Home

http://www.leftycartoons.com/the-ten-stupidest-objections-to-the-occupy-wall-street-movement/

Michael Z. Williamson: I think at least 6 have some validity. I guess we'll see how much impact they have next year, when they try to re-elect the man who led most of the bailouts, which 49% of them support.

Michael Z. Williamson:  Do you really want me to call them out? Because I will.

Wick Deer: By all means. I encourage rational discussion of the issue, which, for the most part is sadly lacking.  I take the position that if my views aren't well thought out enough to stand up to debate, I should reconsider them.

~~~~

Okay, my friend asked for it:

Folks in 3rd world countries, and even most of Europe, ARE a lot poorer. So insisting on redistribution of wealth means either the Occupussies are asking to be made poorer, or they're selfish little cocksuckers who want more of someone else's pie, but fuck those homeless people. Their actions so far back this latter assessment.

I'll offer this quote from a thread:

"They just want the rich to pay their fair share and to stop hoarding all of the money as their incomes have risen 275%, due to tax breaks, whilst the average tax payer's wealth has risen only 40%."

The global mean income is $11,200, and things like food, cars and computers don't really change in cost.

I'll bet however much you want to cover that this whiner makes a LOT more than that global mean, and if he makes more than $34K he IS the 1%, globally speaking. He's almost certainly the top 5%. So, he wants the top .05% to share with him, but he certainly isn't interested in sharing lower down.

Then we come to his complaint, that he's ONLY 40% better off, but someone else is even better off than THAT!!!!! (He also doesn't support the claim or give a time frame, so analysis is impossible. However, it's not relevant to analyzing his logic, or lack thereof.) He's better off, but NOT AS BETTER OFF AS HE'D LIKE!!!!!

I bet he complained in elementary field day that it wasn't fair there was only ONE first prize for sprinting.

And if he thinks that money is being "hoarded," he has no grasp of economics at all.

So, Item 1 is a completely valid criticism, because I haven't heard ANY of these losers mention anyone but Americans, and usually only in reference to their own student loans. Their actions absolutely don't represent 99%, nor even 20%. 5% at best, being generous.

As to the second, it's IMPOSSIBLE to take a group seriously when they're unable to coherently articulate a complaint. They want forgiveness of student loans, and free handouts from banks, and socialized medicine, and rights for animals, and Marxism, and Nazism, and an end to Capitalism, and free something else, and this, and the other thing.

They don't necessarily need a specific spokesperson, but they do need either that or coherence. Otherwise they're just whining douchenozzles, trashing the park and pissing people off.

3:  Exploiting smart phones and twitter for their benefit is a fair thing to do. They should, however, acknowledge the corporate greatness that made them possible. Steve Jobs, and even Bill Gates, are not Madoff, Abramov, Bank of America or Enron (which latter committed crimes under Clinton and was punished under Bush, remember).

But the Che T shirts made in Guatemala and the V Fawkes masks lining Warner Brothers' pockets, made by Chinese prison laborers, are a total fail.

So generally, these mouthbreathing morons don't really know how the world works, which begs the question of what they learned in college. If they'd learned anything, they'd realize the Education Industrial Complex is a bigger threat to them than any Wall Street enterprise--they can invest in the latter for personal and societal profit...if the former bother to educate them in exchange for the gobs of money they laid out--our tax money, in large part.

4:  they certainly should be protesting in Washington, since that's where the laws and favors are made. Protesting in Boise, or even here where our legislature is out of session, doesn't really accomplish anything (though the protesters here are polite enough).

And the ones who DO oppose bailouts (which is only about half) would be better off allying with the Tea Party on that one issue, presenting a coherent front, and terrifying Congress into compliance. Historically, however, leftists are not only incapable of being tolerant enough to work with other groups, they're incapable of being tolerant within their own movements.

5: I don't think most people really hate hippies, or that many hippies are involved, and most of the ones I've seen are attempting to inject some level of either social behavior or reason into it. Which is amusing, but of worth.

6:  I have no idea what ties matter, nor have I heard anyone mention them. At this point, the artist, already an ignorant boob, is trying to pad out his lame attempt at relevance.

7:  There are always a handful of spelling/typoes/math errors, and always a handful of people who will obsess over those. This is true of any event. Each one needs to be considered on its merits (usually few). So that might be a commentary on society in general, but it's specious to claim it's relevant to this movement specifically.

8:  As to jobs, that's also a case by case basis. One whiner complained that his employer had "fired him for coming to the protest." Turned out he'd been there a month. My guess is the employer fired him for absenteeism. I've met that type of person. I wouldn't hire them, either, and the world would be better off if they received therapy or starved. Encouraging them with handouts just exacerbates the problem for everyone else.

The "donate so we can protest on your behalf" meme fails on two counts. First, if one group of people can afford non-tax deductible donations to another for a vague political protest, more of a tantrum, then they're really not suffering too badly economically. That's a purely disposable income project. It doesn't even offer the emotional payoff of lottery tickets or booze, though I suppose a lottery ticket comes close.

It also means the protesters are effectively paid shills. They're no better than panhandlers. Claiming society doesn't support you, while being supported by elements of that society is a completely false argument. They're arguing that the free market doesn't work, while it does, and insisting they want more power for the same government composed of those "1%."

9:  While 0 is not setting them up for riots (or there's no evidence I've seen to suggest so), he's playing them for patsies two ways. One: Endorsing them, probably hoping for votes, and that they won't notice how much he's screwed them over. B) any politician loves strife that draws attention away from them, except during campaign season. In the unlikely event they're around come May, he'll be pushing them to "get active" in his campaign. Because a man worth $10 million, with an annual reported income of $1.75 million, is totally going to help them against the 1%, who earn more than $350,000.

I've also heard very few if anyone claim 0 orchestrated this.

10:  Lacking a soundbite doesn't doom a movement, but soundbites certainly make it easier to sell. The soundbite that has attached itself here is, "What do we want? We're not really sure! When do we want it? Now!"

Unless they come up with something to counter it, I don't expect them to go anywhere, because 99% (See what I did there?) of the population have a very short attention span and no more grasp of the world than these twits.

So the cartoonist is unfunny, stretching to try to cover his usual theme (and he's been hilarious before, on groups I agree with no less. Which means in this case he's sympathetic enough he's lost his detachment and really doesn't have much to say), and hasn't really made any points.

Standard close: I'm right. You're wrong. The end. ;)