Dear "99%." Please change your name. Your current name may cause confusion. It may cause some to believe that you represent 99% of Americans. You don't. You represent the fraction of Americans who are pissed off with their place in the world. You are not the 99%. I am. And I reclaim my name from your libelous presumptions. I am the 99%. Thank you
Star Wars nerd here. A couple problems with that picture: Luke wanted to GTFO of moisture farming and join the Academy. Being a Jedi/Sith is a life path by which you use your powers. Unlike a Scientology "Clear", these powers exist and are usable. Of course, those could be wrong if Lucas decided to further rape and fuck up A New Hope. If not, then I know who's ass to kick should Lucas get an idea!
I guess I will put this here since I can't find a better place: (Mods: Not trying to derail, just seemed like a good place to put it since it involves a protest in line with OWS)
How about 80%. Is that better? 99% is probably slightly over-representative, if you're talking in the retarded left wing versus right wing US political parameters. But it's a catchy number, and it seems to work. Still, it's a fact that at least 80% of the USA will be seriously affected by the cruel greed of the 1%. And that will have to change unless you want an all-out civil war. The tipping point has been reached. And if you want to extrapolate that 99% into GLOBAL terms, then we're looking at WELL OVER 99% of the world population getting organized now, and working out ways to deprive the 1% of profits that they do not deserve and have not earned, in real terms of value. May I suggest that you shut the fuck up now? Because it's quite clear you are thinking far too domestically, and not thinking globally. This is a movement that you should have come to expect. A movement that cannot forgive nor forget. It's called optimum population, the way things are going there are going to be another 2.4 billion people on the planet by 2050, and they will feed upon the corpses of the 1% quite happily if the alternative is starvation. What happens beyond that is not really your concern. If you are fighting to protect more than your fair share because of archaic financial rules you will not be around to contribute to the future anyway. On behalf of the 99% I can recommend Sriracha Hot Sauce, to take away that nasty greasy fatty flavor of the over-priveliged meat that has wrecked the chances for the way more important percentage of humanity to be able have a decent meal. Because it's about time. When the 1% have eradicated all the arable lands and starved people from their homes to make way for oil fields and real estate, what the fuck do you think these extra 2.4 billion people will be eating? There's a reason the poorest families have the most children. Think about it. And buy shares in this sauce.
I was referring to the fictional universe not actual real powers. I didn't catch the error till it was too late. My bad. However, unlike Scientology, you don't have to spend millions of dollars, isolate yourself from family and friends, find out about Xenu, and yell at an ash tray to use the Force in this fictional universe. Nope. You just listen to a green Muppet or a bad ass emperor and his bad ass servant. Also the Force is more believable and people have a better chance of getting the fictional Force than they do with Scientology Clear. That reminds me of a picture that I seen around here, but I never got a good quality picture. It said "Safety First. Do Not Fist Android Girls" with a hand getting caught in between gears. (It was SFW since it used advisory sign stick figures)
If you live in a first world country, you're not part of the least privileged 80% in the world. Don't kid yourself. #OWS protestors are among the more privileged people on Earth. Fighting against the 'repression' of those who aren't repressed, fighting against the 'poverty' of those who aren't poor, just makes you look self-important, deluded, and disrespectful to those who are repressed (e.g. Syria) or poor (e.g. the third world as a whole). I agree with the OP - you don't speak for me.
Please, no fictional arguments! The Force is real. Vader pinches ppls heads off with it, and Luke can hoist a transpo out of a swamp. On the other hand, I never saw L. Ron Hubbard or any OT do a trick.
On a purely statistical level your probably correct. However if Americans don't fight back against the forces that control and dominate the world, then the fight for freedom in the middle eastern countries are going to fail. Those people will never succeed as long as we allow the political and corporate interests that put their governments into power continue to only back the regional powers that will protect the US political and corporate interests.
Focus is crumbling and the "feed the homeless, justice for all" people seem to have prevailed. What happened to changing the acts that made money into free speech and coprolations into people? (yes I did not misspelll corporation but I did misspelll mispell) The reforms we need are not being addressed because it's easier to slop a bunch of bums, and even easier to get distracted and forget what the target is.
That's not what this guy thinks: Anyhow, we live where we live, and respond to the conditions we live in. How do you know what OWS looks like to the Syrians? What kind of coverage do you think it's receiving on Syrian national television? How is it that you are qualified to speak for the third world as a whole? Were you elected spokesperson? Your argument as above appears profoundly patronizing. It seems to me that many of the people I hear making this kind of argument (apeople who seem to invariably come from the educated class of first world countries) are working out some issues related to their discomfort with their own status in the world. In the US this is sometimes known as White Liberal Guilt, and as a motivating force in the politics of the recent past here it has proved to be one of the most toxic ingredients in the recipe of fail that killed progressive dissent. DO NOT WANT. Me neither. But I figure that if I don't need anybody to speak for me I'm not virtuous, just lucky. And luck should be spread around.
The movement inspires other to do likewise, and so on and so on. It's just a side effect of populist movements. There is nothing inherently wrong with those of us who are less bad off to fight for our rights and theirs simultaneously. If the world is presumptively under Washington's boot and Washington is in the slatternly embrace of Wall Street, it all jibes. We are all linked, all connected by certain common threads. Step back from it and you will see that this is true.
I don't claim to be. Obviously. Straw man argument is both strawy and mannish. I was speaking for myself: #OWS's "we're just like the Arab Spring!" position is ridiculous, self-indulgent, and self-important. The protestors - with the exception of a few genuinely needy people (e.g. the homeless) - are self-interested middle-class whiners. If we're doing ad hominem attacks based on random assumptions, it seems to me that you're a cunt.
I don't see #OWS fighting for the third world. I see them fighting for themselves (and for attention).
