Ya Libnan

Anti-Wall Street demonstrations heat up around worldwide

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Anti-Wall Street demonstrations against corporate greed spread across the USA and the world over the weekend, with protests turning violent in Rome.

Though demonstrations were largely peaceful, 175 people were arrested in Chicago early Sunday after refusing to take down tents in a city park. Dozens of others were arrested from New York to Arizona on Saturday.

The protests are loosely organized, but a general theme is based on the theory that the richest 1% of the population controls a disproportionate share of wealth and political power. Complaints focus on the 9.1% U.S. unemployment rate, the housing crisis, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“The majority of people in this country and around the world are tired of big corporations and big money ruling the world,” said Bruce Wright, 50, of St. Petersburg, Fla., who helped organize the demonstration at Freedom Plaza in Washington.

“If we want revolutionary change in this country, we have to be willing to do the same things that they’re doing in Tunisia and Egypt,” he said.

Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said now that the “Occupy Wall Street” movement has grown, the question is whether it can organize for political effect.

“The easier part is protesting,” he said. “It’s the nitty-gritty work of politics, day in and day out, that actually makes a difference in an election season.”

•In Chicago, 2,000 attended a protest, and then 500 set up camp at an entrance to Grant Park before police began the arrests.

•In New York City, thousands of protesters in Times Square chanted, “Banks got bailed out! We got sold out!” and 42 were arrested for taking down police barriers. Two-dozen were arrested after entering a Citibank branch and refusing to leave.

•In Arizona, about 100 people were arrested — 53 in Tucson and 46 in Phoenix — after protesters refused police orders to disperse. In Phoenix, 1,000 people packed César Chávez Park to protest abuses by banks and corporations. Several hundred rallied in Tucson’s Military Plaza Park.

Elsewhere Saturday: About 1,500 demonstrators marched for several blocks in Pittsburgh; an estimated 1,500 marched past banks in Orlando; about 1,000 rallied in downtown Denver and nearly 200 spent the night in Detroit’s Grand Circus Park.

Similar demonstrations took place in London, Toronto and Mexico City. In Rome, protesters broke away from the main demonstration, smashing shop and bank windows, and burning cars. Mayor Gianni Alemanno estimated the damage to city property at $1.4million.

Tarak Kauff, 70, a member of Veterans for Peace who attended the Washington demonstration, said the message isn’t just from his group but is bubbling up everywhere.

“People have tasted what it means to have people power,” said Kauff, of Woodstock, N.Y.

“They’re not only suffering in Afghanistan and Iraq, but they’re suffering right here in this country,” he said.

USA today

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16 responses to “Anti-Wall Street demonstrations heat up around worldwide”

  1. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    AFTER Having spent the last 70 or so years convincing people that socialism and unions were bad for everyone, and the ‘state of the economy’ which we were generally led to believe needed to kiss the asses of the ‘bosses’ and ‘money-men’ to be successful, perhaps some are beginning to consider what those concepts were all about in the first place – the reasons people in the ‘Dirty 30’s’ were beaten and killed – especially since ‘Big Business’ of the last 25 years has spent so much time largely programming us to dismantle those ‘unions’ and ‘plans’ – the small gains made by workers, at a time when skilled labour was still necessary for most things to be done.
     Computers, and robots, and ‘world-think-economy’ have taken over largely what was gained by free workers – while the pension and health plans they thought were building up for them turned out to be only on paper, or were wasted and stolen by the ‘stock’ markets and incompetent, overly-lobbied governments.
      Now, at least in Europe and ‘the west’, they want us to think that it’s because there are too many of us getting old (thanks to the health-care), or the fact we didn’t have enough babies in the 70’s and 80’s, that there can no longer be pensions or adequate health-care as part of a system for all the people.
     Oh dear! Our children will need to pay !! Well, what the hell do they think the older folks DID. And they funded their kids ‘higher education’ too. They simply didn’t rush out to buy ‘the latest and greatest’ every 6 months. And things actually worked for years!!
      And what kind of education was that ??  Stuff by the ‘London School Of Economics’ … borrow for now and pay later. 🙁
    Well, it’s time to pay, folks. FLAT TAX rates would be BEST! And less costly to ‘work out’ with government forms that simply said: “How much did you make? Send us 15%”. And yes, that would be all needed, if ALL people and businesses actually paid it. No ‘deferments’ either. 
      In the 50’s people talked about a future-world with robots helping us all to have more ‘free-time’ to ‘enjoy the arts’ or indulge in self-awareness and research programmes; and an easier, healthier life without the drudgery and suffering. Unfortunately, no-one considered how to keep only a few from  benefiting from it, and thus putting the majority into the dire straights of the last 5 years instead of closer to a humane utopia. (Perhaps also without the pollution too.)
      But can people stop themselves from constantly striving for things that are not really needed to have a productive and happy life? Always there will be some who want ‘more’, ‘bigger’, ‘faster’. The human ego knows no bounds.
      If we cannot agree to ‘share’ – at least with the least of us – and make laws which reflect that, then nothing will change. Might as well pack up the tents and go home … if you have one.

    1. Sebouh80 Avatar
      Sebouh80

      The Occupy Wall Street protests mark a significant turning point. The governments and bourgeois media have endlessly trumpeted their solution to the crisis: the devastation of society through the destruction of public education, health care and other services and the slashing of jobs, wages and pensions—all in order to preserve and increase the wealth of a tiny minority at the top. This is why in the end the ordinery people around the world have intervened to stop this madness.

      1. libnan1 Avatar
        libnan1

        Employment at a private company is not a right, it’s a privilege. 

        1. 5thDrawer Avatar
          5thDrawer

          Even if treated as a slave libnan1?  Perhaps you only hire huge egos that like ‘level-badges’ on their chests more than money.
            You earn that ‘privilege’ with your skill-set and the company should appreciate your abilities. We can assume you had the ‘qualifications’ to do the work and that is why you were hired in the first place. You proved your value to the company with consistency and regularity, perhaps some imagination, and by that helped it to grow. Why should you not share in the profits by some degree which enables you to buy decent housing, clothing and food for a 4-member family?  Why should you not have, at the end of a career, an expectation of comfort in advanced age with a viable pension?  I am not saying that all work is equal. All people are not equal. But most wish to have work. Work is healthy for a human, but only up to the point where he/she feels they are contributing and are appreciated for the contribution –  as a person. And it is not the number of coffee-breaks or the annual picnics or the occasional pat on the back which put food on a table for life.

        2. 5thDrawer Avatar
          5thDrawer

          Even if treated as a slave libnan1?  Perhaps you only hire huge egos that like ‘level-badges’ on their chests more than money.
            You earn that ‘privilege’ with your skill-set and the company should appreciate your abilities. We can assume you had the ‘qualifications’ to do the work and that is why you were hired in the first place. You proved your value to the company with consistency and regularity, perhaps some imagination, and by that helped it to grow. Why should you not share in the profits by some degree which enables you to buy decent housing, clothing and food for a 4-member family?  Why should you not have, at the end of a career, an expectation of comfort in advanced age with a viable pension?  I am not saying that all work is equal. All people are not equal. But most wish to have work. Work is healthy for a human, but only up to the point where he/she feels they are contributing and are appreciated for the contribution –  as a person. And it is not the number of coffee-breaks or the annual picnics or the occasional pat on the back which put food on a table for life.

        3. libnan1 Avatar
          libnan1

          @5thDrawer:disqus Yes companies should reward workers with market wages. No one should be treated like a slave, that is why we have free market and employees are free to leave their jobs for better wages. When the market turns down, laying off people is inevitable as sad as that can be. It is a phenomena that improves the skills and forces workers to find new jobs they never knew it existed instead of doing the same work all their lives, this avoids stagnation. I know this first hand, I remember back in 98 when I was a young engineer and did not get the raise I wanted while working for an aerospace company. I quit and started my own small software consulting business,  that was the best thing ever happened to me. I had to layoff 4 guys in 2001 and that was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, I could not keep them on the payroll not because they were not good workers but because the economy went down the tubes after the tech bubble. My point was people should not expect companies to keep them employed if the work is not there. It is a tough situation, these companies are for profit after all and greed is what keeps companies hiring people so in return these employees will make them profits. Capitalism at it’s best ….:)       

        4. libnan1 Avatar
          libnan1

          @5thDrawer:disqus Yes companies should reward workers with market wages. No one should be treated like a slave, that is why we have free market and employees are free to leave their jobs for better wages. When the market turns down, laying off people is inevitable as sad as that can be. It is a phenomena that improves the skills and forces workers to find new jobs they never knew it existed instead of doing the same work all their lives, this avoids stagnation. I know this first hand, I remember back in 98 when I was a young engineer and did not get the raise I wanted while working for an aerospace company. I quit and started my own small software consulting business,  that was the best thing ever happened to me. I had to layoff 4 guys in 2001 and that was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, I could not keep them on the payroll not because they were not good workers but because the economy went down the tubes after the tech bubble. My point was people should not expect companies to keep them employed if the work is not there. It is a tough situation, these companies are for profit after all and greed is what keeps companies hiring people so in return these employees will make them profits. Capitalism at it’s best ….:)       

        5. 5thDrawer Avatar
          5thDrawer

          Libnan1 – I wasn’t trying to target you personally. Thought I used ‘you’ in a general way. We all have Interesting histories.
            But I admit to being one who enjoyed what you may see as ‘protection’ of a union. Fortunately, it was a good union – meaning it worked both ways – for the employers as well as employees. In fact, most of the employers had come from the ranks of the employees – and thus understood both sides of ‘arguments’ about what was ‘fair’. And the union surely understood the changes in the ‘market’ – especially with the advent of radical techno-changes in societies which enjoyed freedom and peace after WWII. Indeed, seeing the ‘light’ of ‘future’ faster than employers, the union set up a school to keep their people ‘on top’. It was well-informed employees who kept companies alive, moved them faster into higher profit-margins, and yet ultimately caused their own demise when eventually 10 could do what 150 had done 25 or 30 years before. Not necessarily with the same quality, but these days no-one cares much about that, do they?
            The few companies left at the end of a ‘war-of-economy-by-computer-against-artistic-trades’ support relatively few workers, have changed hands in many cases to being run by untrained pen-pusher ‘CEOs’, or simply disappeared when the owners (2 I know of myself) decided to retire and closed shop – they knew their own ‘highly-educated’ kids had no interest in the business other than money – thus also dumping many skilled individuals into a shrinking economy.
            In my case, the owner had passed the business to his son – who ‘trained’ at a ‘business-school’ – not at the bench. One day he and his CEO decided that computers had advanced to the point where they could hire kids from college at $13 an hour to do the work, eliminate the union contract and paying of pensions and health benefits, and dumped all of the trades-people out the door. 15 mins to collect your stuff. Nice – considering we had been the ones to bring them into the computer-age and quadruple the business in the first place. Seems, however, we had things in our heads that were not in the computer – or in the heads of college kids. Too bad.
            For me personally, having a viable union-controlled pension plan, I decided the world was going for a shit and took an early retirement. A few extra bucks pumped into that wasn’t worth the fight of getting a job any more. A good move, I was lucky to be able to do it. Otherwise, at my age now, I’d probably be one of the aging ‘greeters’ with silly smiles at Wallymarty with aching legs and hips for $8+change pretending to be happy with my lot in life and glad to have that glorious ‘job’ where you can get a label on your chest.
            You have gone the way that many are now doing – going it alone. And that seems to be a good move – many are more successful being out of the realm of ‘corporate structures’ which only see ‘bottom-line’ as a reason for existence. But you are noting that fluctuating markets affect your ability to grow and hire people you like too. I tried to drill awareness into my own kids … and so far, they seem to be surviving in this ‘world economy’. Good. It was all I could do.
          By the way, they think I’m crazy for liking Lebanon …. hahahaha

  2. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    AFTER Having spent the last 70 or so years convincing people that socialism and unions were bad for everyone, and the ‘state of the economy’ which we were generally led to believe needed to kiss the asses of the ‘bosses’ and ‘money-men’ to be successful, perhaps some are beginning to consider what those concepts were all about in the first place – the reasons people in the ‘Dirty 30’s’ were beaten and killed – especially since ‘Big Business’ of the last 25 years has spent so much time largely programming us to dismantle those ‘unions’ and ‘plans’ – the small gains made by workers, at a time when skilled labour was still necessary for most things to be done.
     Computers, and robots, and ‘world-think-economy’ have taken over largely what was gained by free workers – while the pension and health plans they thought were building up for them turned out to be only on paper, or were wasted and stolen by the ‘stock’ markets and incompetent, overly-lobbied governments.
      Now, at least in Europe and ‘the west’, they want us to think that it’s because there are too many of us getting old (thanks to the health-care), or the fact we didn’t have enough babies in the 70’s and 80’s, that there can no longer be pensions or adequate health-care as part of a system for all the people.
     Oh dear! Our children will need to pay !! Well, what the hell do they think the older folks DID. And they funded their kids ‘higher education’ too. They simply didn’t rush out to buy ‘the latest and greatest’ every 6 months. And things actually worked for years!!
      And what kind of education was that ??  Stuff by the ‘London School Of Economics’ … borrow for now and pay later. 🙁
    Well, it’s time to pay, folks. FLAT TAX rates would be BEST! And less costly to ‘work out’ with government forms that simply said: “How much did you make? Send us 15%”. And yes, that would be all needed, if ALL people and businesses actually paid it. No ‘deferments’ either. 
      In the 50’s people talked about a future-world with robots helping us all to have more ‘free-time’ to ‘enjoy the arts’ or indulge in self-awareness and research programmes; and an easier, healthier life without the drudgery and suffering. Unfortunately, no-one considered how to keep only a few from  benefiting from it, and thus putting the majority into the dire straights of the last 5 years instead of closer to a humane utopia. (Perhaps also without the pollution too.)
      But can people stop themselves from constantly striving for things that are not really needed to have a productive and happy life? Always there will be some who want ‘more’, ‘bigger’, ‘faster’. The human ego knows no bounds.
      If we cannot agree to ‘share’ – at least with the least of us – and make laws which reflect that, then nothing will change. Might as well pack up the tents and go home … if you have one.

  3. Avatar
    Anonymous

    AFTER Having spent the last 70 or so years convincing people that socialism and unions were bad for everyone, and the ‘state of the economy’ which we were generally led to believe needed to kiss the asses of the ‘bosses’ and ‘money-men’ to be successful, perhaps some are beginning to consider what those concepts were all about in the first place – the reasons people in the ‘Dirty 30’s’ were beaten and killed – especially since ‘Big Business’ of the last 25 years has spent so much time largely programming us to dismantle those ‘unions’ and ‘plans’ – the small gains made by workers, at a time when skilled labour was still necessary for most things to be done.
     Computers, and robots, and ‘world-think-economy’ have taken over largely what was gained by free workers – while the pension and health plans they thought were building up for them turned out to be only on paper, or were wasted and stolen by the ‘stock’ markets and incompetent, overly-lobbied governments.
      Now, at least in Europe and ‘the west’, they want us to think that it’s because there are too many of us getting old (thanks to the health-care), or the fact we didn’t have enough babies in the 70’s and 80’s, that there can no longer be pensions or adequate health-care as part of a system for all the people.
     Oh dear! Our children will need to pay !! Well, what the hell do they think the older folks DID. And they funded their kids ‘higher education’ too. They simply didn’t rush out to buy ‘the latest and greatest’ every 6 months. And things actually worked for years!!
      And what kind of education was that ??  Stuff by the ‘London School Of Economics’ … borrow for now and pay later. 🙁
    Well, it’s time to pay, folks. FLAT TAX rates would be BEST! And less costly to ‘work out’ with government forms that simply said: “How much did you make? Send us 15%”. And yes, that would be all needed, if ALL people and businesses actually paid it. No ‘deferments’ either. 
      In the 50’s people talked about a future-world with robots helping us all to have more ‘free-time’ to ‘enjoy the arts’ or indulge in self-awareness and research programmes; and an easier, healthier life without the drudgery and suffering. Unfortunately, no-one considered how to keep only a few from  benefiting from it, and thus putting the majority into the dire straights of the last 5 years instead of closer to a humane utopia. (Perhaps also without the pollution too.)
      But can people stop themselves from constantly striving for things that are not really needed to have a productive and happy life? Always there will be some who want ‘more’, ‘bigger’, ‘faster’. The human ego knows no bounds.  If we cannot agree to ‘share’ – at least with the least of us – and make laws which reflect that, then nothing will change. Might as well pack up the tents and go home … if you have one.

    1. Avatar
      Anonymous

      The Occupy Wall Street protests mark a significant turning point. The governments and bourgeois media have endlessly trumpeted their solution to the crisis: the devastation of society through the destruction of public education, health care and other services and the slashing of jobs, wages and pensions—all in order to preserve and increase the wealth of a tiny minority at the top. This is why in the end the ordinery people around the world have intervened to stop this madness.

      1. Avatar
        Anonymous

        Employment at a private company is not a right, it’s a privilege. 

        1. Avatar
          Anonymous

          Even if treated as a slave libnan1?  Perhaps you only hire huge egos that like ‘level-badges’ on their chests more than money.
            You earn that ‘privilege’ with your skill-set and the company should appreciate your abilities. We can assume you had the ‘qualifications’ to do the work and that is why you were hired in the first place. You proved your value to the company with consistency and regularity, perhaps some imagination, and by that helped it to grow. Why should you not share in the profits by some degree which enables you to buy decent housing, clothing and food for a 4-member family?  Why should you not have, at the end of a career, an expectation of comfort in advanced age with a viable pension?  I am not saying that all work is equal. All people are not equal. But most wish to have work. Work is healthy for a human, but only up to the point where he/she feels they are contributing and are appreciated for the contribution –  as a person. And it is not the number of coffee-breaks or the annual picnics or the occasional pat on the back which put food on a table for life.

        2. Avatar
          Anonymous

          @5thDrawer:disqus Yes companies should reward workers with market wages. No one should be treated like a slave, that is why we have free market and employees are free to leave their jobs for better wages. When the market turns down, laying off people is inevitable as sad as that can be. It is a phenomena that improves the skills and forces workers to find new jobs they never knew it existed instead of doing the same work all their lives, this avoids stagnation. I know this first hand, I remember back in 98 when I was a young engineer and did not get the raise I wanted while working for an aerospace company. I quit and started my own small software consulting business,  that was the best thing ever happened to me. I had to layoff 4 guys in 2001 and that was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, I could not keep them on the payroll not because they were not good workers but because the economy went down the tubes after the tech bubble. My point was people should not expect companies to keep them employed if the work is not there. It is a tough situation, these companies are for profit after all and greed is what keeps companies hiring people so in return these employees will make them profits. Capitalism at it’s best ….:)       

        3. Avatar
          Anonymous

          Libnan1 – I wasn’t trying to target you personally. Thought I used ‘you’ in a general way. We all have Interesting histories.
            But I admit to being one who enjoyed what you may see as ‘protection’ of a union. Fortunately, it was a good union – meaning it worked both ways – for the employers as well as employees. In fact, most of the employers had come from the ranks of the employees – and thus understood both sides of ‘arguments’ about what was ‘fair’. And the union surely understood the changes in the ‘market’ – especially with the advent of radical techno-changes in societies which enjoyed freedom and peace after WWII. Indeed, seeing the ‘light’ of ‘future’ faster than employers, the union set up a school to keep their people ‘on top’. It was well-informed employees who kept companies alive, moved them faster into higher profit-margins, and yet ultimately caused their own demise when eventually 10 could do what 150 had done 25 or 30 years before. Not necessarily with the same quality, but these days no-one cares much about that, do they?
            The few companies left at the end of a ‘war-of-economy-by-computer-against-artistic-trades’ support relatively few workers, have changed hands in many cases to being run by untrained pen-pusher ‘CEOs’, or simply disappeared when the owners (2 I know of myself) decided to retire and closed shop – they knew their own ‘highly-educated’ kids had no interest in the business other than money – thus also dumping many skilled individuals into a shrinking economy.
            In my case, the owner had passed the business to his son – who ‘trained’ at a ‘business-school’ – not at the bench. One day he and his CEO decided that computers had advanced to the point where they could hire kids from college at $13 an hour to do the work, eliminate the union contract and paying of pensions and health benefits, and dumped all of the trades-people out the door. 15 mins to collect your stuff. Nice – considering we had been the ones to bring them into the computer-age and quadruple the business in the first place. Seems we had things in our heads that were not in the computer – or in the heads of college kids. Too bad.
            For me personally, having a viable union-controlled pension plan, I decided the world was going for a shit and took an early retirement. A few extra bucks pumped into that wasn’t worth the fight of getting a job any more. A good move, I was lucky to be able to do it. Otherwise, at my age now, I’d probably be one of the aging ‘greeters’ with silly smiles at Wallymarty with aching legs and hips for $8+change pretending to be happy with my lot in life and glad to have that glorious ‘job’ where you can get a label on your chest.
            You have gone the way that many are now doing – going it alone. And that seems to be a good move – many are more successful being out of the realm of ‘corporate structures’ which only see ‘bottom-line’ as a reason for existence. But you are noting that fluctuating markets affect your ability to grow and hire people you like too. I tried to drill awareness into my own kids … and so far, they seem to be surviving in this ‘world economy’. Good. It was all I could do.

  4. Avatar
    Anonymous

    AFTER Having spent the last 70 or so years convincing people that socialism and unions were bad for everyone, and the ‘state of the economy’ which we were generally led to believe needed to kiss the asses of the ‘bosses’ and ‘money-men’ to be successful, perhaps some are beginning to consider what those concepts were all about in the first place – the reasons people in the ‘Dirty 30’s’ were beaten and killed – especially since ‘Big Business’ of the last 25 years has spent so much time largely programming us to dismantle those ‘unions’ and ‘plans’ – the small gains made by workers, at a time when skilled labour was still necessary for most things to be done.
     Computers, and robots, and ‘world-think-economy’ have taken over largely what was gained by free workers – while the pension and health plans they thought were building up for them turned out to be only on paper, or were wasted and stolen by the ‘stock’ markets and incompetent, overly-lobbied governments.
      Now, at least in Europe and ‘the west’, they want us to think that it’s because there are too many of us getting old (thanks to the health-care), or the fact we didn’t have enough babies in the 70’s and 80’s, that there can no longer be pensions or adequate health-care as part of a system for all the people.
     Oh dear! Our children will need to pay !! Well, what the hell do they think the older folks DID. And they funded their kids ‘higher education’ too. They simply didn’t rush out to buy ‘the latest and greatest’ every 6 months. And things actually worked for years!!
      And what kind of education was that ??  Stuff by the ‘London School Of Economics’ … borrow for now and pay later. 🙁
    Well, it’s time to pay, folks. FLAT TAX rates would be BEST! And less costly to ‘work out’ with government forms that simply said: “How much did you make? Send us 15%”. And yes, that would be all needed, if ALL people and businesses actually paid it. No ‘deferments’ either. 
      In the 50’s people talked about a future-world with robots helping us all to have more ‘free-time’ to ‘enjoy the arts’ or indulge in self-awareness and research programmes; and an easier, healthier life without the drudgery and suffering. Unfortunately, no-one considered how to keep only a few from  benefiting from it, and thus putting the majority into the dire straights of the last 5 years instead of closer to a humane utopia. (Perhaps also without the pollution too.)
      But can people stop themselves from constantly striving for things that are not really needed to have a productive and happy life? Always there will be some who want ‘more’, ‘bigger’, ‘faster’. The human ego knows no bounds.  If we cannot agree to ‘share’ – at least with the least of us – and make laws which reflect that, then nothing will change. Might as well pack up the tents and go home … if you have one.

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