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The socialist agenda behind all of the "Occupy" groups

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President Camacho

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Re: The socialist agenda behind all of the "Occupy" groups

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Socialism: When large companies get bailed out by the American people. It's socialism for the rich and the very poor but not for the working class? How is that fair? How can you blame the average American for wanting a more equitable distribution?

I'm no expert. I see people protesting. Why are they protesting today when they weren't protesting yesterday? Is it because they all woke up one day and realized they could prosper by taking from the rich? Why didn't they realize this yesterday or back when Benjamin Franklin commented, "When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the Republic." Personal property is protected by more than parchment barriers - most all Americans have a strong respect for personal properties.

The 'people' have just been smacked across the face, tied, and made to witness banks and large corporations get their money without their express consent. The Government and Big Business has set the example of socialism!!! Not this rabble. They have shown the people the way. If you control the legislature you can vote yourself money. Would this have happened if every American were asked if they wished to bail the banks out??? Is any of it fair?

Nevermind the reasons for it all or where we could be if we hadn't bailed these companies out. These people are pissed because they feel they've been robbed. There are precedents in America for this type of tyranny.

To look with disgust at protestors who are angry that their money can be taken from them without their immediate consent is to deny American history, freedom, personal property, popular sovereignty, and what this country is about. Our Founding Fathers warred over just about any tax increase. They didn't feel their interests were being fairly represented in the island of England and I feel many people today feel their interests aren't being considered on the island of Washington.

The Representative system is broken. Was it ever meant to be permanent? I don't know. Here's what John Adams has to say about it (complete with spelling errors), " This expedient is only an equivalent for the suffrage of the whole people, in the common management of public concerns. It is really nothing more than this, the people chuse attornies to vote for them in the great council of the nation, reserving always the fundamentals of the government, reserving also a right to give their attornies instructions how to vote, and a right, at certain stated intervals of choosing a new, discarding an old attorney, and choosing wiser and a better."

If you read that carefully, you'll get mixed messages regarding the actual role of the representative but I think it's made very clear in the first sentence what the fundamental purpose of the representative is - the collected will of the people. How do our representatives know this when they don't ask us our opinion and don't give me any crap about "we vote 'em in and then we cut 'em loose" shit... That's stupidity and if you don't agree that it is you're missing an opportunity to keep from being exploited.

Why did the Founding Fathers do this to us???? "This popular power (the people of the U.S.) however, when the numbers grew large, became impracticable to be exercised by the universal and immediate suffrage of the people: and this impracticability has introduced from the feudal system, an expedient which we call representation." - John Adams

Universal and IMMEDIATE suffrage of the people! They couldn't do it back then. We can do it today. There's no excuse why we shouldn't do it.

Now, if you think that the American people are too stupid to vote for themselves then you need to do your part to educate them and contribute to our nation's education system. I can already see in my mind's eye mass debate and mass dissemination of information!

Lincoln: "Let the people know the facts and the country shall be safe." No more closed door sessions and no more panels of wolves deciding how to police other wolves in defense of the sheep. Let them fight for our vote!



As to the police... maybe you wouldn't be so surprised at the restraint the police officers showed if the protestors were armed as well as the police were. The protestors are fighting on behalf of the police in my opinion and the state is using the cops to quell their benefactors. It's almost like the Persians hiring Greeks to fight Greeks. It's disgusting. And please don't get too proud of the police - watch the Berkley video in which a 4' Asian lady is battered repeatedly with a baton... that's hard to watch.

Reference to Nazis - any buzz word like this (remember the word socialism conservatives love so much and spin for their own ends?) is used to illicit an emotional response. The buzz word is appropriate as law makers are sending the police out in the middle of the night to make secret arrests and dismantle the protestors.

The protestors are being shooshed away. What would you think of the American Back Bone if they just shrugged their shoulders and went home? They're all fighting for something legitimate - to be heard. Whether they want something as stupid as a pair of new sneakers from a rich person... who cares... they still want to be heard and they deserve to have their vote count. (and I hope you trust that the American people will see the folly in property reappropriation as almost all of them ultimately do! By far the VAST majority.)

Athens is a perfect example of the closest form of government to Democracy that there has ever been and there is not a single reference in history that I can recall in which the citizens of the city voted to confiscate the property of other citizens. So there is a little extra nudge of assurance.


More ranting:

What type of individual would most easily react to the injustices of the current mass inequality of our system and form a protest? Ok... they're probably going to be a little radical and desperate. Right?

Of course you're going to have radicals that can, it seems, be easily exploited for some good Tea Party propaganda. No one is contemplating, or should contemplate, armed revolution. Only one significant change and a couple minor ones need changing. In my opinion these are more popular sovereignty and a shift in taxes.

Ask yourself... will the American people vote for a road to nowhere? Will they vote to give Big Tobacco subsidies? Will they vote to pay for large corporations not to grow food? Will they vote Congress luxuries? WILL THEY VOTE TO MAINTAIN PEOPLE WHO ARE ABLE TO WORK BUT REFUSE? No.... no,no,no,no.

These radical anti-capitalists are a sliver of the population who will be outvoted.
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Re: The socialist agenda behind all of the "Occupy" groups

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http://upwithchrishayes.msnbc.msn.com/_ ... reet-video

"A well-known Washington lobbying firm with links to the financial industry has proposed an $850,000 plan to take on Occupy Wall Street and politicians who might express sympathy for the protests, according to a memo obtained by the MSNBC program “Up w/ Chris Hayes.”

The proposal was written on the letterhead of the lobbying firm Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford and addressed to one of CLGC’s clients, the American Bankers Association.

CLGC’s memo proposes that the ABA pay CLGC $850,000 to conduct “opposition research” on Occupy Wall Street in order to construct “negative narratives” about the protests and allied politicians. The memo also asserts that Democratic victories in 2012 would be detrimental for Wall Street and targets specific races in which it says Wall Street would benefit by electing Republicans instead."
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Re: The socialist agenda behind all of the "Occupy" groups

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How do our representatives know this when they don't ask us our opinion . . .
That's really an interesting question. I don't follow politics that closely (probably just a little more closely than the average citizen, which isn't saying much), but I do vote in EVERY election and I have my senators, congressman, state legislators, and county officials on my email contact list and I send them emails all the time. They probably have me marked as "KOOK", but so what? At least I am telling them what I think and what I want. I'm even polite to them . . . mostly. :) How many people actually contact their representatives on a regular basis? Really, I'm curious, chime in.
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Re: The socialist agenda behind all of the "Occupy" groups

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kelstan wrote:
How do our representatives know this when they don't ask us our opinion . . .
That's really an interesting question. I don't follow politics that closely (probably just a little more closely than the average citizen, which isn't saying much), but I do vote in EVERY election and I have my senators, congressman, state legislators, and county officials on my email contact list and I send them emails all the time. They probably have me marked as "KOOK", but so what? At least I am telling them what I think and what I want. I'm even polite to them . . . mostly. :) How many people actually contact their representatives on a regular basis? Really, I'm curious, chime in.
I don't, but that's cool that you do that. Do you ever get anything other than a form letter back?
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Re: The socialist agenda behind all of the "Occupy" groups

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Mostly it is a form letter, which I understand, but sometimes, yes, a hand-written note. Of course, it's more personal on a state and local level - I get personal emails from one of our state legislators any time I write to him, and generally when I ask the county judge for something (here in Arkansas the county judges aren't judicial judges, they just take care of county business, like road maintenance, libraries, etc.), it is usually addressed right away.
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Re: The socialist agenda behind all of the "Occupy" groups

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When I was in Florida, I used to get responses. Here in Georgia, I haven't received a response from my congressman nor the Mayor.
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Re: The socialist agenda behind all of the "Occupy" groups

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President Camacho wrote:When I was in Florida, I used to get responses. Here in Georgia, I haven't received a response from my congressman nor the Mayor.
Maybe you're not sweet-talking them enough, honey ;)
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President Camacho

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Re: The socialist agenda behind all of the "Occupy" groups

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I don't understand it... they're Republican and I'm a cute boy... maybe I'm just not young enough anymore :(
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Re: The socialist agenda behind all of the "Occupy" groups

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I don't think many of the videographers above understand what socialism is. A progressive tax is not socialism.

Also consider a very new wrinkle, that money = free speech. Those with more money now have more free speech. For example, a wealthy person 2000 miles away may decide to run anonymous ads in your local district to influence who will be your representative in the State, Congress, or the Senate. That person has much more "free speech" than you do and can effectively cancel out your vote. YAY!
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Re: The socialist agenda behind all of the "Occupy" groups

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Re: 'tHE SOCIALIST AGENDA

After the shock and awe of the wall street implosion (but capitalism works!),
the massive bank bailouts,
the government hearing to address failure and corruption in financial markets and corporations,
I do not find credible those who claim they don't know or understand what motivates OWS and similar protests across the nation and the world.

However, they assure us they know the 1) it is a socialist agenda, 2) capitalism works (when we have witnessed the spectacilar failure of capitalistic institutions who had to resort to socialism to bail them out) 3) the protesters are "losers", stupid and other personal smears and accusations against individual protesters or collectively.

"thou doeth protest too much" applies here...

Those who practice spurious methods of continously mocking, and sneering, and smearing do so with evil intent methinks... it's like a FOX news "debate" where ridicule and disingenous personal malice and hatred stir the discussion and shape perceptions with schoolyard bullying instead of civil discourse. Name-calling, baiting, smearing are all signs of spurious rethorical craftiness, immaturity or worse:
perhaps the lobbying firm and others like them have already found paid "assassions" in their "opposition" campaign.
Hidden, underhanded, dishonourable techniques are employed in smear campaigns, and methods to poison rational discourse are many and varied, secret, even subtle.

There is plenty of money to spread this manure around and it stinks.
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