - has been developed, or so it appears to me.

Ah, at last, a valid point. If you were in the habit of watching MSNBC, which I doubt, you would know that Ed Schultz has already made this criticism. Alone among progressives, he is lukewarm on the protests for the reasons you cite here. I do think it is incumbent on anyone who demonstrates to state what it is that would get him to stop demonstrating. As for me, that would include a few prosecutions of bankers who caused this crisis. It would include getting started on a constitutional amendment stating that corporations are not persons under the law because no entity which cannot be imprisoned for a term of years for wrongdoing should be considered a person. If it is not subject to the social sanctions that a living being with rights is subject to, it does not have all of those rights. OTOH, to say it has no rights at all seems extreme as well, so its rights should be delineated. I am not sure what I would include in those rights; this is a fit subject for further debate. It might include other demands as well, another fit subject for discussion here and elsewhere.

[RebLem]

Protesters Debate What Demands, if Any, to Make

By MEREDITH HOFFMAN | New York Times | October 16, 2011

In a quiet corner across the street from Zuccotti Park, a cluster of 25 solemn-faced protesters struggled one night to give Occupy Wall Street what critics have found to be most lacking.

“We absolutely need demands,” said Shawn Redden, 35, an earnest history teacher in the group. “Like Frederick Douglass said, ‘Power concedes nothing without a demand.’ ”

The influence and staying power of Occupy Wall Street are undeniable: similar movements have sprouted around the world, as the original group enters its fifth week in the financial district. Yet a frequent criticism of the protesters has been the absence of specific policy demands.

Mr. Redden and other demonstrators formed the Demands Working Group about a week and a half ago, hoping to identify specific actions they would formally ask local and federal governments to adopt. But the very nature of Occupy Wall Street has made that task difficult, in New York and elsewhere.

Although Occupy Seattle has a running tally of votes on its Web site — 395 votes to “nationalize the Federal Reserve,” 138 for “universal education” and 245 to “end corporate personhood,” for example — Mike Hines, a member of the group, said the list would soon be removed because the provisions had not been clearly explained and because some people were not capable of voting online.

“It feels like we’re all in a similar boat,” Mr. Hines said of other Occupy movements. “We all want to include as many voices as possible.”

In New York, the demands committee held a two-hour open forum last Monday, coming up with two major categories: jobs for all and civil rights. The team will continue to meet twice a week to develop a list of specific proposals, which it will then discuss with protesters and eventually take to the General Assembly, a nightly gathering of the hundreds of protesters in the park.

A two-thirds majority would have to approve each proposal, and any passionate opponent could call for the entire vote to be delayed.

The General Assembly has already adopted a “Declaration of the Occupation of New York City,” which includes a list of grievances against corporations and a call for others to join the group in peaceful assembly. To many protesters, that general statement is enough, and the open democracy of Zuccotti Park is the point of the movement.

“Demands are disempowering since they require someone else to respond,” said Gabriel Willow, a protester strolling past a sleeping-bag pod of young adults in the park last Monday. “It’s not like we couldn’t come up with any, but I don’t think people would vote for them.”

Although Monday’s open forum was meagerly attended, politically active members like Cecily McMillan and David Haack, who first proposed formulating demands in a pre-campout planning meeting in August, said they were ready to take action. Mr. Haack, who in 2009 tried to run for the White Plains City Council, admitted feeling disillusioned after the group struck down their proposal in August, but now he feels inspired by the movement’s “true democratic process,” even if it means slower progress going forward.

“Let’s give ourselves two weeks,” Ms. McMillan said about presenting provisions to the General Assembly. Ms. McMillan, 23, a New School graduate student, feels such dedication to the cause that she has contemplated taking a sabbatical from her studies — but she has begun to worry that the movement could become “a joke” without specific goals. Still, with the right demands, she said, more union members and diverse contingencies could join.

In Austin, Tex., participants agreed on four demands, including an end to corporate personhood and tax reform. One Austin activist, Lauren Walker, linked the movement’s goals directly to government officials.

“This is our time because we’re coming up to the 2012 elections,” she said, suggesting that protesters saw the presidential election as a “deadline” to draft revolutionary policy suggestions.

Elsewhere, Occupy Boston, Occupy D.C. and Occupy Philadelphia were among the many groups in the movement slowly formulating demands, though in each city, opposition has arisen from skeptical demonstrators.

In Boston, Meghann Sheridan wrote on the group’s Facebook page, “The process is the message.” In Baltimore, Cullen Nawalkowsky, a protester, said by phone that the point was a “public sphere not moderated by commodities or mainstream political discourse.” An Occupy Cleveland participant, Harrison Kalodimos, is even writing a statement about why demands are not the answer.

Joseph Schwartz, a political science professor and an Occupy Philadelphia participant, said he thought the movement’s “anarchist strain” discouraged a demand-making environment.

Whatever it is, New York’s small group of focused activists said they would not yield.

“If we don’t make demands, the political parties will make them for us,” a longtime protester, Eric Lerner, 64, said from his spot in the cluster last Monday. “We have to get it right this time.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/nyreg ... nted=print

[Febnyc]

Hysterical.

To quote Groucho Marx:

"I don't know what the others say;
It makes no difference anyway;
Whatever it is - I'm against it!.

[jbuck919]

I hope they find their focus, and I hope they focus on the right things, namely, demands that would shift the attention of government to the needs of the middle class. I'm not so sure about RebLem's list, and may comment in another post. But a very concrete demand would be the immediate passage of a jobs bill like the one Obama proposed. Another would be a tax surcharge on the rich, not as an end in itself, but to help pay for things we badly need, including deficit reduction. Another would be hands off the Affordable Health Care Act, not to mention Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. And frankly, the movement has to find a way to tie itself to local and state primaries and general election in 2012, because if the Democratic and anti-current-Republican vote doesn't get out at those levels, all the people power in the world will be for naught. It does seem that they are some distance from that just now, but that does not mean that they are not serving a purpose just by getting people's attention.

The New York Times

October 16, 2011
Losing Their Immunity
By PAUL KRUGMAN

As the Occupy Wall Street movement continues to grow, the response from the movement’s targets has gradually changed: contemptuous dismissal has been replaced by whining. (A reader of my blog suggests that we start calling our ruling class the “kvetchocracy.”) The modern lords of finance look at the protesters and ask, Don’t they understand what we’ve done for the U.S. economy?

The answer is: yes, many of the protesters do understand what Wall Street and more generally the nation’s economic elite have done for us. And that’s why they’re protesting.

On Saturday The Times reported what people in the financial industry are saying privately about the protests. My favorite quote came from an unnamed money manager who declared, “Financial services are one of the last things we do in this country and do it well. Let’s embrace it.”

This is deeply unfair to American workers, who are good at lots of things, and could be even better if we made adequate investments in education and infrastructure. But to the extent that America has lagged in everything except financial services, shouldn’t the question be why, and whether it’s a trend we want to continue?

For the financialization of America wasn’t dictated by the invisible hand of the market. What caused the financial industry to grow much faster than the rest of the economy starting around 1980 was a series of deliberate policy choices, in particular a process of deregulation that continued right up to the eve of the 2008 crisis.

Not coincidentally, the era of an ever-growing financial industry was also an era of ever-growing inequality of income and wealth. Wall Street made a large direct contribution to economic polarization, because soaring incomes in finance accounted for a significant fraction of the rising share of the top 1 percent (and the top 0.1 percent, which accounts for most of the top 1 percent’s gains) in the nation’s income. More broadly, the same political forces that promoted financial deregulation fostered overall inequality in a variety of ways, undermining organized labor, doing away with the “outrage constraint” that used to limit executive paychecks, and more.

Oh, and taxes on the wealthy were, of course, sharply reduced.

All of this was supposed to be justified by results: the paychecks of the wizards of Wall Street were appropriate, we were told, because of the wonderful things they did. Somehow, however, that wonderfulness failed to trickle down to the rest of the nation — and that was true even before the crisis. Median family income, adjusted for inflation, grew only about a fifth as much between 1980 and 2007 as it did in the generation following World War II, even though the postwar economy was marked both by strict financial regulation and by much higher tax rates on the wealthy than anything currently under political discussion.

Then came the crisis, which proved that all those claims about how modern finance had reduced risk and made the system more stable were utter nonsense. Government bailouts were all that saved us from a financial meltdown as bad as or worse than the one that caused the Great Depression.

And what about the current situation? Wall Street pay has rebounded even as ordinary workers continue to suffer from high unemployment and falling real wages. Yet it’s harder than ever to see what, if anything, financiers are doing to earn that money.

Why, then, does Wall Street expect anyone to take its whining seriously? That money manager claiming that finance is the only thing America does well also complained that New York’s two Democratic senators aren’t on his side, declaring that “They need to understand who their constituency is.” Actually, they surely know very well who their constituency is — and even in New York, 16 out of 17 workers are employed by nonfinancial industries.

But he wasn’t really talking about voters, of course. He was talking about the one thing Wall Street still has plenty of thanks to those bailouts, despite its total loss of credibility: money.

Money talks in American politics, and what the financial industry’s money has been saying lately is that it will punish any politician who dares to criticize that industry’s behavior, no matter how gently — as evidenced by the way Wall Street money has now abandoned President Obama in favor of Mitt Romney. And this explains the industry’s shock over recent events.

You see, until a few weeks ago it seemed as if Wall Street had effectively bribed and bullied our political system into forgetting about that whole drawing lavish paychecks while destroying the world economy thing. Then, all of a sudden, some people insisted on bringing the subject up again.

And their outrage has found resonance with millions of Americans. No wonder Wall Street is whining.

[RebLem]

I hope they find their focus, and I hope they focus on the right things, namely, demands that would shift the attention of government to the needs of the middle class. I'm not so sure about RebLem's list, and may comment in another post. But a very concrete demand would be the immediate passage of a jobs bill like the one Obama proposed. Another would be a tax surcharge on the rich, not as an end in itself, but to help pay for things we badly need, including deficit reduction. Another would be hands off the Affordable Health Care Act, not to mention Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. And frankly, the movement has to find a way to tie itself to local and state primaries and general election in 2012, because if the Democratic and anti-current-Republican vote doesn't get out at those levels, all the people power in the world will be for naught. It does seem that they are some distance from that just now, but that does not mean that they are not serving a purpose just by getting people's attention.

Oh, I forgot. Another demand should be repassage of the Glass-Steagall Act. And I endorse all the suggestions you have made, John.

[keaggy220]

Pass the reefer dude!

ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A WALL STREET OCCUPIER?

You would almost have to be. New York magazine asked 50 “occupiers” a series of questions about public issues. As you might expect, the results were appalling. One of the occupiers’ principal demands, I take it, is for more government regulation of financial institutions. So you might expect them to have some idea what the current regulatory regime is. Nope: when asked to identify Dodd-Frank–not to give a detailed description of its provisions, but only to say generally what it relates to–more than 80% had no idea, and many of the rest were wrong:



I take it that the occupiers also want the wealthy to pay more in taxes. Of course, if you are going to advance that position, you should at least know how much they are paying now, right? Do the occupiers have any idea what current marginal tax rates are? Nope:



How about government spending? No doubt the occupiers would like to redirect it. Once again, though, you need to start by knowing how it is currently spent. As usual, the occupiers strike out:



It goes on and on. To be blunt, people this dumb should be ashamed to show their faces in public, let alone try to tell the rest of us how to run the country.

And, of course, it goes without saying that the occupiers don’t know anything about history, as Michael Ramirez notes:



Via InstaPundit.