"Occupy" protest degenerates into violent chaos

Permabear

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FreudianSlippers

Is the Oakland Port public or private property? Just OOC.

Edit: Added a pic of people on the Oakland freeway overpass.

Overheal

open letter from the ports website:

Open Letter to the Community of Oakland from the Port of Oakland
November 1, 2011

These are challenging times, with high unemployment and tremendous uncertainty in the economy. In such times, open, respectful, honest, and informed communication is essential. That is why we are writing to you today.
We understand that Occupy Oakland has voted for a general strike in Oakland tomorrow, November 2, 2011, and further plans to march to the Port of Oakland at 5 PM. We also understand that there will be participation from people who do not live and work in the City of Oakland, which is understandable given the global nature of the Occupy movement. At the same time, this is our home, and it is our responsibility to respect it and ensure that others do too.
It is our privilege, indeed our right in this country, to peacefully assemble and freely express our grievances to government. And it is our responsibility as Oaklanders to ensure that our city is a safe and peaceful place to live and work. Oakland has a long, honorable, and innovative tradition of social justice action. So it is understandable that the citizens of Oakland want to show solidarity with the worldwide movement for economic and social justice. It is also imperative that any and all expressions of protest be effective without being violent. Every individual on all sides of this event must take personal responsibility to ensure peace. Each one of us at the Port is committed to a peaceful and safe march for all involved.
As you may be aware, there are multiple layers of security governing our nation's ports, involving our local police department, regional, and federal agencies. Since becoming aware of the proposed march to the Port, we have been engaged with our public safety and security partners at the local, regional, state, and federal levels of government. We are all emphasizing the need for a peaceful and respectful assembly and expression of free speech.
We at the Port of Oakland understand the frustrations and issues at the heart of the Occupy movement:

We have over $1.4 billion in debt and annual debt service payments of over $100 million a year for the foreseeable future, constraining the jobs we can create and investments we can make.
Economic conditions at the Port have forced us to reduce our workforce by 40% over the last seven years.
Air passenger volume is down over 30% since 2008.
We are operating at just over 50% capacity at our seaport, while there is increasing competition from alternative shipping gateways around the country and the world.

Despite these challenges, Port activity generates over 73,000 jobs in the region, and every day we work to create more jobs. From our maintenance staff, to our custodial workers, our truckers, to office workers and dock workers, the Port is where the 99% work. It is essential for the economic development of the City and region that the perception and reality of Oakland is stability, safety, and inclusion.
Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. We hope it will contribute to the civic dialogue that the Occupy movement has initiated. For additional information about the Port, you can also find us on the Internet at www.portofoakland.com, on Twitter or on Facebook.
Respectfully,

Omar R. Benjamin
Executive Director

Pamela S. Calloway
President

and to answer your question

The Port of Oakland exemplifies a unique combination of public/private endeavors. It encompasses a world-class container port, a thriving airport, an array of retail and commercial buildings and acres of recreational and open space. The Port of Oakland, through its policies and its tenants' activities, supports
approximately 50,000 jobs in the Northern California mega region
and impacts about 827,000 jobs nationwide.
Governed by a Board of Port Commissioners, nominated by the mayor of Oakland and appointed by a vote of the City Council, the Port of Oakland occupies an important place in the local and regional economy. The Port employs 465 dedicated and skilled professionals and generates thousands more jobs for local residents and businesses.

The Port funds its own operations. It receives no tax money from the city, and instead supports businesses that provide millions in tax revenue to the City of Oakland and the State of California.

RichieC

I hope to God you're extremely wealthy, Permabear...

for your own mental healths sake.

Permabear

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matthew8

Oakland is not a nice place to live in at all, I iimagine there would be quite a bit of social unrest there, it's almost as bad a city as Detroit. It's a total basket case.

20Cent

Interesting how the state can do no right freedom loving brigade will always side with the cops when they start attacking protesters.

Memnoch

Permabear wrote: »

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Trying to use the actions of a few individuals, indeed a tiny minority of the overall protesters to discredit an entire movement(that has no subscribed leadership) without considering or exploring even the context of the incident in question is not only highly disingenous, it is exactly the sort of sentiment I would have expected from a modern day 'libertarian.'

Permabear

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20Cent

Permabear wrote: »

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Tarring a whole protest with thousands of people with the actions of a few, not only that the whole occupy movement. How collectivist of you.

Permabear

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Black Swan

The 5th largest port in the United States was temporarily closed by Occupy Oakland, which was confirmed in a news conference by Port Director Omar Benjamin. This is no longer a handful of unemployed and disaffected youth weeks ago clicking away on their laptops and mobiles while sitting on Wall Street.

In contrast to the spirit and tone of this thread title, according to Mayor Jean Quan of Oakland, the vast majority of protesters exhibited their right to civil protest peacefully:

Late Wednesday Oakland Mayor Jean Quan confirmed:

“Literally thousands of people have demonstrated today in Oakland primarily peacefully. We are disappointed that a small group created some vandalism,” she said. “It looks like this was a good day for demonstrators and for the 99 percent movement.”

And contrary to the typically sensationalist news media spin (that sells advertising), the interim Oakland police chief Howard Jordan confirmed in a news conference the "largely peaceful" nature of the thousands of protesters.

Smaller numbers of protesters in gas masks that later did confront police chanted "We are Scott Olson!" (Olson is a US Marine Iraq veteran who had been hospitalized with a fractured skull in an earlier protest/confrontation with police in Oakland).

This raises yet another issue in the development of this relatively small (USA has 310 million), loosely organized, and somewhat fragmented movement in America. Will Scott Olson become one of the movement's symbolic martyrs (although still alive), or will this symbol of protest be regionally restricted to Oakland? Mass movements have their martyrs, and although not massive at present, if other factors emerge, like a bright, charismatic leader, this movement could gain momentum and numbers among disaffected, unemployed, and under-employed American citizens leading into the 2012 presidential elections.

Unlike the Republican Tea Party, that almost exclusively endorses Republican registered candidates (see the 2010 mid-term election endorsements), this movement lacks a cohesive message, other than one of frustration and dissatisfaction with the way things are in America. It does not appear aligned with the Democrats, Republicans, Tea Party Republicans, or any of the relatively small political parties in the United States.

To what extent is there a virtually untapped source of movement followers in the millions of Americans that lost their homes to bank foreclosures during the Republican GW Bush and Democrat Obama administrations? Anti-banking, anti-investment brokerage (Wall Street), and anti-extraordinarily American rich (The 1%) seems to be recurrent themes in the scattered national movement that may appeal to those that lost their homes to bankers.

If a national charismatic leader and a message emerged, that differed from the standard political spin of the Democrats, Republicans (and Tea Party Republicans), then there's no telling how such a movement may change the structure of politics in America.

ABC News/Yahoo Source: http://news.yahoo.com/occupy-oakland-protesters-tear-gased-police-101824932.html

20Cent

Permabear wrote: »

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There are hundreds of occupy camps and marches all over the world with no problems. Using one incident to claim it is a violent movement is disingenuous.

Amerika

Is it true that one has to be either a socialist or entirely incompetent (or both) in order to be a mayor of a city in California?

Carcharodon

Permabear wrote: »

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You seriously must just be trying to troll and rile people up because while a small percentage may now be engaging in some violent actions, you cannot intelligently say that this summarizes the whole movement.

Also, Oakland is one of those places where there will always be some individuals that will engage in social unrest no matter what the movement. It is an extremely volatile and can be an extremely violent area (in terms of US cities).

I would love to hear what discussions/arguments you have regarding these protests being violent other than "so much for the peaceful protests"

Carcharodon

Amerika wrote: »

Is it true that one has to be either a socialist or entirely incompetent (or both) in order to be a mayor of a city in California?

That does not add anything to the conversation.

RichieC

Carcharodon wrote: »

That does not add anything to the conversation.

Nor does his fake Jefferson quote in his sig

Amerika

Carcharodon wrote: »

That does not add anything to the conversation.

O contraire...
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/11/02/oakland-mayor-losing-support-over-handling-occupy-protests/

RichieC

Fox news... yea great... next!

Amerika

RichieC wrote: »

Fox news... yea great... next!

Would the NYTimes suffice, or do you only consider news to be legit if it originates from The Daily Show or Onion News?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/us/Oakland-Protests-Test-Mayor-Jean-Quan-Activist-Background.html

Carcharodon

Amerika wrote: »

O contraire...
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/11/02/oakland-mayor-losing-support-over-handling-occupy-protests/

A link to fox news probably takes a lot away from the conversation if i am being entirely honest.

At least you gave a link to an actual article rather than an attempt at a witty comment aimed at insulting the Democratic mayor of Oakland, well really it was just a dig at the other side, you just used the opportunity of these events to do it, very original.

Mayor Quan was a surprise winner of that election and some people did feel she would not be up for the job. I think dealing with events like these and the Oakland police may be way out of her comfort zone and difficult for her to deal with effectively.

Amerika

Carcharodon wrote: »

Mayor Quan was a surprise winner of that election and some people did feel she would not be up for the job. I think dealing with events like these and the Oakland police may be way out of her comfort zone and difficult for her to deal with effectively.

If she is not qualified for the job, then she should resign.

Carcharodon

Amerika wrote: »

If she is not qualified for the job, then she should resign.

Well I don't know about not being qualified, she seems to have done a good job up until now, I really don't know of any politician that has always got it right.
I don't think i am qualified to make that decision on what she should do, she has always been a voice for the people of Oakland, people are obviously upset at how she dealt with the protests but I feel she may have been put under pressure by other parties.

Maybe she should resign but I feel that is your anti-everything that is not on the right, speaking.

Amerika

Carcharodon wrote: »

Maybe she should resign but I feel that is your anti-everything that is not on the right, speaking.

I wouldn’t care what letter was behind this mayor’s name. How much property damage must they endure, how much must the city spend - that they can ill afford, how many must be injured or worse before one puts the welfare of the people they claim to represent over ideology and ego?

Spacedog

Permabear seems happy that there is some violence, to prove his extreme right opinionated remarks of the past, but is reluctant to debate the core issues raised by the protest.

I'd like to ask you your reasoning behind your opinions on free market, capitalism, and how it has benefited those who live in Africa, South America and the Middle East?

I'd like to know how unaccountable companies can be trusted to work in the public interest, or the greater good for humanity, when their sole goal is to make profit for shareholders?

I would like to ask why globalisation should be restricted to free trade, but not extended to social issues like standardisation of labour rights, working conditions, human rights, equality and justice.

I would like to ask why he the very idea of a fairer distribution of the sum of earths resources to all the people, is equivalent to Stalin's Russia.

Finally, if it's not too personal, I'd like to ask about your own upbringing and haw you have come to hold these opinions so strongly?

Carcharodon

Amerika wrote: »

I wouldn’t care what letter was behind this mayor’s name. How much property damage must they endure, how much must the city spend - that they can ill afford, how many must be injured or worse before one puts the welfare of the people they claim to represent over ideology and ego?

So do you want her to send the police in and clear out the protestors that are taking part in the occupy movement ? I think sending any force into Oakland will cause a lot more damage than you may think, the relationship between the police and residents there is highly strained to say the least, would only cause more trouble in my opinion.
99% has been peaceful, its just that other 1% again

Overheal

20Cent wrote: »

Tarring a whole protest with thousands of people with the actions of a few, not only that the whole occupy movement. How collectivist of you.

yet you dont mind demonising the police when one of them. One (1) of them, throws a flashbang into a cluster of protestors. amirite?

Overheal

RichieC wrote: »

Fox news... yea great... next!

have you not learned by now that baseless ad hominem attacks do nothing?

user posts a link to a fox article on topic a > Richie doesnt like fox therefore topic a doesnt exist > user posts 30 corroborations from other sources > richie never shows up in thread again.

Amerika

Carcharodon wrote: »

So do you want her to send the police in and clear out the protestors that are taking part in the occupy movement ? I think sending any force into Oakland will cause a lot more damage than you may think, the relationship between the police and residents there is highly strained to say the least, would only cause more trouble in my opinion.
99% has been peaceful, its just that other 1% again

Leave the peaceful protestors be. Arrest the violent and property damaging troublemakers. If the so-called 99% peaceful protestors decide to join the ranks of the so-called 1% troublemakers, in attacking the police doing their job to protect and serve, then they can join them in peaceful holding cells.

Carcharodon

Amerika wrote: »

Leave the peaceful protestors be. Arrest the violent and property damaging troublemakers. If the so-called 99% peaceful protestors decide to join the ranks of the so-called 1% troublemakers, in attacking the police doing their job to protect and serve, then they can join them in peaceful holding cells.

I agree but Oakland can be so fragile, one spark can ignite a huge fire. It has to be dealt with very carefully for the benefit of the city as a whole.

Suryavarman

Spacedog wrote: »

Permabear seems happy that there is some violence, to prove his extreme right opinionated remarks of the past, but is reluctant to debate the core issues raised by the protest.

I may not be permabear but views are similar to his so I'll try to answer your questions.

I'd like to ask you your reasoning behind your opinions on free market, capitalism, and how it has benefited those who live in Africa, South America and the Middle East?

The reason I hold the opinions I do on capitalism is because I believe it to be the best system for increasing the lot of the ordinary man and a system that allows a great deal of freedom and control over ones destiny.

I'd like to know how unaccountable companies can be trusted to work in the public interest, or the greater good for humanity, when their sole goal is to make profit for shareholders?

They shouldn't be trusted to do so and they shouldn't be expected to do so. The sole purpose of a business should be to maximise profits by giving their customers what they want.

I would like to ask why globalisation should be restricted to free trade, but not extended to social issues like standardisation of labour rights, working conditions, human rights, equality and justice.

When you start enforcing first world working standards in third world workplaces you will destroy third world jobs.

I would like to ask why he the very idea of a fairer distribution of the sum of earths resources to all the people, is equivalent to Stalin's Russia.

Why should resources in private ownership be distributed more "fairly"? As for resources in public ownership how can they be distributed more fairly?

Finally, if it's not too personal, I'd like to ask about your own upbringing and haw you have come to hold these opinions so strongly?

I personally think it's too personal and adds nothing to the discussion.

Amerika

Carcharodon wrote: »

I agree but Oakland can be so fragile, one spark can ignite a huge fire. It has to be dealt with very carefully for the benefit of the city as a whole.

Fair enough. But the answer should be to allow the inmates to run the asylum... out of fear?

20Cent

Overheal wrote: »

yet you dont mind demonising the police when one of them. One (1) of them, throws a flashbang into a cluster of protestors. amirite?

No.

Overheal

Carcharodon wrote: »

Amerika wrote: »

Leave the peaceful protestors be. Arrest the violent and property damaging troublemakers. If the so-called 99% peaceful protestors decide to join the ranks of the so-called 1% troublemakers, in attacking the police doing their job to protect and serve, then they can join them in peaceful holding cells.

I agree but Oakland can be so fragile, one spark can ignite a huge fire. It has to be dealt with very carefully for the benefit of the city as a whole.

I remember these exact type of arguments being made during the student protests in Dublin - oh if only the cops had gone in without uniforms and surgically arrested the **** stirrers it could have all been avoided. Uh huh.

Never mind the images that drums up about secret police but it's not a solution with practical application in a large volume protest and certainty you can't make surgical arrests uniformed or not if there's this level of violence occurring - no cop should be expected to do that either, wade through a sea of bodies to try and find one guy who might be throwing trash or molotovs.

Cops protect and serve but tht doesn't give us a lot of right to tell them they have to put themselves in the way of an extraordinary level of harm either.

Best thing the peaceful ones can do is help the cops do their job. Hell do us all a favor and make a citizens arrest if the guy next to you is making explosives

Overheal

20Cent wrote: »

Overheal wrote: »

yet you dont mind demonising the police when one of them. One (1) of them, throws a flashbang into a cluster of protestors. amirite?

No.

Thought not. Hypocrite much?

20Cent

Overheal wrote: »

Thought not. Hypocrite much?

It would be hypocritical if I condemned all cops for the actions of a few but I didn't. Most have been pretty good with the protesters except a few occasions in NY and Oakland. Shooting a two time Iraq war veteran in the face with a bean bag round and throwing a flash bomb into a crowd of people trying to help him are excessive imo those officers should face charges. So should any protesters who attack the police or damage property.

RichieC

Overheal wrote: »

have you not learned by now that baseless ad hominem attacks do nothing?

user posts a link to a fox article on topic a > Richie doesnt like fox therefore topic a doesnt exist > user posts 30 corroborations from other sources > richie never shows up in thread again.

Richie actually reads the articles and richie is also concurrently involved in about 13 other threads spread over about 6 forums so you'll excuse me if I'm not sitting here with insta replies to suit you, overheal.

Of course a sitting democrat is going to get hammered in the US for siding with normal peoples right to protest. The news is controlled by people that are liable to be in the tank if WE (the average joe) got what we wanted.

I could go out and get whatever results I wanted for whatever topic I chose. the only poll I'm interested in are the election ones, all other are meaningless guff designed to manufacture consent.

Are we going to get a sticky at the top of this forum about how people should address the protesters?

probably not, this forum is rotten to the core with right wingers.

makes me sick to see it with a .ie after it.

Overheal

Nobody expects insta-replies. In fact I wager it would be preferred if one waited to post something substantive before harping in with an ad hominem before flying off again.

Are we going to get a sticky at the top of this forum about how people should address the protesters?

probably not, this forum is rotten to the core with right wingers.

makes me sick to see it with a .ie after it.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=68678211&postcount=44

Though if you can find references to 'left wingers' being marginalized via derogatory name calling please do report it.

Chuck Stone

*Puts on free market cap*

Spacedog wrote: »

I'd like to ask you your reasoning behind your opinions on free market, capitalism, and how it has benefited those who live in Africa, South America and the Middle East?

We don't have free market capitalism. We have corporatism and mercantilism.

I'd like to know how unaccountable companies can be trusted to work in the public interest, or the greater good for humanity, when their sole goal is to make profit for shareholders?

What exactly is the greater good of humanity and the public interest? Also, companies are accountable to their shareholders. It wouldn't be in the interests of any company to to piss off the public because profits get hit. In a free market there wouldn't even be corporations or limied liability (government created entities and protections) so people would be unlimited in their liability for screw ups.

Imagine the Irish banking fraternity being stripped of every single penny and asset they have and not being propped up by the tax-payer. That would be how the free market would handle such situations.

I would like to ask why globalisation should be restricted to free trade, but not extended to social issues like standardisation of labour rights, working conditions, human rights, equality and justice.

Freedom and prosperity go hand-in-hand. If you use the former Soviet Union as an example of how not to produce freedom and prosperity then is it so hard to imagine that the opposite to a centrally planned economy i.e. a free market (not capitalism as we know it) will produce the greatest good for the greatest number of people?

I would like to ask why he the very idea of a fairer distribution of the sum of earths resources to all the people, is equivalent to Stalin's Russia.

Seeking to enforce such a nebulous concept as 'fairness' will not produce fairness it will have the opposite effect because those who get into positions where they can decide what is fair (politicians) get co-opted by special interests (corporations and unions).

binxeo

Permabear wrote: »

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There is never such a thing as a peaceful protest. I wish there was but there is always someone who pushes to far, or some police officer that acts to quickly, mob mentality sets in and thats it. Peace has left and violence ensues.

With that said the recent biker protests have been very peaceful....UP THE BIKERS. Who would have thought it!!:)

RichieC

Overheal wrote: »

Though if you can find references to 'left wingers' being marginalized via derogatory name calling please do report it.

I'm not actually sensitive to name calling and couldn't give a dam what some teenager "libertarian" considers me or anyone like me.

I'm just pointing to the bias round here... Mods all seem to be to the right which makes debating a little uneasy for people anywhere close to the left.

It's stifling..

matthew8

This post had been deleted.

I'm not Permabear, but I do hold similar opinions to him so I shall try to answer some questions.

I'd like to ask you your reasoning behind your opinions on free market, capitalism, and how it has benefited those who live in Africa, South America and the Middle East?

My reasoning behind supporting a free market is that the government has no right to interfere with a marketplace. I also think that a free market is beneficial to the people in the form of low-priced goods. I don't know very much about South America, but it's meant to be on the up with most countries doing very well. Some right wing corporatist, some socialist, but it's doing well, and that's what matters. Africa is a total basket case, apart from a few coastal nations, and it is a basket case with capitalism, corporatism and socialism alike. It's war torn, and that's hard to stop, not even the free market could help it because half the continent's downright uninhabitable. As for the Middle East, most countries there not named Saudi Arabia (which is on the pig's back until the oil runs out) are stuck between a rock and a hard place. One could say capitalism has helped out in Israel which is the only middle eastern nation that has a system anything like capitalism (in my opinion capitalism is totally incompatible with Sharia law). You may be asking how these nations have benefitted from the interventionism of a so-called capitalist country, but interventionism isn't capitalism per se, it just so happens that the world police have been capitalists for the last few decades.

I'd like to know how unaccountable companies can be trusted to work in the public interest, or the greater good for humanity, when their sole goal is to make profit for shareholders?

Companies provide goods and services to people. They want their products to be good so that they can make a profit from selling them to people. They want their products to be affordable so that people can actually buy them. They can't make all these products without any people, so they pay people to work for them, giving them money with which they can buy goods. They subsidise entertainment for the masses through paying for television advertisements. They want their customers to be happy with their product/service so that they will keep using/buying the product and service so they set up customer service, employing more people (the big nasty Sky, part of the big nasty NewsCorp, is famous for customer service). Do you see how much public interest goes into a successful company now? Therefore it makes sense to have a business environment in which companies can succeed.

I'd also like to point out a very basic explanation for drip down economics. I think that if a big company makes a product, the benefit is spread among all society: If there are more factories, more things are made, which means more things are sold, which means more people will have things. Basically, if we make more stuff, we'll have more stuff. Go figure.

I would like to ask why globalisation should be restricted to free trade, but not extended to social issues like standardisation of labour rights, working conditions, human rights, equality and justice.

Allowing free trade to other countries is a policy that is undertook by one country by itself and by one electorate. However, international regulations is a policy that is forced onto countries and electorates who don't want them. Unless you're saying that globalisation
I would like to ask why he the very idea of a fairer distribution of the sum of earths resources to all the people, is equivalent to Stalin's Russia.

Finally, if it's not too personal, I'd like to ask about your own upbringing and haw you have come to hold these opinions so strongly?

That is probably too personal.

RichieC wrote: »

probably not, this forum is rotten to the core with right wingers.

makes me sick to see it with a .ie after it.

The right is more popular in this country. Deal with it.

Manic Moran

binxeo wrote: »

There is never such a thing as a peaceful protest. I wish there was but there is always someone who pushes to far, or some police officer that acts to quickly, mob mentality sets in and thats it. Peace has left and violence ensues.

Saw a recent image which compared the amount of offences and arrests between the OWS movement over the past couple of months and the number of offences and arrests at Tea Party rallies over the past year. A lot of 'zeroes' in one column, and that wasn't the OWS one.

Conservative-leaning demonstrations tend to gain publicity all right, for anything from bigotry, ignorance, or carrying guns around, but they have almost invariably at least been legal and non-intrusive.

NTM

Memnoch

Chuck_Stone - With respect while I agree with you and other libertarians that were it possible to have a truly free market, that could address some of the issues we are viewing today.

The problem is that it is as practical and realistic to expect the free market to EVER be implemented the way you and other libertarians seem to talk about it as we are to ever getting a form of pure communism to exist.

The goal of capitalism = profit at all costs. This can be made by providing competition, competitive pricing, good quality products, good customer service, ethical business policies. All of these are good things. Then you have the checks and balances. If a business doesn't do all of these things, in theory it should fail and that should be a lesson to the rest.

The problem is that in the character arc of virtually every corporate entity that is successful there will come a time where they no longer need to abide by the above goals because those no longer remain the best ways to create profit.

That is when we get... lobbying, bribing of goverments around the world to create favorable situations for corporations. Maintaining a good public image through lies, secracy, lack of transparency and disinformation as well as media control. The creation of monopolies that eliminates much of the good that comes from capitalistic competition. The exploitation of people into virtual slave labour in order to maximise profits.

The problem with unadulterated capitalism is that it is ultimately self defeating because there comes a point where corporations make more profit by breaking the rules of capitalism and subverting them rather than following them.

This idea that somehow smaller government will make things better or reduce the ability for large, megarich corporations to get away with this kind of underhanded behaviour is pure lunacy that is not grounded in any sort of reality what so ever.

The rich and powerful did pretty much what they wanted before we became democratic.

And no matter which way I look at it, the entire libertarian philosophy seems to be centered on the dismantling of the most basic and important fundamentals of our hard fought democracy.

These corporations will go to any length to get what they want. They have no moral basis or boundaries.

If libertarians want democracy the only thing they should be campaigning for, along with the rest of us is to eliminate corporate influence from government.

That is what the OWS movement is at it's core and the venom and intellectual dishonesty directed at them by many of the posters here shocks and saddens me.

Permabear

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Suryavarman

Permabear wrote: »

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Just out of interest, how does a teenager in rural Donegal come across The Road to Sefdom?

Permabear

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Permabear

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Spacedog

Permabear wrote: »

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I believe the thinking behind the Occupy movement in generally to open debate and discourse about what society is and how it should be run. You are as entitled to attend a protest and speak your mind as anyone else.

Capitalism and economic freedom have lifted billions out of poverty over the past two centuries. Unfortunately, the regions above still suffer from authoritarian socialist and religious regimes that deny important social and economic freedoms.

It could be said that human innovation, scientific improvements in almost all aspects of life, free travel, free communication. have improved the lives of billions and enriched their lives in a less tangible way than the number of symbolic pieces of paper in their wallets.

There does not necessarily need to be any conflict. If a pharmaceutical company creates a life-saving drug for the sole purpose of generating as much profit as possible, it has still benefitted the greater good.

But who benefits from it, if that same company patents the drug, and sells if for more than a years salary of most of the worlds people. again, I feel you are accrediting a scientific innovation to the money that paid for the room it was discovered in. Scientific endeavour, inventiveness, music, film and art etc. all existed before companies emerged to profit from them.

on pharma I offer you one further thought:

http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_battling_bad_science.html

Such extensions have certainly been attempted. In 1993, the United States introduced the Child Labor Deterrence Act, banning imports from companies that employed child labor. In response, a textile factory in Bangladesh laid off 50,000 child workers. However, according to Oxfam, a large number of these children went on to become prostitutes and street hustlers — so it's debatable whether they were actually served by the ban.

But is this not a harsh example the free market correcting itself? there is a market for paedos wanting to pay kids for sex is there not? The children are forced both into sweatshops and prostitution because they are overlooked by the current system of global society, The problem was caused by not tackling the underlying issue of child poverty. Kids aren't forced into sweatshops because they want an xbox360, they are starving in an age where food is plentiful.

What exactly do you mean by "the sum of the earth's resources"? Does everybody get so many barrels of oil, so much gold and silver, and so on? Who is going to extract all this oil, mine all this gold and silver, to give it away for free?

People don't want barrels of oil and lumps of iron ore etc. People want a roof over their heads, education and safety for their kids and not to worry where their next meal is coming from. They are willing to work to this end and contribute to society. Raw materials should be distributed according to need and managed toward the greater good of all humanity.

I grew up in a farming family in Donegal. When I was a teenager, I read Hayek's The Road to Serfdom — and it was all downhill from there.

Interesting, I'll look out for a copy, thanks for sharing.

RichieC

matthew8 wrote: »

The right is more popular in this country. Deal with it.

What ever gave you that idea? it certainly is not. I'm talking specifically THIS forum.. you are outnumbered in After hours and the real world.

I'd say you'd fit every libertarian in this country into a community centre.

RichieC

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

There's no logic in this... sounds like a talking point you'd read on the heritage foundation website..