Thoughtbytes

[flamingsword]

Things that I have noticed:

* Conservatives do not call bullshit on other conservatives. Progressives will disagree openly on the wisdom of various plans and publicly debate the matter, which is why the Democrats present a less united front. Republicans present a solid face to the public because they don't like to fight in front of the children.

* What is it about people not perceiving the difference between how legislation is ideally supposed to work and how it actually performs in real world applications? Do they not see the gap?

* If we legalize marijuana and release the potheads, then the federal prison system can ship its minimum security inmates into state penitentiaries and close their country-club-esque estates. The states could use the prison subsidy, the Feds could use the states' better cost efficiency, and Wall Street could use the incentive of hard time to stop committing fraud.

* Today, November 10th, is the average date of the first frost in New York City. Protesters will soon start dying of exposure, tents or no tents. If the current regime are so set on defending tax loopholes and moral hazards that they will not start pushing through concessions now, they will have deaths on their conscience by Thanksgiving.

* If I had a list of short-term requests for OWS, it would be this:

Reinstate Glass-Steagall

Overturn Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission and judicial decisions based on this precedent

Instate legislative recusal for Congress which pulls the teeth of lobbying.

Basel III, Volcker Rule, extend the Dodd-Frank protections that supplement Glass-Steagall
Those are the not-factually-controversial things our government can do right now to fix the underlying problems that created this mess and keep it from happening again. By the time we've got those done, we'll have workshopped most of the other stuff into viability.

Comments

[helmsman of-inepu (from livejournal.com)]

People see legislation as magical. As long as it's "for" something, it doesn't matter what the implementation is. It's also why the nicknames for bills have nothing to do with the contents. Patriot Act being a prime example.
It works the same with local tax levies. Almost all the money "for schools" goes to building unneeded buildings. I'd like to see the disclaimer "No students were educated with this money."

[helmsman of-inepu (from livejournal.com)]

I just had an interesting idea for doing a different twist on things.

The unfortunate thing about "occupy" is that it does play into the image of a "hippie sit-in" and gives people the excuse to dismiss it.

As an alternative to try somewhere, what if thousands of people descend on a business to drop off resumes? Then go to the next place and do the same thing? It might open the protest up to a lot more people who can't do the 'live outdoors' thing for various reasons. Also if the police are used to stop it, they are using the police to prevent people from applying for work? A lot of interesting dynamics open up. And when interviewed, a very simple, unified message can be delivered. "I need a job. Here's my resume!"

[gideon-s.livejournal.com]

You seem to be under the impression that everyone at Occupy needs a job, that's not necessarily true. Also, you'd be tying up the resources of (presumably) independently owned businesses to deal with a flood of resumes, which is kind of the opposite of what this whole thing is about.