My Letter to the Irish News about the 'Occupy' protests

[muppet]

Bravo, you have proved us all 100% correct, sadly.

No, Muppet. You twisted and turned and ranted and raved in this thread - until you got the bite, and now it's proved as some sort of victory.

I am completely surprised at some of your comments on here, in particular drawing out statements that should stand up to scruitiny and embroiling posters in one of the most twisted threads (and efforts) I've seen on here in a long time. Sadly, is right.

Explain?

[stew]

I'm not boasting about anything. I don't like to be categorized by Muppets because I have done alright for myself. I don't like to be labelled a bully, an extortionist or have claims made against me that I was born into my situation or manufactured it some way or other.

You are not making any coherent points that is why I have asked you to clarify or make sense of what you are ranting about.

Quoting Gladwell's latest book (if you have read it) doesn't provide the answers. He is one person with one opinion. His ideas on creating a society that provides opportunity for all are wonderful, but does it not exist already? Are the laws of success not the same for everyone? He labels circumstance, cultural background and opportunity as attributes of success. He also admits that some people earn and deserve their success.

'
You were not boasting, he was desperate, it's not your fault he hasn't a pot to piss in!

Well, well, well.

That says it all right there.

Bravo, you have proved us all 100% correct, sadly.

You said the man was boasting, he was not, he was giving his opinion and giving of his own personal experiences, you then slated him for it.

You are a begrudger muppet.

[Puckoon]

Muppet I think its a bit far fetched to draw comparisons there in fairness.
Yes big business is a problem and yes the distribution of wealth is a problem. What I don't agree with is the attitude of 'the world owes me a living.'
Look around the bars in Ireland at the weekend and its the same people, in the same trendy new clothes, with the iPhones and the new cars, the holidays to Spain once a year, yet they don't have any money. Living beyond their means is the problem.
Couple that with the laziness that has crept into the country and you have a problem. People don't want to work and expect to get paid a lot of money for not working.

I work about 60-70 hours a week, God forbid if I was out of work in the morning and couldn't get work doing something similar to what I am doing I would be on a building site or behind a bar pulling pints or manual labour on a farm. You reap what you sow.

When you took issue with this post, the whole thread went left. This post got extrapolated into a discussion about begrudgery, defence of wall street, boasting etc. In my opinion I think this post is completely truthful - and I do not (nor do I think this post does), defend anything that has happened in Wall street. I think there are many truths in this post:

1. Big Business is a problem
2. The distribution of wealth is a problem
3. There is a western world wide issue (ive even been guilty of it myself) of not living within the means available to you
4. There is an attitude of entitelment and that the world owes (I have seen it in my own workplace, and community)
5. There are people, many people who are not prepared to help themselves (there are in addition - there are as many people who unfortunately are not being afforded the opportunity to help themselves - see points 1 and 2)
6. What is boastful, or lecturing about suggesting that if IM, (or indeed myself as we had MORE layoffs last week, with more in the pipeline), were to be out of work in the morning - there wouldn't be efforts going into a mass protest - rather I'd be out hauling bricks, or lpulling pints to make ends meet?

[Tony Baloney]

I'm gonna weigh in here as an onlooker. Muppet, it is well documented that you have issues with Stew and TO. Not sure of your previous with Iceman but in my opinion you deliberately twisted his argument. He appeared to be making the perfectly reasonable argument that he "has done alright" (hardly a boast!), has worked hard to get there and if he got laid off he'd do the same thing again. Hardly the arrogant boasts of a raving right winger. If you were a woman I'd tell you to come back in a week when you're feeling better

[muppet]

Muppet I think its a bit far fetched to draw comparisons there in fairness.
Yes big business is a problem and yes the distribution of wealth is a problem. What I don't agree with is the attitude of 'the world owes me a living.'
Look around the bars in Ireland at the weekend and its the same people, in the same trendy new clothes, with the iPhones and the new cars, the holidays to Spain once a year, yet they don't have any money. Living beyond their means is the problem.
Couple that with the laziness that has crept into the country and you have a problem. People don't want to work and expect to get paid a lot of money for not working.

I work about 60-70 hours a week, God forbid if I was out of work in the morning and couldn't get work doing something similar to what I am doing I would be on a building site or behind a bar pulling pints or manual labour on a farm. You reap what you sow.

When you took issue with this post, the whole thread went left. This post got extrapolated into a discussion about begrudgery, defence of wall street, boasting etc. In my opinion I think this post is completely truthful - and I do not (nor do I think this post does), defend anything that has happened in Wall street. I think there are many truths in this post:

1. Big Business is a problem
2. The distribution of wealth is a problem
3. There is a western world wide issue (ive even been guilty of it myself) of not living within the means available to you
4. There is an attitude of entitelment and that the world owes (I have seen it in my own workplace, and community)
5. There are people, many people who are not prepared to help themselves (there are in addition - there are as many people who unfortunately are not being afforded the opportunity to help themselves - see points 1 and 2)
6. What is boastful, or lecturing about suggesting that if IM, (or indeed myself as we had MORE layoffs last week, with more in the pipeline), were to be out of work in the morning - there wouldn't be efforts going into a mass protest - rather I'd be out hauling bricks, or lpulling pints to make ends meet?

Ok let's do this.

To me, and evidentially others in Ireland, that post says the following about Ireland:

1. He fires the old chestnut about 'the world owes me a living'. You live in the States, you know exactly what is behind that and you of all people usually run a mile from that crap.
2. He says look around the bars of Ireland at all these people living beyond their means. 4 years too late of course.
3. Then we have the predictable 'People don't want to work and expect to get paid a lot of money for not working' after the usual laziness accusation.
Get the picture, I'm broke, you owe me a living, I'm lazy, I deserve more money for doing nothing?
4. The only people on here who talk about how hard they work and how much they earn are those lambasting the rest of us, without even the slightest clue as to our circumstances.

Stew let the cat out of the bag by assuming I haven't a pot to piss in. That said it all and you quickly tried to deflect the point away from that.

You have reacted to back up an acquaintance or mate or whatever. Very noble but from what I have read over the years you don't buy into that Republican - survival of the fittest as long as you don't mean Darwin- rhetoric.

[eddie d]

What about Madoff and MF Global? Was that 'half' down to the laziness of the poor as well? AIG? Bear Sterns & Lehmans and the 100 odd other banks that have closed in the States in the last 3 years?

How does all this stop anybody getting of their arse and getting a job?

If there were 40 jobs going, and 300 apply for them, are 260 people that dont get a job lazy?

but are there only 40 jobs going? Or only 40 jobs going that you would actually do? Meanwhile there are another 300 jobs that you wouldn't lower yourself to do..... that are being snapped up by other Eastern Europeans and other Internationals prepared to come to Ireland and do whatever it takes....

hardly call this a reasonable argument, that anyone that doesnt have a job is lazy, plus when you use phrases like 'Lower yourself to do' suggests you are of the opinion that you are better than people who work in bars etc

[muppet]

I'm gonna weigh in here as an onlooker. Muppet, it is well documented that you have issues with Stew and TO. Not sure of your previous with Iceman but in my opinion you deliberately twisted his argument. He appeared to be making the perfectly reasonable argument that he "has done alright" (hardly a boast!), has worked hard to get there and if he got laid off he'd do the same thing again. Hardly the arrogant boasts of a raving right winger. If you were a woman I'd tell you to come back in a week when you're feeling better

What about this:

I think you greatly underestimate the depth of hurt and anger perpetrated on this nation by the church for decades... and they were supposed to be our moral guardians. It runs very very deep and has caused many broken lives, suicides and alcoholism-drug addiction. If any other organisation had done the same, there would have been calls for it to be disbanded.

Thats if you look at it as an organisation or business Fox.  Some people don't. I don't think God can be disbanded no matter how hard you try.
I certainly don't underestimate the hurt - I come from a wider family circle deeply affected by the abuse and being involved in Youth Ministry over the years I have had contact with a lot of the priests who have since been exposed.  Not an easy thing to come to terms with or reconcile but I won't jump ship.....

Yet again the assumption that to leave the catholic church means disbanding God, like they have the monopoly on God. I left the church years ago... so you assume I walked away from God. No... I walked away from the church... thank God 

The difference in us is that I assume God meant what He said and I believe the specific instructions given to us in how to Worship Him and follow Him.  You assume He doesn't care.


I can't remember who said this but I once heard:

The Devil has tried 3 times to take the world.
The first time he tried to convince us that God didn't exist - but deep down people knew this wasn't true and it didn't work.
The second time the devil tried to convince us that he didn't exist - but with all the evil in the world people knew that wasn't true either.
The third time the devil convinced us that God doesn't care.  Each to their own, live and let live, be a good person and follow God as you see fit - and the devil won.

[Puckoon]

OK. Let's really do this.

1. Muppet: You live in the States, you know exactly what is behind that and you of all people usually run a mile from that crap.
Puckoon: I genuinely do not know what this means. I live in the states, yes. I live here primarily because my daughter lives here and I will do whatever it takes to be with her in my lifetime. I generally love the place. This love stems from the life I have here, the many Americans I call friends. Not from some flag waving, patriotic, obliviously unaware of the problems of the USA ingrained standpoint.

2. Muppet: He says look around the bars of Ireland at all these people living beyond their means. 4 years too late of course.
Puckoon: - As you allude to in a later post - IM is an aquaintance of mine. He probably had this same view point 4 years ago - going on what I know of him. Do you think that no one ever thought they were living beyond their means until the bubble crashed?

3. Muppet: Then we have the predictable 'People don't want to work and expect to get paid a lot of money for not working' after the usual laziness accusation.
Get the picture, I'm broke, you owe me a living, I'm lazy, I deserve more money for doing nothing?
Puckoon: Does the fact that is predictable, remove any value in truth from this? Are you suggesting it doesnt exist?

4. Muppet: 4. The only people on here who talk about how hard they work and how much they earn are those lambasting the rest of us, without even the slightest clue as to our circumstances.
Puckoon: I don't believe that the post was designed to lambast anyone. If out of some random coincidence something I have said is hurtful, or close to the bone from a personal standpoint - I'd apologize profousely. It's reference to a general attitude that can exist. I've been unemployed myself in the not to distant past. It is extremely difficult. Had the law allowed me I would have done absolutely anything rather than be unemployed. As it was - I had to wait 10 months for a science job in order to remain legal in the US. No dole, no benefits, no money.

5. Muppet - Stew let the cat out of the bag and you very quickly tried to deflect the point away from that
Puckoon: I am not deflecting anything stew said. You, Stew and TO have differences that overpower most discussions on here. Rather I finally felt like saying what I wanted to say 5 pages previousl. That is the truth of it.

6. I am not backing up an friend or aquaintance. I do think you lost the run in this thread. I see no problem with the post of Iceman - infact I commend him for it. And you are right, I do not buy into the Republican rhetoric. This thread just gave me a headache and I decided to post in it after a few torturous days reading of it.

[muppet]

1. Agreed
2. Agreed with the caveat that are his thoughts 4 years ago not what people are protesting about? Bailing out a system that lives beyond its means?
3. Of course it exists, but not in the minds of everyone who isn't a Republican.
4. You said nothing that offended me. You are always a reasonable poster which is why I am taken aback.
5. ?
6. I genuinely find it odd that people would continue to read stuff that really bothers them. This is debate, sure it might get lively at times but I don't take it that seriously and I'm certain TO doesn't. Stew and IM, dunno.

[Declan]

Excellent post Fionntamhnach:

Here's another perspective on it:

Why the Occupy Movement is Good for Our Health
by Julie Matthaei and Neil Wollman
Recently, the Congressional Budget Office released a report on income inequality which found that the incomes of the top 1% nearly tripled between 1979 and 2007, whereas those of the middle class increased by less than forty percent. In his 2007 study, Jared Bernstein  found that the after-tax income of the top 1% was 21 times higher than that of middle income families in 2005, compared to "only" 8 times higher in 1979. Indeed, inequality has been on the increase.
The burgeoning Occupy Wall Street movement, and its slogan, "We are the 99%," is drawing critical attention to the grossly unequal distribution of income and wealth in the U.S.  Critiques include the injustice of the high incomes (and lack of incarceration) of Wall Street executives, given that their illegal actions caused the unemployment and homelessness of millions; the corrupting influence on the democratic process of the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few; and the basic indecency of the top 1% having much more than they could ever spend, while millions of Americans lack housing, health care, even food. 

But there any many other serious societal problems associated with inequality which are not so obvious, and which have received little attention from the Occupy movement or the media.  According to researchers Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, more equal societies outperformed less equal ones in fifteen key ways:

•PHYSICAL HEALTH:  People in more equal societies live longer, a smaller proportion of children die in infancy, and self-rated health is better.
•MENTAL HEALTH:  People in more equal societies are far less likely to experience mental illness.
•DRUG ABUSE:  People in more equal societies are less likely to use illegal drugs.
•EDUCATION:  Children do better at school in more equal societies.
•IMPRISONMENT:  Unequal societies are harsher (in that) they imprison a higher proportion of people.
•OBESITY:  Obesity is less common in more equal societies.
•SOCIAL MOBILITY:  There is more social mobility in more equal societies.
•TRUST AND COMMUNITY LIFE:  Communities are more cohesive and people trust each other more in more equal societies.
•VIOLENCE:  Homicide rates are lower and children experience less violence in more equal societies.
•TEENAGE BIRTHS:  Teenage motherhood is less common in more unequal societies.
•CHILD WELL-BEING: UNICEF measures of child well-being are better in more equal societies. 
In sum, income inequality is bad for our health, and for our society.  This finding greatly strengthens the case for policies aimed at making our income distribution more equal.

The Occupy Movement's call for greater income equality also receives support from another finding of Wilkinson and Pickett.  They found that reductions in the level of inequality improve social well-being more than do increases in GDP.  This finding runs counter to a basic tenet of our economic policy – that GDP is the best measure of well-being.  It suggests that pro-growth policies which lead to increased inequality may in fact make people worse off, even if they increase GDP.   Conversely, increasing taxes on the rich would not only increase fairness, but also could increase well-being, even if they were to reduce GDP by discouraging capital investment. 

It is time that we the people, and our representatives in Washington, realize how unhealthy inequality is for us and for our society.  We should all applaud the Occupy Movement for bringing this problem to public attention, and we should join them in demanding that public officials act decisively to reverse this unhealthy trend.  While the top 1% can use their economic advantage and associated power to further enhance their wealth, we encourage them instead to join the 99% in pushing for more equality--as Warren Buffet, Skip Gates, and others have –and, perhaps, also improve their health and well-being in the process.   We should all seek the redistribution of income -- to "spread the wealth around' as put by then candidate Barack Obama to Joe the plumber -- with more benefits then either likely considered at the time.

[seafoid]

47% of Americans wouldn't be able to raise $2000 in 30 days according to Harpers. 
Are they all lazy? 

[seafoid]

Stew

You are like a flock of sheep and have about the same amount of imagination, FOX news, Fox news. Fox new's, you idiots think that is all we do and were we get our information from, you are wrong.

I think a reasonable number of posters here know there are 2 realities in the US. There is a liberal reality and a conservative reality. So you might not take your news from fox but it's somewhere else in the echo chamber. 

Do you know this lady?

Ann Coulter, of course, is one of the masters of the hate genre, with many best sellers under her belt, some with alarming one-word titles (Guilty, Godless, Treason, Slander). In Demonic, Coulter begins by quoting from the Gospel of Mark (she knows her audience) and then dives straight in: "The demon is a mob, and the mob is demonic," she writes, continuing two paragraphs later:
The Democratic Party is the party of the mob, irrespective of what the mob represents. Democrats activate mobs, depend on mobs, coddle mobs, publicize and celebrate mobs—they are the mob. Indeed, the very idea of a "community organizer" is to stir up a mob for some political purpose.
Two key themes run through the book. First, Coulter tells her readers over and over again that everything—everything—they read and hear from nonconservative sources is a lie. For example:
The liberal fairy tale that Southern bigots simply switched parties, from Democrat to Republican, is exactly wrong. What happened is: The Democrats switched mobs. Democrats will champion any group of hooligans in order to attain power.... This is why the Democrats are able to transition so seamlessly from defending Bull Connor racists to defending Black Panthers, hippies, yippies, Weathermen, feminists, Bush derangement syndrome liberals, Moveon .org, and every other indignant, angry mob.
And this:
Nixon indeed had something called the "Southern Strategy," but it had nothing to do with appealing to racial resentment. His idea was to force nice patriotic, churchgoing Southerners to recognize what a rotten, treasonous bunch the Democrats had become. It was a regional version of his appeal to the Silent Majority.
And this:
Although it is accepted wisdom that the Allies were too harsh on Germany after World War I, leading to World War II, in fact, the truth is the opposite. We didn't crush Germany sufficiently the first time. Consequently, in 1919, a lot of Germans accepted the claim that they had not really been defeated but had just been "stabbed in the back" by civilians.
This last theory, she notes, was the handiwork of "documented crackpot" John Maynard Keynes.
Her second polemical point is to make Democrats and liberals and the left (it suits her purposes to use the terms interchangeably) into an alien and Other, and not American. Back-to-back chapters on the French and American revolutions describe, in perfervid but not inaccurate language, the violent nature of the French rebellion and the comparatively calm aspect of the American one. The point of this contrast is not that America is a superior nation to France, although that of course is noted. Rather, it's that Democrats and liberals and the left are like the French, and that "the men behind the American Revolution...were the very opposite of a mob. Today we would call them 'Republicans.'" The actual development of American political life from the Federalist period on, as described by such historians as Gordon Wood, has no place here.
Obama is somewhat incidental to the Coulter worldview, which holds that Democrats have been working toward the downfall of America since long before he came on the scene. But another, newer genre of hate books places Obama at the heart of the plot, as in Red Army by Aaron Klein and his coauthor, Brenda J. Elliott. Their earlier effort, The Manchurian President, made the extended New York Times best-seller list last year. Now they return—and how quickly!—to "document" the years-long drive to put Obama in the White House spearheaded by the likes of Michael Harrington's old Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC). It's often hilarious to read about socialism's alleged stranglehold on the congressional Democratic Party, just because a few Democrats like Ron Dellums and Jerry Nadler have attended events organized by Democratic Socialists of America. A book like Red Army, with its simultaneously solemn and preposterous prose (Coulter at least is capable of getting off a few jokes), is proof that individual facts can all be true but can easily be combined in a way that tells a fundamentally false and silly story.

[thejuice]

Unfortunately for a lot of people I know who are coming out of college and university now are working. But for nothing. A relative of mine can't even get a job in the local supervalu with his 1st class degree in engineering. But he gets up and he goes to an engineering office a few miles away and works there. And get he gets nothing for it but a word of thanks. But hey he's one of these lazy ones.

And the biggest joke  of all is now tesco are offering "internships" for Christmas. In other words "stack our shelves for free". You'd be glad of the experience, right. It's not like Tesco can afford to pay these people, poor old tesco, barely fighting to survive. They'd love to spread the wealth around but these are hard times, right.

F**k tesco!

[seafoid]

Unfortunately for a lot of people I know who are coming out of college and university now are working. But for nothing. A relative of mine can't even get a job in the local supervalu with his 1st class degree in engineering. But he gets up and he goes to an engineering office a few miles away and works there. And get he gets nothing for it but a word of thanks. But hey he's one of these lazy ones.

And the biggest joke  of all is now tesco are offering "internships" for Christmas. In other words "stack our shelves for free". You'd be glad of the experience, right. It's not like Tesco can afford to pay these people, poor old tesco, barely fighting to survive. They'd love to spread the wealth around but these are hard times, right.

F**k tesco!

thejuice

Good post. TBH I think that is where the rage behind Occupy Wall St comes from. Stew and TO and the rest of the Yanks have a different view of reality and it has a big media component. And increasing numbers of people who have no jobs or who are underwater financially don't buy that shite any more. There is a big generational wealth transfer thing going on too and Iceman's position is pull the ladder up and that sort of talk doesn't go down well in the graduate age group.   

[Puckoon]

6. I genuinely find it odd that people would continue to read stuff that really bothers them. This is debate, sure it might get lively at times but I don't take it that seriously and I'm certain TO doesn't. Stew and IM, dunno.

Because you have to take the rough with the smooth. Inbetween lots of the nonsense there are the odd pearls of wisdom, and viewpoints you might never had taken the time to consider.

Infact the thread title is interesting. The occupy protests are like the Irish News. Used to be worth paying attention to - but have turned to shit in many departments.