Wall Street-where's the threads

[yt="Something about the 80's"]xqXAW2snGMI[/yt]

Oingo Boingo
There's nothing Wrong with Capitalism

There's nothing wrong with Capitalism
There's nothing wrong with free enterprise
Don't try to make me feel guilty
I'm so tired of hearing you cry

There's nothing wrong with making some profit
If you ask me I'll say it's just fine
There's nothing wrong with wanting to live nice
I'm so tired of hearing you whine
About the revolution
Bringin' down the rich
When was the last time you dug a ditch, baby!

If it ain't one thing
Then it's the other
Any cause that crosses your path
Your heart bleeds for anyone's brother
I've got to tell you you're a pain in the ass

You criticize with plenty of vigor
You rationalize everything that you do
With catchy phrases and heavy quotations
And everybody is crazy but you

You're just a middle class, socialist brat
From a suburban family and you
never really had to work
And you tell me that we've got to get back
To the struggling masses (whoever they are)
You talk, talk, talk about suffering and pain
Your mouth is bigger than your entire brain
What the hell do you know about
suffering and pain . . .

(Repeat first verse)

(Repeat chorus)

There's nothing wrong with Capitalism
There's nothing wrong with Capitalism
There's nothing wrong with Capitalism
There's nothing wrong with Capitalism

Here's a simple guide to the MSM view of the OWS compared to the Tea Party movement..

While screaming at the government to get their damned hands off their Medicare.

So the MSM thinks the left looks like a sad wizard and that the right looks like Michael Moore with saggy tits?

fixed

mshlong, buddy... words cannot express how utterly lame and off base your little cartoon is.
Try to understand that this isn't about artificially levelling the playing field so much as that the slant is now a sheer drop.

The Tea Partier sign is spelled correctly, this is an inaccurate caricature.

He would be the one who introduced the legislation requiring banks to lend to those they wouldn't normally lend to and who largely wouldn't be able to pay it back, setting the whole thing in motion.

It's more complex than that, there is no single individual responsible for the whole thing--we just like to have scapegoats because simple models make our heads less achey than thinking about the complexities and nuances of the issue. People of particular political persuasions tend to target who they already wanted to demonize.

A caricature is supposed to reek of being utterly fake. This might be a fine caricature, but it's a fucking lame commentary.

^ While it may be an extremely exaggerated caricature of how the media view the two movements, it is a relatively accurate expression of how some people, mostly way over on the left politically, view the two.

It would be amusing to inverse the labels, however (with a few very minor modifications where they don't fit perfectly). That would result in a relatively accurate expression of how some other people, mostly way over on the right politically, view the two.

The bottom line is that most people look at news through the filter of their already existing opinions, and confirmation bias takes care of the rest.

One thing is for certain, I've never heard of Adam Smith referenced as "extremist literature" in modern American politics. His works certainly were extremist at the time they were written, though. And if anything, he would align more with the Occupy Wall Street protestors' views against corporate involvement in government.

I went ahead and did it, just for the fun of it.

Now, taking the "exaggeration factor" into account, how many can honestly say that one or the other of these doesn't reflect their general way of looking at the two groups?

A good point. Those who deify Adam Smith as the father of capitalism haven't read his works all the way through.

Saved the pic to my hard disk, opened it up in a graphics program, made two copies of it, pasted them side by side, moved things around, copied and pasted letters for the words that I needed to add...

In short, I wasted a lot more time on it than I really had available, but I like playing with graphics. Besides, it was fun!

Although the protests may have the desired effect, it will take time. This is not a fad, nor is it a bunch of unwashed hippies with too much time on their hands. Hell, most of you don't even know what a Hippie is, having missed that time entirely. This is real, America. While the Wall Street traders think it's all fun, taking pics of the protesters and drinking champagne, what they fail to realize is that heads will roll. It may take time, but a revolution is brewing.
I hope it doesn't come down to violence, but given the attitude of the elite, it could well happen. Most of the crowd I run with (Goth) are in this protest as well. Now before you complain about THEM, let me tell you that they have jobs, are wonderful people, and are smarter than you realize. So the choice is yours, America. You can have a nation that is truly about freedom, or you can go the way of the dinosaur.
The Constitution says we have the right to peacefully assemble and demonstrate. The police have no right being fascists. If the police can break the law, then what example are they setting ?

You should be showering instead of posting, you dirty stinking hippy.

Fuck off. Truly righteous freedom will never, ever be about freedom from personal responsibility, no matter how corrupt your objects of villification happen to be. Society does not owe you a comfortable, prosperous existence or a single necessity of survival. Here's the choice for you. Either quit using the bad behaviors of other people to rationalize looting and parasitism, claim reality for what it is and make something of yourself on your own efforts, or see how long it takes to starve to death while you run your black mascara crying yourself to sleep every fucking night, asshole.

More about Barney Frank - his boyfriend was a Fanny Mae executive.
He HAD to encourage shaky loans to keep the significant other happy at home - we've all been there!

That Oingo Boingo song was true. And Danny Elfman "walked the walk" - he went on to do film scores and became a millionaire!

No, really, we all haven't. What you did during your tour in the armed forces is your own concern.

Where's that Volpone smiley?

A similar protest will take place in London on Saturday - right next to where I work! It's a bit pointless doing this on a weekend because the financial district in the City of London area is DESERTED on Sat/Sun- and I mean that, you can literally see tumble-weed floating by on the streets.

Not that I have any particular love for Wall St. or anything, I don't, but like most of the protesters for some reason I just want to punch you in the cooch.

I know it doesn't fit with your deep-seated need to feel saintly and persecuted, but the complaints about coverage of the Tea Party and complaints about coverage of Occupy Wall Street are very similar.

The tendency is to look for the most dirty, hippy-dippy, stoned-sounding protester you can find, and get them on camera saying something inarticulate. People like this guy don't fit the narrative.

Todd Gitlin studies media coverage of protest movements. Here's part of an article quoting him:

You've heard of Hanlon's Razor? It goes "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Or in this case, laziness combined with the knowledge that newspapers need good art and TV stations need good footage.

It's the same as the reason behind the pictures you see when, say, a new Harry Potter movie opens. Ninety percent of the people in line may be wearing street clothes, with at the most a Harry Potter T-shirt. But the people you see in the next day's paper and on TV news are the ones who come decked out as Dementors or turn themselves and their friends into perfect reproductions of Harry, Ron and Hermione. They're not representative of the whole, but they make good photos and they make good TV.

stuff like this keeps showing up on Facebook from my liberal friends. I can't express how this deluded shit makes me feel, especially when people I know as rational human beings agree with it.

I mean, what. the. fuck?

America! Where you can spend your life working your ass off to achieve advancement and wealth, and have liberal wackaloons call you a thief for doing it.

Good god, the arrogance of that quote is staggering. Exactly who the fuck does that chick think she is, drawing an arbitrary earned/theft line for everyone? Jesus.

Fuck off. Top bankers are thieves. And asset appreciation is not "work".

Doesn't matter. If the assets are acquired legitimately, neither the original nor the appreciated value are "stolen," and it does not fucking matter if anyone feels they "deserve" it or not.

by that logic, Al Capone was just another hardworking son of immigrants.

It very well does matter that they're thieves. As does the means of accumulation when the claim is made repeatedly that such incomes are the result of "hard work".

If you want to defend skyrocketing wealth for a tiny minority while most of the rest see decline, at least be honest about what you're defending.

If they stole it or defrauded someone out of it, society has a legitimate interest in seizing it and punishing them. Otherwise, it's nobody's fucking business how much they have or how they got it, no matter how stratified and envious society becomes.