Occupy Wall Street Movement

[js207]

The hyperbole doesn't help - on those criteria, they aren't 99% ... more like 9%. Factor in raising three disabled kids on welfare and they're probably more like 0.09%. (Having those four kids without a decent job between them doesn't sound too bright either: OK, the mother did have a job for a while, but it sounds as if the father has never made more than the $22k? In my book, having four kids is indeed "spendthrift", to use the wording they use to deny it! Some people can afford that, this family obviously can't - but chose to do it anyway.)

Right now, we're all being squeezed hard. Our central banks are complacent about runaway inflation (they can afford to be: the Bank of England, at least, has 95% inflation protection build into its staff pension scheme now!) while it effectively hands those of us still managing to hold on to jobs a big pay cut each year. (I'm no longer among them: after reduced working hours for a while now, my job comes to an end next month.)

The trouble is, these people are still protesting in the wrong place. It isn't Wall Street or the London Stock Exchange that set suicidal interest rates then printed hundreds of billions of Mugabe-money: it's the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, and the governments which appoint their management. It isn't any company which threw away hundreds of billions (and now plans to up that into multiple trillions) trying to cover up dishonesty and incompetence in Greece, but "our" governments. Why aren't the protestors outside Parliament, Congress, the White House?

[thir]

The hyperbole doesn't help - on those criteria, they aren't 99% ... more like 9%.

As I understand it, the 99% are the people without vast fortunes.

Factor in raising three disabled kids on welfare and they're probably more like 0.09%. (Having those four kids without a decent job between them doesn't sound too bright either: OK, the mother did have a job for a while, but it sounds as if the father has never made more than the $22k? In my book, having four kids is indeed "spendthrift", to use the wording they use to deny it! Some people can afford that, this family obviously can't - but chose to do it anyway.)

Now here you have an interesting topic: are children for those with money? What about the low birth rate? Should we have a law or rule against having children if your income is low? Would the Chineese way (if they still do it) of everyone being limited to one be fairer? If you have a handicapped child, should you be allowed another, or is that it? What if you start out ok, but then loose your job or your business crash after good times are turned into bad times? If many cannot afford children, who will look after (pay) for people getting old?

At one time children - or the continuation of the species, or the future, if you like - was anybody's business. Now it sort of blows in the wind.


As for me, I think there should be a law against having more than 2 children, not for economical reasons, but because we are far too many people.

The trouble is, these people are still protesting in the wrong place. It isn't Wall Street or the London Stock Exchange that set suicidal interest rates then printed hundreds of billions of Mugabe-money: it's the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, and the governments which appoint their management. It isn't any company which threw away hundreds of billions (and now plans to up that into multiple trillions) trying to cover up dishonesty and incompetence in Greece, but "our" governments. Why aren't the protestors outside Parliament, Congress, the White House?

I do not think it matters much where they are, exactly. The protest is (if I get this right) against the grotesk gap between rich and poor, and the reasons for it.

[ksst]

I think having more than 2 kids is excessive also, but people do make mistakes, or birth control fails, or really want larger families, and it's just evil to go around forcing abortions on people who don't want them.
As for the movement, I think we would get more response by blaming the government than Wall Street. Really it's both of them together that made the mess, but government is elected here where Wall Street really doesn't answer to anyone. The government failed by relaxing regulations that allowed the investors/mortgage lenders to behave irresponsibly. The gap between rich and poor has only been encouraged by Republican tax policies lately, so protest congress. I don't completely understand the Occupy Wall Street movement, because everyone I've heard interviewed said they have no concrete goals or demands.

[StrictMasterD]

According to a story I heard over the weekend within the Week The Movement wil in fact make Publis its Goals and Demands so Everyone in America and around the World wil know Exactly wha tthe "Occupy Wall Strret" Movements wants

[ksst]

One I heard announced today was a demand to stop making corporations into people, especially the recent supreme court decision letting them dump all kinds of money into campaigns as "free speech".

[js207]

It has apparently been amusing to watch some of the OWS people's richer supporters dancing around trying to deny that their own fortunes put them firmly in the 1% they are complaining about - there's a rich left-wing journalist in the UK with three houses and a job with a (tax-dodging!) privately-owned newspaper who makes for a particularly absurd contradiction in this context.

As for children, Ksst has a point; we need to strike a balance here. Personally, I'd start by changing the generous tax and welfare incentives for having kids to count only one child at a time, and making it means-tested so only the poor receive them at all. China takes it to extremes, with forced abortions (and varying levels of enforcement, depending how connected you are and where you live: if you're in the countryside it's laxer, for example) but then they are a totalitarian regime prone to such things, and they do have an extreme problem with overpopulation right now - neither applies to us at present, and I hope neither ever does.

The government failed by relaxing regulations that allowed the investors/mortgage lenders to behave irresponsibly.

It's worse than that, in the US at least: the federal government actually mandated lenders lending to poor credit risks, on the rather dim basis that only lending to people who could actually afford the houses was "discrimination" and should be punished. On top of that, of course, they used Fannie and Freddie to channel taxpayers' money into making the problem worse still.

One I heard announced today was a demand to stop making corporations into people, especially the recent supreme court decision letting them dump all kinds of money into campaigns as "free speech".

Which shows that what they really need is some remedial education: the decision merely removed the discrimination between 'media' companies (CNN, MSNBC, NY Times etc) and other companies, that only companies in that first, privileged, category are permitted to express political views at certain times (the period leading up to each election) - it remains illegal for corporations to put money into politicians' campaigns. Remember the context of that ruling: the federal government had banned a movie for being critical of Senator Clinton, and the Obama administration's lawyer argued that it should have the authority to ban books containing political content. Are these protestors really protesting against the First Amendment and in support of censorship?! No doubt some have misunderstood the ruling, or been misled about its actual nature, but the reality is hard to dispute.

[ksst]

Just about everything to do with having kids is screwed up- unless you're already wealthy, sometimes even then. So everyone will admit that children are needed, I hope, to continue the human race. But if you have kids, most people need two parents working to support them. Then you have to pay some one else a very small amount (although it seems big to the payer) to basically raise your kids 9 hours a day up to school age. When we decided to have kids this equation didn't make sense to me. We discussed who would stay home and my husband basically said, I will stay home if you want to work, but it's not my first choice. My first choice was to stay home. At that point he was in school (post college) and I was the sole earner. He graduated and I gave birth to our first in the same month, then we moved across the county to where he was offered a job. New baby, new city, no friends or relatives. It was hard, but you do what you have to do.

Now that the kids are in school, I'm working part time, but if there is ever a day I have to put them in day care, that, plus my gas to get to work, uses up my paycheck for the day, so I try to avoid doing that and rely on my days off being flexible. I feel I am extremely lucky as far as being able to do this; I know a lot of other parents who have it much harder. Part of it is not luck, though.

As far as the new decision, that was what I was hearing on the radio, I don't claim to really understand the ruling. I hadn't even heard it was about a movie.

[js207]

Just about everything to do with having kids is screwed up- unless you're already wealthy, sometimes even then. So everyone will admit that children are needed, I hope, to continue the human race.

Rather like the obesity problem: yes, we need food to survive as individuals and kids to survive as a species. Preferably without confusing the two! In both cases, though, we have the problem that we are producing far, far more than is good for us - and in both cases the government's promoting this unhealthy excess for political benefit. Maybe if more of us took a stand against these unhealthy and counterproductive subsidies...

As far as the new decision, that was what I was hearing on the radio, I don't claim to really understand the ruling. I hadn't even heard it was about a movie.

It's sad - the Green Party made a particularly dishonest comment at the time, trying to pretend they were different from other political parties in not taking contributions from corporations and claiming this ruling "hurt" them as a result, while Obama made some rather bizarre and misleading claims, along with dog-whistle xenophobia about "foreign corporations", about it in his State of the Union: apparently in Obama-math, 2002 was "a century" before 2010. Maybe that explains his wonky budget numbers...

Unlike the Green Party, though, he could at least claim to be worse affected than his opponents: the previous censorship law exempted media companies, which largely support him and his party, so he did stand to lose with the restoration of a level playing field.

[tedteague]

i dont know if anyone still cares or reads about this post, and i didnt read all of it, but ill give my two sense of the occupy movement
1. you can empirically determine that the income inequality gap has increased in the last few decades.
2. as far as i can tell, the occupiers only care about banks getting more money, and most if not all are happy to be cupertino whores
3. most dont know what capitalism is, but they love bashing it. its the same problem as the michael moore movie - bailouts to banks and excessive lobbying is not capitalism, its corporatism.
4. every occupier i know voted for obama, and were all on board for the taarp act when he first took office
5. instead of occupying wall street, they should be complaining to their representatives. if they are the 99%, then they have the power in a democracy/republic/democratic republic. instead of protesting people who are trying to make money, protest the elected officials who do nothing to stop them. even if someone wants socialism, the elected officials are the proper avenue to achieve change, not the people who are literally going to work.
6. everyone who lost their 401 ks back in 2008 benefit from these massive banks succeeding.

[denuseri]

And when they call their congressman to complain and get a non-returned answering machine because they are not significant enough in their campaign contributions for the congressman to bother responding too what then?

Big business has all the advantages when it comes to lobby efforts, and gets away with "donating" untold amounts of money to anyone they wish to buy off including the purchase of air time for their chosen candidates.

[js207]

And when they call their congressman to complain and get a non-returned answering machine because they are not significant enough in their campaign contributions for the congressman to bother responding too what then?

Remember it, and vote accordingly: if you don't like the incumbent's policies, vote for the other guy next time, and tell your friends too! That is the essence of democracy - it isn't about phoning someone, or persuading the current guy to vote the way you'd like, but about voting for someone you actually support. If "99%" of the public are really against the bank bailouts and huge payouts for Pelosi-connected "green" companies, the Congressmen, Senators and President behind it all won't stand a chance next time they face the voters - and ultimately it's the votes that matter, however much money a candidate might have. Yes, a well-funded candidate can run lots of ads - that doesn't get them votes unless the voters are actually convinced by the ads!

[denuseri]

Remember it, and vote accordingly: if you don't like the incumbent's policies, vote for the other guy next time, and tell your friends too! That is the essence of democracy - it isn't about phoning someone, or persuading the current guy to vote the way you'd like, but about voting for someone you actually support. If "99%" of the public are really against the bank bailouts and huge payouts for Pelosi-connected "green" companies, the Congressmen, Senators and President behind it all won't stand a chance next time they face the voters - and ultimately it's the votes that matter, however much money a candidate might have. Yes, a well-funded candidate can run lots of ads - that doesn't get them votes unless the voters are actually convinced by the ads!

Vote for the other guy huh?

You mean the other guy who is backed by almost the same exzact set of corperate bigwigs? That would be all well and good if it worked...notice the trend of the past several decades however...incumbants get voted out all the time and the only thing that changes is the names of the figure heads, Just look at how Obama didnt follow through on anything conserning all that change he talked about for a more recent example.

What we have in actual practice here in America is the illusion of democracy wrapped in a corperately funded oligarchy if you havent noticed.

[tedteague]

Vote for the other guy huh?

You mean the other guy who is backed by almost the same exzact set of corperate bigwigs? That would be all well and good if it worked...notice the trend of the past several decades however...incumbants get voted out all the time and the only thing that changes is the names of the figure heads, Just look at how Obama didnt follow through on anything conserning all that change he talked about for a more recent example.

What we have in actual practice here in America is the illusion of democracy wrapped in a corperately funded oligarchy if you havent noticed.

Congress has about a 90% re-election rate

[tedteague]

And when they call their congressman to complain and get a non-returned answering machine because they are not significant enough in their campaign contributions for the congressman to bother responding too what then?

Big business has all the advantages when it comes to lobby efforts, and gets away with "donating" untold amounts of money to anyone they wish to buy off including the purchase of air time for their chosen candidates.

donations aren't votes. its not about lobbying its about how many people will show up to vote. if a millionaire contributes 500,000 to a campaign, guess what? its still 1 vote, as opposed to the 500,000 people who donate nothing but have 500,000 % more say in politics. the reasoning that its all about lobbying indicates 2 things: 1 the average voter is painfully uninformed (in which case they reap what they sow) or 2: the average voter maintains the status quo (in which case they reap what they sow).

[tedteague]

And when they call their congressman to complain and get a non-returned answering machine because they are not significant enough in their campaign contributions for the congressman to bother responding too what then?

Big business has all the advantages when it comes to lobby efforts, and gets away with "donating" untold amounts of money to anyone they wish to buy off including the purchase of air time for their chosen candidates.

disregard this message, i didnt mean to reply twice

[IAN 2411]

I think having more than 2 kids is excessive also, but people do make mistakes.

Why is it excessive? I have four daughters and I can assure you that not one of them was a mistake. I worked and paid taxes giving my wife and me the right to have as many children as we wished within reason. They are grown up married all baring the youngest that lives with me still. Their husbands are all in work...are they lucky...”No” they got off their ass and found work and there is work to be found, I agree with leo9 there are only a few jobs but if you can't be bothered to look you will not find them. In the UK at the moment you have to forget about the job you have been trained for [that is not available] and take another [different job] that is there.

One point I would like to mention is the fact that a lot of students that are going to university are picking classes that have no realistic chances of fast or any employment. There should be more classes teaching the basic needs for the country. You don’t need a thousand architects to build a bridge; you only need one and a good quota of qualified or semi skilled workers. There is a shortage of brick layers, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, welders etc, but if the country can't be bothered to teach them for free then it can only get worse. Asking a person that has been unemployed since he left school to pay for one of those courses is obscene, and I am afraid that is the only way they will get them.

As for the movement, I think we would get more response by blaming the government.

That is the good old standby for having no idea...blame the government of the day.

I don't completely understand the Occupy Wall Street movement, because everyone I've heard interviewed said they have no concrete goals or demands.

They are most probably like the ones here in the UK. If 4 million jobs were placed in front of them tomorrow, you wouldn’t see their ass for dust. They would be rushing home to sit in the armchair complaining about fictitious back injuries while filling in their forms for claiming disability.

Be well IAN 2411

[ksst]

Well, I certainly didn't mean that people who want large families got there by mistake. I wasn't very clear in my statement. I'm just concerned that we're overfilling the planet and it's going to be hard on our descendants to have so many people here.

I debated long and hard over having any children at all and finally the biological imperative won out, I guess you could say, the desire to reproduce, or to leave posterity, or to have the pitter patter of little darling feet around the house, or comfort for my old age, or whatever reasons were there and we agreed to have kids, which of course I will never regret as I love them immensely. But still, it was a long debate and not an easy decision.

I wish I had had more help in career planning when I was in school. They give you all these choices, but really no information on what you would be good at, or what you can find employment doing, or what is practical. All those "career finder" tests told me I would be good at going to school. Well, there's obviously no money in that, so that was worse than useless.

I know very few people who aren't willing to work if given the opportunity. Very few armchair sitters around here. I do know people who as soon as they go to work their government welfare money is cut back by the same amount that they made, or more, so really, where is the incentive to work there? Not to mention they just lost their government health insurance because they got a poor paying job that provides no insurance.

[denuseri]

One may wish to take a course on political science if they think lobbyist and other "influence-rs" of the politicians don't run the show and reap the true benefits of democracy over that of the common people. It is rather naive to think that our system is pure as the driven snow in that regard.

Money talks and bullshit walks as they say.

The only reason incumbents in congress have high re-election rates (at least in the House/ not so much so in the Senate) is the money they receive from the big backers who like maintaining the corporate sided slant of the status qoe gives them a huge advantage.

The corporations and their lobbyists and the politicians all know this even making election rules that favor them.

As for the one donation one vote thing...please! A 500 thousand dollar donation buys omg way more air time in the media and hires large amounts of pr people to put up signs/ make phone calls/ add voice and sway voters than the tiny 100 dollar one ever could.

Who does the candidate listen too once in office?

The small time individual or the big money backers who literally put him in office?

[Austerus]

The entire reason that money is power in politics is that it buys votes. Money allows a candidate to get more airtime on TV and radio, travel to more towns to meet people and give speeches, spend more on campaign staff, buttons, and bumper stickers. Money determines who gets taken seriously by the media, and who gets left on the shoulder of the road. Yes it's votes that are important, but without money there ARE NO votes, which politicians know perfectly well.

The politicians need money for their campaigns, so they set up a PAC. The PAC then throws events and fundraisers for the politician: "come have a nice barbecue dinner and meet Representative Flootypants!" Lobbyists attend the barbecue and pay a donation to the PAC or directly to the Representative's campaign fund, as a "thank you" for the nice barbecue, and they spend a few minutes talking to Mr. Flootypants about his campaign, what they might be able to do to help. Maybe the lobbyist friend also mentions, in passing, some concern about the idea of greater financial regulation. The important thing though is that he really likes Mr. Flootypants and wants to help him retain his seat so he can continue to be a great leader. Perhaps they even mention that they could help gather and package contributions for such a wise man who helped lead the country so well.

So now the esteemed Congressman on the Finance Committee has a new friend, someone who is really helpful to him. After he wins the election 500 people want meetings with him, want to take an hour of his time in order to talk to him about important topics. Who's he going to meet with? Gramma Millie from Townsville in his district, who sent $20 in to his campaign and wants to talk about how her house got foreclosed on? Or his helpful friend who wants to help educate him on the finer points of the financial industry so that he can make a more informed decision, the guy who helped package $50,000 in donations and managed to get him introductions to three different corporate executives all of whom express an interest in having someone of the Representative's (or his spouse's) caliber sitting on their corporate board.

It's not even a contest. Money wins at every stage. That's why the ONLY issue that matters in politics is campaign finance reform. Until that gets worked out no other matter will ever get settled honestly.

[denuseri]

I couldn't have said it better myself Austerus!

[tedteague]

this is the digital age, facebook and twitter are more important than cnn and fox news. money helps, yes, but it only gets you so far. youre also evading my point. politicians would much rather sell out to special interests, but point in fact the PEOPLE PUT THE POLITICIAN IN OFFICE, which once again brings me back to my point: if you are the 99%, and you are as united as you say, capable of organizing nonviolent protests across the country without financial backing, capable of making sure everyone knows what is going there via youtube, facebook, and twitter in spite of zero media coverage, then it shouldnt matter how much money politicians raise, unless of course 1) the 99% is not very united, or 2) the 99% is uninformed.
To suggest it is as simple as raising more money than the other guy in an age where information is so available its impossible to process it all is insulting to the average voter, unless you assume the average voter is an idiot.
Point in fact, ron paul, whose campaign depends almost entirely on private donations from inidiviiduals and gets nearly no media time is leading the gop in iowa right now.
and to austerus, if that grannie who got her home foreclosed is in a society and district that cares about her, people will do something (even though a foreclosed home is totally irrelevant to the conversation), if her district and neighborhood do nothing, then the average voter is interested in the status quo, which makes campaign money irrelevant

[Austerus]

ted,
Facebook ad Twitter are only more important than traditional media in areas where traditional media has less reach than the internet (i.e. 2nd and 3rd world countries). In fact in many of those countries they aren't as far-reaching as you might think. Take Egypt, a country that had a revolution that was largely reported to be fomented via Twitter, for example. In point of fact most non-college-educated people outside of Cairo and Alexandria don't even have internet access.

The mainstream media and the publishing industry in the developed world are certainly in the process of a fairly quick (historically speaking) downward slide, but they're far from overshadowed by Twitter. Facebook (which has over time stolen all the best features of Twitter) is even less competition, as its private, symmetrical friendship model doesn't lend itself to the kind of wide distribution that Twitter does. Yes, they have amazing penetration with tech-savvy highschool and college students, but they are pretty much completely irrelevant to members of the AARP.

So...I'm not part of the 99%, and I guarantee the 99% isn't organized or united, but that's because the 1% (really a much smaller percentage, but 'We are the 99.99%' isn't nearly as catchy) wants it that way. We (ok they) want people to support our (their) causes, and support the kinds of campaigns and lobbying that convince Joe Sixpack and Mary Minivan that their interests are aligned with ours (theirs) which of course in reality they are not.

Just look at the nonviolent protests that have been organized in the last several years. You have OWS and...the Tea Party. The two biggest protest movements of the last decade basically cancel each other out. It's a giant joke. Of course in reality they both want regulation on Wall Street and accountability for corporate executives, but that's not the way it gets spun. It gets spun as anti-dem or anti-rep, and it all just cancels itself out so that the whole gyroscope can keep spinning.

So, is the 99% not united, or uninformed? BOTH! But that's because there is a lot of money and interest that has a vested interest in keeping it that way. Corporate and political operatives have decades of experience in manipulating the truth, and "new media" isn't nearly mature or vetted enough to counteract the effects of the money and canny influence.

To assume that raising more money is all it takes is insulting to the average voter? Ok, then insult the average voter. So far as I can gather from historical data, candidates who raise more money win 80%+ of the time. Now there's an argument to be made that that isn't causal; rather that the candidate raises more money as an effect rather than a cause. But still. If you can look at one number and determine the election winner with 80% of the time that's pretty good. I'd take that to Vegas.

Yes Ron Paul is leading in Iowa. That's because he's spending like a madman in Iowa, building a crazy organization and praying that he can make enough of a showing there that he will get a fast flood of support and money such that he can set up real campaigns in other states before it is too late. Where else is he leading? What's he going to do when the election goes national and he doesn't have the war chest to put ads on TV or fly to New Mexico for a 3 day barnstorm?

If Grannie is "in a society and district that cares about her?" Man, each congressman in California represents ~700,000 people. Each senator represents 18,000,000 people. How realistic is it to assume that 700,000 people are going to organize to take on a problem for Gramma Mille? Heck, even if there are 1,000 Gramma Millie's, their $20,000 in donations and their high level of community outrage still don't match a single solid lobbyist's $50k plus intros, etc. And that's just ONE GUY.

Claiming that this is all "we the people" and that money doesn't decide elections seems pretty idealistic to me. To an extent of course people get what they deserve in elections, but big money has been the grease on that skid for as long as politicians needed to spend money to get the word out.

[Punish_her]

also, i wouldnt say the tea party and ows cancel each other out, but its a good example. In 2010, tea party candidates had a very strong showing, which reflects that grass roots organization is very much a force to be reckoned with.

[denuseri]

also, i wouldnt say the tea party and ows cancel each other out, but its a good example. In 2010, tea party candidates had a very strong showing, which reflects that grass roots organization is very much a force to be reckoned with.

Which shows that we can still have some hope that once conditions get bad enough human beings will rise up and seek the blood of tyrants to water that ole tree of liberty from time to time. The only problem is how at this stage even the Tea Party's demagoguery wasn't sufficient to allow it to maintain independence...publicly its precieved directly due to the media as having been swallowed in part or whole by the GOP. Which one may have failed to notice was plastered all over the media almost at the first mention of the Tea Party...even though it was initially a completely independent movement, the media "spin" made the reality conform to the lie.

Welcome to 1984 only clothed a bit differently.

[Omega22]

Which shows that we can still have some hope that once conditions get bad enough human beings will rise up and seek the blood of tyrants to water that ole tree of liberty from time to time..

democracy makes life of tyrants absolutely safe. instead of taking responsibility fro their actions tyrants just select random fools from big population and uses them as their own representatives, once something gets wrong all you need is to replace representative.

only solution today is going into anarchy, or else this situation will remain indefinitely

The real question is how to make a system that takes all the greed and other bad factors out of play or minimizes them.

current system is based on greed so if you take it out everything will collapse.
however we already had working system without greed in soviet CCCP.
it was quite good, but greed based systems are far more efficient than enthusiasm based systems when lots of resources are available.

Since resources are getting sacred there is no better option than communism, which favors laziness instead of diligence (which is synonym of greed) and if you are greedy then you are forced to feed all lazy ones around. This way resource consumption severely decreases.

[Thorne]

greed based systems are far more efficient than enthusiasm based systems when lots of resources are available.

"Enthusiasm" based systems don't work if there's no reward for the enthusiastic worker. In the CCCP (USSR) the only "enthusiastic" ones were the political leaders, who were able to get anything they wanted for themselves and their families. The average citizen could look forward to little but more work for no gain, while those who did no work still got fed, clothed and housed.

Since resources are getting sacred there is no better option than communism, which favors laziness instead of diligence (which is synonym of greed) and if you are greedy then you are forced to feed all lazy ones around.

So you're better off being lazy? You get fed, and you don't have to work! Sounds great to me.

This way resource consumption severely decreases.

Which means everyone but the guy with the resources starves. Sounds like the USSR, all right.

[Punish_her]

ted:
1) money matters
2) are you an expat?
austerus & denu:
1) you either don't give the average american voter enough credit, in which case if he is as uninformed and manipulatable as you think he is, that's depressing
2) I get what you're trying to say, but the math doesn't add up. People calling on behalf of candidate X (hypothetical incumbent) shouldn't matter. If someone lives in district X where representative X is, and district X is an incredibly conservative, catholic district, they wont vote for candidate X if he's pro-life regardless of hwo many signs are on lawns or what have you. Money does not really equal votes, and denu, i've taken my fair share of poli sci classes, and i dont have much respect for the field. So to recap: either voters its are so stupid they vote for whoevers name sounds familiar (and if they're that dumb, special interests groups aren't making a difference anyway), or the 99% likes things the way they are.
My opinion:
nothing will ever change because the average voter is not stupid per se, just really apathetic.
Oh and Ron Paul usually raises more on individual donations then any other candidate, GOP or Dem. It's not as if he's spending all out, it's that the only people who are polled are the ones who really care, the paul nuts 365 days a year

[denuseri]

1) you either don't give the average american voter enough credit, in which case if he is as uninformed and manipulatable as you think he is, that's depressing

That's not it at all, in fact on average the current American voter is much better educated in some ways than his predecessors were from previous generations. However...the amount of choices he or she has other than a "write in" are limited by a number of factors, chief of which is who got on the ticket and how...the who is very apparent to the voters, its drubbed up sometimes over a year in advance for the big elections...the how (lobbyists actions and super pacs working behind the scenes) not so much. Also the "what exactly will you do about this or that subject" type questions are all neatly sidesteped with sophistry during the elections, or the candidate say they will do X, despite knowing doing X wont be something they can accomplish in that office etc. Though such things are covered extensively in political science, history, and sociology courses. As for not giving what ancient philosophers and other learned men in the past have revered as the "ignorant mob" enough credit....shrugs...the facts don't lie, historically the numbers add up. The corporate oligarchy is limiting the choices of the mob as they see fit to their clear advantage over that of the mob and money is the primary way in which they do it. I too agree that its depressing...at least from the perspective of those who are not super wealthy, but it is understandable, especially when one includes components of mass psychology into the mix along with actual statistical analysis.


2) I get what you're trying to say, but the math doesn't add up.

Actually there are very long historical trends conserning human behavior in this regard that predate the Roman Empire that totally make this all add up. So much so its information thats introduced at the intro level of a number of different courses that deals with issues of political science...its not just called a science to make it sound important.

People calling on behalf of candidate X (hypothetical incumbent) shouldn't matter. If someone lives in district X where representative X is, and district X is an incredibly conservative, catholic district, they wont vote for candidate X if he's pro-life regardless of hwo many signs are on lawns or what have you. Money does not really equal votes, and denu, i've taken my fair share of poli sci classes, (then you should know what I am speaking about) and i dont have much respect for the field. Thats very unfortunate and shortsited, but I would love to hear why not all the same. So to recap: either voters its are so stupid they vote for whoevers name sounds familiar (and if they're that dumb, special interests groups aren't making a difference anyway), or the 99% likes things the way they are. Its more of a mixture...when voters are polled concerning why they voted for some of the lesser offices they do give responses like "I recognized only that guys name" etc or "I didn't have any information on candidate X so I voted party line.

The media has much more to do with it than one may think too...Ron Paul sounds great to some people, they just love him around here...but...almost everyone I know isn't going to vote for him because they "precive" him as not having the same chance or better of ever winning his parties nomination, let alone a Presidential bid and that's totally due to how much media influence Ron Paul has...which is directly proportional to how much money his backers are slinging around. A certian district may be one sided in their views on average...but "collectively" they pretty much act and respond as expected to the certain applications of propaganda..as evidenced historically and starkly by what happened to Germany in the 30"s.


My opinion:
nothing will ever change because the average voter is not stupid per se, just really apathetic.
Oh and Ron Paul usually raises more on individual donations then any other candidate, GOP or Dem. It's not as if he's spending all out, it's that the only people who are polled are the ones who really care, the paul nuts 365 days a year

Herd like complacency and voter apathy also greatly angered the great philosophers of ancient Greece and the Roman Republic. Xenophon even wrote a nice little book about it.

[Punish_her]

Herd like complacency and voter apathy also greatly angered the great philosophers of ancient Greece and the Roman Republic. Xenophon even wrote a nice little book about it.

No, itsl called a science becaye asshole like sounding important. You cant empirically prove anything, therefore, its not a science, and what numbers add up? ou didnt even say anything. you cant empirically show that more money from superpacs equals more votes, and if you can showa basic, relationship, you cant even prove its causual.

[denuseri]

No, itsl called a science becaye asshole like sounding important. You cant empirically prove anything, therefore, its not a science, and what numbers add up? ou didnt even say anything. you cant empirically show that more money from superpacs equals more votes, and if you can showa basic, relationship, you cant even prove its causual.

lol...allrighty then...you go right on thinking its not a science if you want while the people who know it is use what they know to work the system.

Numbers don't lie. Cliometrics and it's uses in Political Science are well known factors that involve a lot of in depth statistical analysis.

If money wasn't a factor Romney wouldn't be pulling back ahead of Newt in the primaries right now.

On another note :

There is a lot of overlap in things the Tea Party and the Occupy movements want and I think they would be better served by combining their independent efforts and dropping or excluding the two primary parties from participation....haven't we seen this before with the Reform and Whig parties back in the day?