Chemical Explosive Thrown Into Occupy group.

[K. A. Pital]

People had somebody who agreed with them they could vote for in the thirties. Now, both parties are basically the enemy of the people, just one of them is better at lying about it then the other.

Failure of representative democracy does not mean a failure for any mass movement and for altermative power structures based on direct democracy, for one. So I'm not sure how the absence of a party in a failed political space demonstrates 'futility'. On the contrary, only through the rejection of the 'rule of the game' can the game be won.

Violence won't solve anything either, it'll just alienate their support and get them all shot.

Sometimes the alienated support radicalizes and then you see oligarchs running from their palaces like mad losing power.

I don't really think of myself as a cynic. I think the people laughing at the protestors getting beat up are cynical.

Wrong. Misanthropy is not cynism. Cynism is the rejection of socially-prevalent moral dogmas and social norms if they are a hindrance to your goals and such. In modern terms - that's what survived from the earlier philosophy of cynism.

But while they have my support, they don't have my faith.

Heh. I could say the same, but you're not being inactive, you actually donated to them. Being cynical and being an asshole are two different things.

[open_sketchbook]

I don't really think donating to them really counts as being "active". It only took me two seconds, and I got the money by working for a large corperation; if they turned a profit at all off the work I did to earn that money, I've actively worked against the Occupy movement, making my donation largely meaningless.

[Alkaloid]

People had somebody who agreed with them they could vote for in the thirties. Now, both parties are basically the enemy of the people, just one of them is better at lying about it then the other.

This is half the problem. You've been convinced that you only have two options in politics, and that voting for anyone else is wasting your vote, which is bullshit. It's only a waste if very few people are going to vote for the same candidate, which doesn't have to happen. Democracy is a system designed to bring about non violent changes in government, and as long as a government is still a democracy, you have the tools you need to fix this mess as long as you realise you still have them. Americans still have all they need to change things, they've just been fooled into thinking that someone else has locked them in a shed you need money to get into.

if they turned a profit at all off the work I did to earn that money, I've actively worked against the Occupy movement, making my donation largely meaningless.

How do you figure that. The movement has never been about stopping corporations making a profit, it is about stopping corporations abusing the profit they make, and abusing people in order to make that money.

[K. A. Pital]

I don't really think donating to them really counts as being "active". It only took me two seconds, and I got the money by working for a large corperation; if they turned a profit at all off the work I did to earn that money, I've actively worked against the Occupy movement, making my donation largely meaningless.

That's like saying a slave who gave a bit of food to some fugitive slaves running from the South to the North without stopping his work for whatever reasons didn't really "help" the movement, because he is still serving his master. Where's the logic in that.

[SpaceMarine93]

I know that my thinking is a bit wrong, but somehow I felt that if the device actually worked properly, support for the protests would skyrocket.

To be honest though, the other people have got a point being cynical - the protests worldwide are indeed small and insignificant. They would run out of steam sooner or later without creating any impact like the Tea Partiers already had.

The truth that these idealists don't understand is that despite all the steam they vent out, no one in the goddamn government, corporation or special interest groups actually give a shit about what they are protesting about. Most of them, after all, are just motivated at advancing their own interests without needing to answer to anybody, so how do other people's views matter? And if anyone complains, they always have enough power and influence to shove them aside.

Sure, a few concessions here and there could be made from time to time, but ultimately and logically these people won't abandon a system that allows them to achieve so much wealth and power than any suffering average joe could ever dream of.

Much worse when you understand the fact that the common masses ultimately are either too ignorant, too distracted by consumerism, too apathetic and too aloof to do anything. I mean, between watching the president's speech on a new economic recovery plan and a baseball game, which one would they most likely pick? (No need to ponder too much on that question)

And much worse, people are more likely to let other people (Glenn Beck, O'Reilly, Alex Jones) think for them via mass media rather than think for themselves. Since the people who the protesters are protesting right now got more resources to pull this kind stuff, who's going to win in the long run? The Capitalists or the protesters?

Of course, not all situations are completely hopeless. There is a few options people who actually care and willing to make a difference in the world could do - but I won't mention them. There's no point, because most people would be too scared or too 'holier-than-thou' to pull it off (and it might backfire).

And what of the Capitalists on the top? They are willing to help put HITLER in Germany during the 30s just to save themselves from an non-existent communist threat. Can you imagine just how far they are willing to go to stay on top and make things as miserable as they are right now?

And that's the problem - people who cared doesn't have the courage to do what it takes to change the world, while those who could are those who don't give a damn.

Or as TVtrope's review of themes of Nineteen Eighty Four might say, "Moral and/or ethical standards are irrelevant to realpolitik, and thus the good guys never will remake the world in their image. EVER."

Enough monologuing, I am going out for a meal.

[Metahive]

Much worse when you understand the fact that the common masses ultimately are either too ignorant, too distracted by consumerism, too apathetic and too aloof to do anything. I mean, between watching the president's speech on a new economic recovery plan and a baseball game, which one would they most likely pick? (No need to ponder too much on that question)

Ye gods, the only thing worse than defeatism is defeatism paired with disdainful condescension. How's anyone to take your concern seriously when you couple it with such naked contempt for the people?

Answer me this, how exactlty do you see yourself in contrast to the people you just so colorfully described?

Of course, not all situations are completely hopeless. There is a few options people who actually care and willing to make a difference in the world could do - but I won't mention them. There's no point, because most people would be too scared or too 'holier-than-thou' to pull it off.

Defriend the fat cats on Facebook? Clog their e-mail accounts with spam? I really hope you're not covertly proposing wild rioting or even political assassinations and the like, but the smug tone you're using here strongly hints that way.

[Simon_Jester]

People had somebody who agreed with them they could vote for in the thirties. Now, both parties are basically the enemy of the people, just one of them is better at lying about it then the other.

Failure of representative democracy does not mean a failure for any mass movement and for altermative power structures based on direct democracy, for one. So I'm not sure how the absence of a party in a failed political space demonstrates 'futility'. On the contrary, only through the rejection of the 'rule of the game' can the game be won.

Also, a real mass movement stands a fairly credible chance of electing its own candidates, or at least wrestling the agenda of other parties toward its own position. Though this hinges on the definition of "mass." It takes time for even a popular and populist movement to build up that kind of mass.

What's required is organization and the breaking of the great illusions that block people from joining a movement that fights on their behalf: that there's no need to fight, or that the fighters are just malcontent freaks, or that the people being fought deserve protection.

Attitudes toward the rich and powerful and the elite in general have been going downhill ever since this recession began. They will continue to get worse as long as it goes on in its present form. The worse they get, the less effective mass media propaganda becomes, because the fewer people actually give a damn whether Glenn Beck is babbling about the liberal plot to impose communism via unemployment insurance when they've just lost their job and need unemployment insurance. Or when they're getting tired of having to choose between eating decently and paying for Aunt Sally's prescription drugs.

To borrow and reuse open_sketchbook's phrasing, bread and circuses don't work as a way to shut up people who must labor so hard to get bread they don't have time or wealth for circus tickets. Particularly when those same people remember when bread and circuses were both widely available.

But all this takes time; it does not happen overnight unless people are literally in imminent danger of being slaughtered or starved en masse. What we are now seeing is the beginning of that- the beginning of the drive toward something that ends in the public simply ignoring and marginalizing corporate propaganda which are no longer relevant to the terms on which said corporations have forced them to live.

[SpaceMarine93]

Much worse when you understand the fact that the common masses ultimately are either too ignorant, too distracted by consumerism, too apathetic and too aloof to do anything. I mean, between watching the president's speech on a new economic recovery plan and a baseball game, which one would they most likely pick? (No need to ponder too much on that question)

Ye gods, the only thing worse than defeatism is defeatism paired with disdainful condescension. How's anyone to take your concern seriously when you couple it with such naked contempt for the people?

Answer me this, how exactlty do you see yourself in contrast to the people you just so colorfully described?

Of course, not all situations are completely hopeless. There is a few options people who actually care and willing to make a difference in the world could do - but I won't mention them. There's no point, because most people would be too scared or too 'holier-than-thou' to pull it off.

Defriend the fat cats on Facebook? Clog their e-mail accounts with spam? I really hope you're not covertly proposing wild rioting or even political assassinations and the like, but the smug tone you're using here strongly hints that way.

I judge Victory and Defeat by results. If whatever anyone does couldn't create a benefitial result in the long run regardless of what you do in the short and long run, which I recall there isn't, it is a meaningless action. Has the wealth gap been narrowed? Does war continue to rage at an unchanged level? Has worldwide poverty been reduced overall? Has the government been effective overall against the upper class and capitalists in forcing them to change for the better? No that I recall any good results.

It is simply my deduction that the people the protesters are going against, being better at this game than anybody, is virtually impossible to be convinced to change or remove unless drastic and unconventional methods are used. Its not defeatism, just a deduction based on how little the world has got better over the last few decades... and how much it actually got worse recently.

And as for methods, you got a better idea than voting people out of office (which doesn't work, since nobody is free from Big Business influence) and protesting where majority of the people doesn't care about your message?

[Simon_Jester]

I judge Victory and Defeat by results. If whatever anyone does couldn't create a benefitial result in the long run regardless of what you do in the short and long run, which I recall there isn't, it is a meaningless action. Has the wealth gap been narrowed? Does war continue to rage at an unchanged level? Has worldwide poverty been reduced overall? Has the government been effective overall against the upper class and capitalists in forcing them to change for the better? No that I recall any good results.

The question in my mind is whether you have the historical perspective to know results when you see them, or to predict what the world will look like in five or ten years.

Your argument seems to boil down to "the world will always look as it does today, because I can't imagine it changing, and I personally can't think of a way to make it change except for BLOOD BLOOD BLOOD, which of course I will coyly hint at." This is not a very good argument.

[Metahive]

I judge Victory and Defeat by results. If whatever anyone does couldn't create a benefitial result in the long run regardless of what you do in the short and long run, which I recall there isn't, it is a meaningless action. Has the wealth gap been narrowed? Does war continue to rage at an unchanged level? Has worldwide poverty been reduced overall? Has the government been effective overall against the upper class and capitalists in forcing them to change for the better? No that I recall any good results.

So unless OWS somehow manages to solve all those problems in one go you'll continue to sneer at them? What are you, five years old?

It is simply my deduction that the people the protesters are going against, being better at this game than anybody, is virtually impossible to be convinced to change or remove unless drastic and unconventional methods are used. Its not defeatism, just a deduction based on how little the world has got better over the last few decades... and how much it actually got worse recently.

Stop beating around the bush, put the cards on the table and say what exactly you mean with "drastic and unconventional" methods.

And as for methods, you got a better idea than voting people out of office (which doesn't work, since nobody is free from Big Business influence) and protesting where majority of the people doesn't care about your message?

Ehem, you still haven't actually told me what methods you have in mind. I'm pretty sure about what you're hinting at, but don't unleash the smug before you haven't actually revealed your grand plans for the social and political reformation of the US (and the world).

Also, I still want an answer for my question, how do you see yourself in comparison to the "common people" you've described in your initial reply?

[Akhlut]

I judge Victory and Defeat by results.

If you're capitalizing those nouns in English, that's probably already a Bad Start[sup]TM[/sup] to what you're trying to argue.

If whatever anyone does couldn't create a benefitial result in the long run regardless of what you do in the short and long run, which I recall there isn't, it is a meaningless action.

It's been going on a month and a half, man. Give it some fucking time.

Has the wealth gap been narrowed? Does war continue to rage at an unchanged level? Has worldwide poverty been reduced overall? Has the government been effective overall against the upper class and capitalists in forcing them to change for the better? No that I recall any good results.

Even Tunisia is still trying to get a workable government after 10 months of their own revolution, why are you expecting miracles?

It is simply my deduction that the people the protesters are going against, being better at this game than anybody, is virtually impossible to be convinced to change or remove unless drastic and unconventional methods are used. Its not defeatism, just a deduction based on how little the world has got better over the last few decades... and how much it actually got worse recently.

Are you and I living on the same planet? Gay people can get married in several states in the US, while Europe isn't wracked by continual warfare and in spite of this recession, there aren't people starving in the streets in developed nations, while in undeveloped nations, everyone's toting smartphones and are starting to get access to modern technology beyond that. Polio is on the way out, while smallpox has been eradicated except for a few random vials in the US and Russia. It's not all great, but we're a damn sight better off now than in 1911 or 1961.

And as for methods, you got a better idea than voting people out of office (which doesn't work, since nobody is free from Big Business influence) and protesting where majority of the people doesn't care about your message?

Slow down there, sparky. Elections are going to come up soon enough and we'll see how much change OWS can affect. Violence at this point is more apt to end up as the Spartacus Revolt in Germany than in War of Independence 2.0.

[Alkaloid]

And what of the Capitalists on the top? They are willing to help put HITLER in Germany during the 30s just to save themselves from an non-existent communist threat. Can you imagine just how far they are willing to go to stay on top and make things as miserable as they are right now?

It is simply my deduction that the people the protesters are going against, being better at this game than anybody, is virtually impossible to be convinced to change or remove unless drastic and unconventional methods are used. Its not defeatism, just a deduction based on how little the world has got better over the last few decades... and how much it actually got worse recently.

Shut up, SpessMahreen, shut the fuck up right now and listen for a second. People like you and attitudes like this are the biggest threat to this movement right now, and the most likely thing to kill it before it achieves anything.

This movement needs to build popular support, and to do that it needs to be accessible to anyone in the world who wants to take part in it. If some moderate right winger came onto this site looking to try to find out something about OWS because, like a lot of people, he doesn't really understand what its about, how do you think he is going to react when he finds some guy screaming 'it's not EXTREME enough, CAPITALISTS ARE HITLER, VIOLENCE IS THE ONLY WAY!' He is going to, quite rightly, go 'fuck this shit' and go back to not giving a shot what happens to the stupid hippies getting their heads caved in by the police, because in his mind they are not hippies, they are violent rebels looking for an opportunity to kill some policeman. If there is change as a result of this, I doubt it will come before significant violence, but it is very unlikely to be a result of any violence either. It will be a result of building support for the movement among all sorts of people from across the political and social spectrum, and you are not helping and are actively hindering that.

[Winston Blake]

I judge Victory and Defeat by results. If whatever anyone does couldn't create a benefitial result in the long run regardless of what you do in the short and long run, which I recall there isn't, it is a meaningless action. Has the wealth gap been narrowed? Does war continue to rage at an unchanged level? Has worldwide poverty been reduced overall? Has the government been effective overall against the upper class and capitalists in forcing them to change for the better? No that I recall any good results.

The question in my mind is whether you have the historical perspective to know results when you see them, or to predict what the world will look like in five or ten years.

Your argument seems to boil down to "the world will always look as it does today, because I can't imagine it changing, and I personally can't think of a way to make it change except for BLOOD BLOOD BLOOD, which of course I will coyly hint at." This is not a very good argument.

If Space Marine 93 was born in 1993, then he (I'm guessing a he) is 18, and was only 8 years old when 9/11 happened. In other words, the so-called post-9/11 world is all he has ever really known. His model for 'discussion about serious issues' is talking heads on TV bickering at each other, all full of unshakeable self-confidence, and spewing streams of emotive rhetorical questions and empty platitudes. Look at it this way: everyone under the age of 18 is a politician now.

[Skgoa]

White-phosphorus joke in 3... 2... 1... Shroom.

A friend actually asked me "what happened to the American dream" and "is the American dream dead?" and I was gonna quote Watchmen and go "What happened to the American dream? It came true, you're looking at it!"

But then, I realized, that the American dream hasn't died. No, it's born again. In the shape, size and form of these protesters. They're fighting for the American dream. They are its last, best hope. For peace.

It's morning again in America.

I had to pase this onto my fb wall.

[Broomstick]

But then, I realized, that the American dream hasn't died. No, it's born again. In the shape, size and form of these protesters. They're fighting for the American dream. They are its last, best hope. For peace.

It's morning again in America.

More like pre-dawn in America. You know, when it's really dark and stuff, just before things start lightening up.

[Shroom Man 777]

Think about it, the masses are actually fighting to regain the nation's soul. This mere act, that those chuds are willing to march out en masse and get themselves tear gassed in the face by all the authoritarian establishment-cuckolding pricks out there, no matter if "they don't have a coherent plan" or some shit, but just out of sheer moral outrage at all that's wrong in your country, is actually beautiful. It reinvigorates ones faith in a nation, in a country, in a people. You'd think all was lost, but you see this, and you realize that it's not lost, and there's still something there that's good, that's right, that's worth fighting for.

Those masses of littering yuppies and unemployed folk and bedraggled veterans and poor people and college students and whatnot, screaming in youtube, sleeping in the streets, tenting and defying the establishment and just expressing themselves for all to see and hear - they are America, and they are what makes your nation great.

And shame on all those who disdain them, those who spit at them, those who mock them or deride them or ridicule them, because if you want to be all melodramatic and poetic about it, you can say that what these protesters are doing is either the last gasp of a dying country, or the first breath of a nation reborn into a brave new world. The twilight comes before both dawn and dusk, they are the sun of the nation, whether they rise or fall.

[Broomstick]

It is simply my deduction that the people the protesters are going against, being better at this game than anybody, is virtually impossible to be convinced to change or remove unless drastic and unconventional methods are used. Its not defeatism, just a deduction based on how little the world has got better over the last few decades... and how much it actually got worse recently.

Are you and I living on the same planet? Gay people can get married in several states in the US, while Europe isn't wracked by continual warfare and in spite of this recession, there aren't people starving in the streets in developed nations, while in undeveloped nations, everyone's toting smartphones and are starting to get access to modern technology beyond that. Polio is on the way out, while smallpox has been eradicated except for a few random vials in the US and Russia. It's not all great, but we're a damn sight better off now than in 1911 or 1961.

Or 1971, for that matter, or even 1981.

He's young. He can't imagine the world changing significantly because he hasn't lived through significant change, and apparently has a poor grasp of history. He thinks the world is a cesspit but he doesn't understand that, despite some very real problems, there are aspects of civilization right now that are better than they've ever been before. This is far from the worst of all possible worlds.

[Shroom Man 777]

I think this is actually crucial in making the world an even better place. Or, well, a different place.

[Simon_Jester]

If Space Marine 93 was born in 1993, then he (I'm guessing a he) is 18, and was only 8 years old when 9/11 happened. In other words, the so-called post-9/11 world is all he has ever really known. His model for 'discussion about serious issues' is talking heads on TV bickering at each other, all full of unshakeable self-confidence, and spewing streams of emotive rhetorical questions and empty platitudes. Look at it this way: everyone under the age of 18 is a politician now.

Shit, you're right...

Of course, the involvement of hyperventilating youth in political movements is hardly a new problem. I wonder, if we looked at the list of all demonstrations where some idiot threw a rock and got a volley of bullets back for an answer, how many of them were self-righteous nineteen year olds who thought rebellion would solve everything because The Man is indestructible by other means because the world never changes and your parents always rule the roost.

In other words, how many of them were the same kind of idiot as our friend IndrickBoreale93 here...

[Mr. Coffee]

In other words, how many of them were the same kind of idiot as our friend IndrickBoreale93 here...

Oh... Sick burn, Simon.

[Simon_Jester]

Hey, he chooses to use the face of a dimwitted, belligerent, and incompetent Space Marine as his avatar, plasters himself with the name "SpaceMarine," two plus two equals four.

Anyway, it's not so much a question of youth as it is a question of having both youth and no perspective. I haven't personally experienced much in the way of Great Social Change myself. But I know damn well it happens. And that it doesn't happen on account of people huffing and puffing and coyly pretending they're actually willing to blow someone's house down, for all the world as if they're capable of it.

Sometimes it happens because someone actually does blow someone's house down (see Russian and French Revolutions). Sometimes it happens because people prove, collectively, that they will not put up with the shit anymore. But it never happens on account of fake-enragement from people who think that shooting at police is trendy because they think it will help them pick up girls.

[SpaceMarine93]

I sincerely apologize for my previous immature outburst. I am currently experiencing a very drastic change in my life right now, and so far my life had been frustrating, overwhelming and quite terrible. I would not want to talk about it, but it gets into my head.

Yes, you people are right in accusing me. I AM 18, and I am not very perspective of the world yet. I had not yet experienced any great historical change recently and the only world I got to know is the post September 11 world. With benefit of hindsight, I come to realize I am in no position to make any judgement.

Despite all my irrational ravings, spouting frequent outbursts and go all cynical and 'ends-justifies-the-means', deep down I am a guy who genuinely care for the world and wish I could do something to make it a better place. Its just that to me, it just wasn't fast enough; nothing gets more gnawing in my heart then seeing solutions to problems can't be implemented because someone is blocking the way out of stupid reasons, great ideas can't be made to practice because of people's little irrational fears, people can't get along because of stupid little differences etc.

You guys are right: I am a little young, perhaps a little crazy, and I apologize. I will come back later when I get a better understanding of things.

(By the way, I had absolutely no idea that my avatar is Indrick Boreale. I just thought he looked cool. I agree that Indrick Boreale is a complete f***ing idiot)

[Broomstick]

Kid, for an eighteen year old you're actually pretty normal. Get a little more experience under your belt, develop a bit more patience, and look into a bit of history.

For starters, I suggest the Cold War and its ending - for decades many people were convinced it would end in nuclear fire. It didn't.

Or, for a briefer event, see Fall of the Berlin Wall. No one in my generation imagined that would fall without bloodshed, yet when the end of the wall came it was amazingly peaceful. Our German friends here can undoubtedly point you to some excellent resources for that.

On the health front - when my parents were your age there was still smallpox occurring in the US, polio was paralyzing if not outright killing tens of thousands of people a year in the US, tuberculosis was for the most part a death sentence with the best treatments only prolonging life not curing anyone, penicillin was a top secret experimental drug in the military and people routinely died of sinus infections and bad teeth. These days, smallpox is extinct in the wild, the last wild polio case reported in the US was in 1993, tuberculosis is (usually) curable, and (with a doctor's prescription) local drug stores and supermarkets with pharmacies will dispense select antibiotics free of charge to the ill as a public service. Then there are organ transplants (unknown except between identical twins when my parents were your age), reattachment of severed limbs (unknown in my youth), and treatments for certain cancers in the 90% remission/cure range whereas in the 1970's nearly all were a death sentence. Cataract surgery was rare and extremely risky in my parents' youth, now it's routine and you're sent home the same day to recover. Cochlear implants for the deaf were unknown when I was your age.

Also when my parents were your age there was WWII - resulted in about 50 million dead, give or take, and left much of Europe and parts of the Pacific, Japan, and China in ruins.

Kid, for all the flaws of today's world, there are people alive today who remember far, far worse. There's nothing wrong with wanting to improve the world, but don't lose sight of what is good and improved while you seek perfection. You already have a grasp on the bad, now you need to cling to some of the good for balance.

[Mr. Coffee]

You guys are right: I am a little young, perhaps a little crazy, and I apologize. I will come back later when I get a better understanding of things.

Just slow your roll a bit, dude. Before you click "submit" take time to read back over what ya wrote and think "if someone else said this to me would it sound batshit/retarded/touchguyish". If you're not sure then you can simply not post and no one will think less of you for it.