Social media whores are totally undermining the true meaning behind this movement

[SeanG]

It's unfortunate that the social media attention whores, which is what I am going to refer to them as, have become the face of the movement. They don't understand the fundamental values which started it all, and the people who oppose it are eating it up. They use these people and advertise them on the media/etc.. as what the movement is for, which sucks and totally hinders any forward progress.

What I do not like, is the social media whores who are going to these movements just to say they were 'involved' in it to their friends, and spreading complete nonsense, personal agendas, and passing them off as beliefs of the entire movement. (a.k.a. we want our college debt wiped out.) This is not what this movement was founded on, and it is not what brought everyone together. But by tacking on so many unrelated causes you are weighing down the movement, and isolating so many people from getting behind it. And totally hindering any chance this movement has of making a true change.

Also, don't get me wrong. I don't think social media is a bad thing, I think it is amazing. I believe it is the reason this movement has grown at such a rapid pace, and is resonating with so many people.

 

What are the OWS protestors actually mad about? 

-Corporate involvement in politics which in turn creates mass corruption. 

What do the OWS want accomplished.

-Corporate personhood to be abolished
-Corporations are no longer seen as a person because they are not a person. (redundant to the above point, but I'm spelling it out for you anyways)
-Corporations not allowed to contribute to political campaigns
-re-in statement of the glass steagal act by repealing, Financial services modernization act of 1999.
-modernize regulation of the financial institutions.
-prosecution of those responsible for causing the economic crisis we are now in. (goldman sachs, jp morgan, Alan Greenspan, etc.)

 

All of these things go to accomplishing the original purpose of the movement. STOP BOGGING IT DOWN WITH PERSONAL AGENDAS.

 

The only thing you can really do though is try to educate the social media whores on the true reason the core people are out here, and they are in turn out there. Try to educate people that don't know anything about the movement, or only heard about the bull**** that's spread on the news, about the true values of the movement. It's the only way to get the actual cause to spread, and to have these social media attention whores dilute into non-existence.

 

This is the only way to truly progress forward with the movement. We can not move forward currently because of all the totally unrelated agendas being passed off as beliefs of this movement.

 

The spoiler shows info on the Financial services modernization act, what it did, and proof that corporations buy votes to pass acts that benefit them and not the people.

[spoiler]Corporations do run the government.



And here's why I think that.



 Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999



This act repealed part of the glass steagal act. Before this act was passed, banking/securities/insurance companies were prohibited in acting as a combination of an investment bank/commercial bank/insurance company. The big part of this from my perspective, is that commercial banks were only allowed to engage in banking activities, and investment banks were only left to capital market activities(securities trading pretty much.)



But, with the passage of the  Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, these limitations were torn down. Now investment/commercial banks were one. There was no more separation between the two, and now commercial banks were allowed to speculate with our money in the securities market. And vica-versa.



A look back at that debate, which was over the 1999 Financial Services Modernization Act, reveals that campaign contributions may have influenced the votes of politicians who, a decade later, are now grappling with the implosion of the giant banks they helped to foster.



the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics has found that those members of Congress who supported lifting Depression-era restrictions on commercial banks, investment banks and insurance companies received more than twice as much money from those interests than did those lawmakers who opposed the measure.



In 2008, until the U.S. government threw a taxpayer-funded lifeline this month to Wall Street banks drowning in a sea of bad debt, the potential for these financial giants to go under had been dismissed. The banks were "too big too fail." It was the 1999 legislation, commonly referred to as Gramm-Leach-Bliley (for its sponsors' names), that cleared the way for these companies to grow so large.



Pressing most aggressively for Gramm-Leach-Bliley was Citigroup, which had merged its bank with Travelers insurance company, and needed a change in federal law to keep the giant corporation together. (Because this merger was a violation of the Glass–Steagall Act and the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956, the Federal Reserve gave Citigroup a temporary waiver in September 1998.) Less than a year later, this act was passed allowing the merger to remain, that was originally against the law.



The finance, insurance and real estate sector contributed more than $86 million to members of Congress between 1997 and the key vote on Gramm-Leach-Bliley in November 1999.



those lawmakers voting "yea" received about $180,000 in campaign contributions from individuals and PACs in the financial sector during that period. Those who voted "nay" received about $90,000 each, or half of what supporters got.



So the people who voted for this act to pass were receiving twice the amount of money from these financial institutions that were pushing hard for this to go through.



The 195 Democrats who supported the Financial Services Modernization Act had received an average of $179,920 in the two years and 10 months leading up to its passage, while the 59 Democrats who opposed it received just $83,475.



the contributions from that time suggest they were cozier with the financial sector than the bill's opponents and, thus, more inclined to vote for a piece of legislation that -- at least until Wall Street's recent collapse -- greatly benefited their contributors.



Here's a graph. The picture was 404'd so I had to blow up a thumbnail picture of it, so it's very pixelated. But what it says is.



What they got and how they voted. No on the left, Yes on the right



and the bottom chart is



What they got and how they voted by party

It's pretty clear that the corporate contributions played a huge part in this bill passing. The vote's were bought. And the act was passed that would cripple the US and world economy just a few years later. This is exactly what caused the stock market crash in 1929 and led into the Great depression. Commercial banks were taking to many risks with their depositors' money from over-speculating. And when this bill passed, the commercial banks were essentially turned into investment banks and were allowed to do it again.



http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/09/money-and-votes-aligned-in-con.html



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm%E2%80%93Leach%E2%80%93Bliley_Act[/spoiler]

[SeanG]

No idea why my entire first post is terribly cut off.

I guess just copy/paste or quote to actually read it.

 

[SeanG]

Ugh, this forum setup is very annoying.

Just delete this post cause it didn't work....

[5x5comspec]

You are so right on track.

I have been telling everyone this for weeks now and no one wants to listen. They are to bust with there own pet projects.

Its just like most of the committee members now. They don't really care about everyone as a whole. Its just about what they want.

[Chris]

There are obviously some serious problems in the occupychicago movement. If peoples ego's and personal goals are what is holding back the occupy movement in Chicago, Please PM me. We can work together towards the simple goals you listed above. THAT IS WHAT THE occupy wall street movement is about.

We need social media used correctly in order to further the message, and inform those that want to join in.

But as the Occupy Chicago stands now, it is clearly being sabotaged. I think the movement was already been co-opted by agendas that differ from the OWS movement. It is up to the people to not give up and overcome these obstacles.

The occupy model was already outlined in New York, the message is the same. Get the 1% out of our democracy, and get the 99% back in.

How Chicago screwed that up is beyond me.

I think it was done on purpose. Did you see those horrible fliers! Cringe-worthy doesn't even begin to describe how wrong those are. There is no face for this movement, check your ego's at the door. PM me if you want to do something to help the 99%, don't PM me if you are just looking to help yourself or some pet cause you are pushing. Unless you realize that your pet cause comes AFTER we get the 1% out of politics!