What do you think about Occupy Charlottesville?
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Daniel Hocking: "I completely support it, think more people should. Definitely need to change some things 'cause people are starving, basically."Hook Staff -
Will Newman: "I think people should go occupy a job and go vote if there's an issue because screwing up the park doesn't help much."Hook Staff -
Quin Hughes: "I think I'm looking forward to Lee Park being a place where people can go back and enjoy it, and take their animals and their family and be able to enjoy it for what it is."Hook Staff
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39 comments
The various Occupy movements succeeded at their onset in focusing public attention on the growing economic disparity in our country but it is hard to see a good "end game" for their stubborn insistence on continuing to occupy vital public properties. As time lingers their encampments look more and more like public eyesores and potential health and safety risks and less and less like paragons of free speech. A point was made - it is time to move on to more imaginative and effective demonstrations or else increasing numbers of Americans will be turned off.
Well said Michael.
I'd be more supportive if the occupiers would go after local issues where elected officials are aligned with the wealthy against the public good.
examples : Nature Conservancy Dam/Electric Pipeline Plan and Craig and Co cash grab for Biscuit Run from the taxpayers with secrecy provided by our legislators.
time for a teach in ?
http://readthehook.com/99648/flaws-tripled-rates-spun-numbers-and-co...
Sadly, the homeless and disenfranchised will always look like eyesores to some people. Why should Occupy Charlottesville be concerned with an "endgame" when the game itself is rigged?
Because our representatives now answer to lobbyists rather than to us, and because huge media conglomerates continually give far more air time and print space to corporate interests rather than to those of American citizens, the Occupy movements have had to find a "workaround" to get their message out. And In just a few short months, they have succeeded admirably, voicing the plight of millions of Americans who are trying to keep their heads above water in the Great Recession, and re-framing the political narrative in the process. The Occupy movements did this without benefit of lobbyists and without multimillion dollar campaign contributions. They did it chiefly by being willing to stand with signs and sleep on the ground in all kinds of weather.
The entrenched money interests that currently have our democracy by the throat are extremely disconcerted by the fact that the power of the 1% vs. the 99% message is resonating so strongly with the working people of this country. Accordingly, they have been doing all that they can to silence it by trying to slander the various Occupiers who are communicating that message.
Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe, two of Democracy's greatest patron saints, would be proud to know that the activists of Occupy Charlottesville have established a camp in their "hometown," as am I. Indeed, it would be a shame if our area, an area where two men so vital to our nation's founding lived, did not have an Occupation in its midst when our government has become so disfunctional and so oblivious to us as citizens.
So Daniel "thinks" more people should support it- well, Well, WELL............what is it that more people should support Daniel?? HUM?
I do believe that the "notesters" and "occupuds" would get more support if they would TELL US WTF THEY WANT!!!
If they want stuff for free, ain't gonna happen. If they want to receive CEO pay for doing nothing- ain't gonna happen. If they want their student loans forgiven or paid off- ain't gonna happen.
So, just WTF do they want? Tell us, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeze. If they want to be "notesters" and "occupuds", they have succeeded- but i doubt that is what they want.
Let them tell us how they would be part of the solution rather than part of the problem- because they are part of the problem- let there be no doubt about it.
I appreciated a good sit-in as well as the next hippie back in the day. However, at the age of 61, I've got to question how their actions actually further their cause. They need to keep their efforts geared toward the proposed results of their cause, not the means they've chosen to accomplish them.
The people of Occupy Charlottesville made made their presence in the city known. Great, now what? You should live as willfully-unemployed derelicts for the rest of your lives to deny the 99% the right to enjoy their public spaces? I've got a message: "Get off your lazy a// and do something, anything." Pay my bills so I can quit working. They wine and complain while they have their free little party in the park and do nothing.
The people posting 'get a job' are seriously broken and I hope they lose their jobs and encounter severe health problems. Then, maybe they will have a better perspective on things. But in this rich white yuppie town, I seriously doubt it. They'll just ask their rich parents for help.
Also, quit voting for job destroying assholes if you really want these people out of the park.
I think I have the best idea, lets send them to 'Friendship Court' with the unsightly black people, behind those lovely fences with sharp points pointing outward (who the hell is going to jump INTO the projects anyway).
They say that the 1% want to end regulations and pay lower taxes and that is a bad thing.
The 1% say they need this to compete in a global economy and create jobs.
The Occutards want more regulations, higher taxes (for the 1% ONLY) AND JOBS.
Well take all your overpriced college degrees and do it yourself. If there are millions of you then pool your money and do it. Nobody is stopping you.
(just don't forget to pay your taxes fees, envrionmental reports, follow all EPA compliance protocols and make sure the Albemarle Review Board approves of your office design. )
(oh yeah, and don't forget to give all your employees a living wage with full health insurance and retirement, sick leave, maternity leave, hardship leave, on site daycare, transportaion subsidies to take the bus instead of drive, eduacational assistance, workers comp, 99 weeks unemployment premiums and a grievance process that protects their job in case anybody hollers at them for not working and hurts their feelings)
Occutards? Cute. How old are you supposed to be anyway?
Oh, and for the record, I have 2 jobs and I am currently working at one of them.
Tony, I call em like I see em...
It's time for the "Occup-ationless" to move on. The point has been made and their cuteness has worn off. Suggestion. Now that they have raked up and bagged every leaf in Lee Park, about two blocks to their south is a vacant multi-story piece of crap that they can occupy, clean up and make their headquarters too. While there, they can take the drunks and their homeless compadres along with them and fight with the panhandlers for space on the Mall. There's plenty of space for additional port-o-johns behind the barricades, four sides of the building to hang all their hand-painted propaganda signs and rooms to sit on their asses all day while they play the bongos. It even has a meeting room where they can hold their meetings at to decide what group color to wear for the day. Sorry though, no campfires. Yes, even though there is a code in which you may twist around to say that it violates your free speech rights, it's there to keep you and your 'cause' from going up in flames.
Oh. Forgot. The City of Charlottesville did have openings for part-time park workers. Hmmm. They have the qualifications: attention to detail, interacting with the public, leaf removal, park maintenance (keep the pot-o-johns clean, tapping into city owned electric outlets to see if they are 'working'). A job is a job. Much preferable than sitting around pounding on bongos or playing guitars in the rain or freezing one's ass off.
It has been said that the occupiers made their point, although, if they DID, I must have missed it. What WAS the point? To draw attention to economic disparity? Really? We didn't KNOW about that? Reminds me of the Vietnam war protest movement when people would breathlessly tell me that war is bad. Really? Who knew? This kind of news has all the staggering implications of a baby discovering that it has toes. Amazing!
Whatever the "point" IS or WAS, there seem to be few ripples beyond the pool of true believers who appear to be profoundly mired in their inability to articulate the problems and any solutions they have. They do say (at least, I think they say) that they either are, or else represent, the 99% who suffer at the hands of the 1%. Or something like that. Be that as it may, owing to their small numbers and evident self-isolation, it appears that they are the 1% who have served to become, at best, an irritant to the remaining 99%. Were that not the case, I would expect to see their numbers and their influence growing dramatically.
Maybe the ratio is really 2% and 98%. 1% are wealthy and powerful, and 1% are really unhappy about that. The other 98% are simply trying to get by best they can.
Da occupy movement a joke mane. Da camp remind me of Lord of da Flies
As they are I have zero respect for them. They just seem like a bunch of misfits seeing how much they can get away with.
If they actually tried to enact some changes rather than just generally protesting I would be more sympathetic. But their #1 goal seems to be camping.
The Occupy movement benefited at the onset from enthusiastically favorable reporting in the media and unprecedented kid glove treatment by municipal leaders around the country. By their intransigence they squandered these advantages and managed to alienate a rapidly increasing segment of the public. They literally snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Now I predict that many of those politicians and other public figures who so vigorously supported the movement in the past will start to discretely distance themselves from the Occupy Movement. The Right of Free Speech does not include a right to camp where one chooses and the economic plight of the less fortunate among us will not be improved by those who complain but offer no solutions.
We in this country have been living in denial and apathy for a long time. With the market forces inherent in globalism, the problem of rising energy costs, and the reality of an economy levitated on credit, we have been dividing the last few decades into various camps. There are the ones on the top whose fortunes have flowered as the benefits accrue disproportionately to the rentier class and then an increasingly irrelevant class who maybe comprise the bottom 50% of the populace, followed by an increasingly squeezed middle class and lower middle class whose entitlements and security appear more tenuous than ever. The process the economy has followed will, if carried on to its logical conclusion will impoverish ever more people as they become increasingly superfluous to the evolving economy.
These protesters of course are only protesting and don't have any sort of coherent plan or vision of how things might change, but their presence and continued articulation of concern about increasing economic stratification may be a good thing if it sharpens public awareness of systemic problems with the domestic economy. And maybe it could result later on in the formation of a consensus that just maybe some rules, backed by rigorous enforcement, might be as good an idea in the conduct of the world of finance as it is in a football game....
There has been a problem building for decades in this country - it has been the steady evaporation of good-paying factory jobs - blue collar jobs earning a sufficient wage to permit families to live a decent life style. Part of this evaporation has been due to globalization to be sure but it has also been self-inflicted. I blame two groups: One, the wall street crowd which got addicted to get rich quick schemes as opposed to the long term investment in manufacturing which would provide long term economic stability and growth and two, government which has regulated manufacturing right out of this country especially with regards to unreasonable and questionable environmental laws and regulations.
The American people do need to blame Wall Street but they also need to look to their government and ask why no one, even to this day, has explained to the struggling middle and poor classes that there is a trade-off between their jobs and environmental policy. The blue collar workers are forced to suffer from our environmental policies - if it is absolutely necessary to prevent global warming then perhaps nothing can be done but the people need to be consulted and given a voice in the matter. I don't see, however, how the planet will be saved by our environmental laws shutting down our factories when the production will just move to countries such as China which are totally unconcerned about global warming.
If manufacturing jobs do not come back - the disparity between the haves and have nots will only grow.
tony starks- 2 jobs? Well that ain't the Occupud way for sure.................why aren't you part of the solution, rather than part of the problem
Economy levitated on credit? Good grief. Surely you mean, "leveraged" by credit. But this kind of amorphous thought seems to typify the remarks of people who support or attempt to explain the movement. The "rentier class?" Good heavens, visions of Marx floating in my head. More obfuscation.
I am squarely in the middle class. Probably the lower middle class. Yet, I struggle not. So please, occupiers, don't do anything to represent me. I am functional, happy and greet each day eager to be at work. Go thou (PLEASE!) and do likewise.
To me many of them come across as silly little children playing games. The night of the council meeting some occupiers were gathered in front of City Hall listening to some chick giving one of their hallmark badly read speeches that sound like grade school kids on stage at a recital. (More of the same would follow during the 4 hours of public speech during the actual meeting, where occupiers begged and pleaded with council to let them keep their fun social gathering at the park.) Then some more occupiers came marching down the Mall solemnly beating on drums to join them. They just looked and acted like little silly children to me.
I'd love a revolution myself, because the world is totally deranged and has long since gone off the rails, but this isn't it. This is just silliness.
In fact, ya know what it kind of reminds me of? *Controlled opposition.* And *useful idiots.*
If people reading this aren't familiar with the terms, look them up. In particular, look up controlled opposition.
"Occupy" seems to me a good way to neutralize the growing public dissent with the way the powers that be are running this world. Reroute the public's anger and energy onto a goofy, passive, liberal hippie fest of alcoholics, drug addicts, homeless panhandlers, whiny emotional chicks, effeminized hippie males and spoiled kids who don't want to or have to work who decide the best way to tell off the world is to go..........camping in a park?
Instead of a revolution that actually matters and truly accomplishes something (ie, the complete overthrow of the U.S. government, and the outing of all the crazed psychopaths who run this world for their own profit) you have goofy little children-in-adults-bodies with emotionally stunted growth whining and camping in a park.
Yeah. That'll show the world.
JSGeare- no, I am sure Angel Eyes means levitated, leverage requires WORK!
Across the nation, the Occupy Movement has finally got the media to focus on the declining standard of living for WORKING Americans and our countries tragic slide toward third world status. Every day they get more coverage.
The willfully ignorant can natter on about how the Occupy movement hasn't stated what they want changed, but their demands have been a matter of record since early October . These are at the top of a long list:
"that Congress pass HR1489 reinstating the Glass-Steagall act.
That Congress use authority & oversight to investigate & prosecute Wall street criminals.
That Congress pass legislation to reverse the effects of the Citizen's United Supreme Court decision.
That Congress pass the Buffett rule on fair taxation.
That Congress pass EFFECTIVE laws limiting the influence of lobbyists.
Sounds pretty "radical" huh? Maybe if you're in the 1% or an apologist for the robber barons. We've had a decade of the "job creators" getting non-stop tax breaks & deregulation. So where are the jobs & prosperity for working Americans?
You may not like the way the local occupiers look or smell, but they have the stones to bring the issue front & center 24/7. They are not the sunshine patriots of the Tea party.
Michael, I'd like to know exactly what a "Parragon of Freedom" is supposed to look like... Can you or one of the other experts here enlighten us?
Term was "paragon of free speech" not freedom - I think for example that the Civil Rights demonstrations of the 60's were paragons of free speech - times when committed individuals risked life and limb to confront injustice with a clear vision of the alternative. A far cry from unemployed college grads living in a squatters camp with electricity provided by tax payers and worried about losing their internet connections. The Occupiers are loud and self-righteous but I predict that their impact will be as fleeting as the wind. The right to occupy land that is not yours is not mentioned anywhere in the constitution, Federalist papers, writings of the Founding Fathers, Supreme Court cases - literally nowhere - the Occupiers claim to represent the 99% but they will find that the majority of the 99% want nothing at all to do with them.
@ Angel Eyes...Well said.
@ Working Man...You hit the nail squarely on the head.
@ Michael...This really isn't a civil rights issue or anything like it. The civil rights movement addressed inequality in the minority populations. These people, or at least some of them, are trying to point out inequality that will affect all of us. I don't agree with all they stand for or, in some cases, the way they get their messages out. And I think you'd be surprised at the number of people in the 99% who do care about these issues.
Protest is an American right. It has somehow become un-American to rock the boat. Thank God Rosa Parks didn't mind a little sea spray.
To omgitspaul - where did I say this had anything to do with civil rights - I was merely making the point that compared to the civil rights movement. Second do you read the polls the Occupy movement started with good support levels but it is dropping like a rock. Third no one disagrees with the Right to Free Speech or to Assembly but we do object when these rights are distorted by a selfish group of individuals who think that they have the right to expropriate public lands for a permanent residence. That is not a right and it should never be a right.
omgitspaul- what do they stand for? I keep asking, but do not see anyone suggesting an answer.
Also, what makes you believe that they represent 99% of us out here? There are so few of them that I would doubt that they represent .0009% of anything.
No one has told anyone that they cannot speak their mind or protest. What they can't do is choose the place or time to express themselves. Just like parking a car- no one is denying you the "right" to park a car, but you just can't do it anywhere or anytime you would like without paying a penalty.
and no one is stopping anyone from voting (legally)- these occupuds and notesters should give that a try- it does work (Nobama in '08 and Tea Party in '10)
@ Michael...I may have misunderstood your comparison. Do you think that because they don't have your support or, according to "polls", a majority support, that they should shut up and go home? Why are we so offended when someone argues a point we don't agree with? 1%, 2%, 50%, what does that matter?
At the corner of Ridge/McIntire and Main there are a handful of people protesting almost everyday to end the war. I think most polls show that the majority of Americans agree with that. Do we ridicule those protesters because their numbers are few? Do we call them silly names? Protest is what make this country. The lack of protest and people's apathetic attitude is in large part what brought us to the point where people are joining this new movement. Let them voice their opinions and support their right to do so. It'll either take or it will fizzle out.
@ HarryD...Where did I say anything in my post regarding their right to occupy the park? I don't think I referred to the park at all. I don't know what they stand for anymore and I don't care. That really isn't the point here. I don't agree that they have any right to take over a public space at all. I was arguing that protest, whether you agree with the platform or not, is a right we all have. Disparaging remarks and infantile nicknames have no place in the debate. But I would defend your right to disagree as strongly as I defend their right to protest.
To Omgitspaul - noone is telling anyone to shut up and go home - just don't be a jerk and take over parks that don't belong exclusively to you - by camping in Lee Park the Occupy people have gone way beyond just voicing their opinions - they are extremely selfish to assume that they have the inherent right to take over public land on a long term basis. It is the Occupy that is the problem, not the free speech.
omgitspaul- you didn't, I did..........
Interesting comments . The occupy movement is a symptom of something .They are the messingers of present day reality . It is not political but mainly economic . Food riots of sorts . Symptom of the West winning the political cold war but losing the ensuing global economic trade war . The nanny states of the West with their social program overheads can not compete against the social barron program emerging states. One can visualise these protests are harbingers of more desperate food riots as the western social democratic economies unwind against stronger competitors . The West is losing it's production infrastructure and it's natural resource base . Chindia in particular is sucking the production base and jobs . They are using their manufacturing profits to buy vital natural resource deposits (minerals,oil,potash,coal,uranium etc etc) . They are scooping these resources up at firesale prices as Westerners can't dump them fast enough . Tactically the West also appears to loosing their grip on the Mid East oil also but that is not as clear as the outright purchases world class resource assets by Chindia and all . The West is screwing itself while it's economic competitors are putting the screws to us simultanously .
Frank Speaker- what the occupuds and notesters are missing here is the fact that regardless of what type of society, government or whatever arrangement they may like to formulate to 'make it fair", will not be "fair" in their minds down the road. There will be those who sieze power from the underground- the educated class, and those who work their butts off to just survive. It isn't fair intheir minds, but certainly rewards those who run the operation. Exactly like the business world.
They occupuds and notesters should really try the ballot box and strive for "hope and change" rather than "dope and chains"- like they did the last go around.
HarryD -- . I was mainly trying to make the point that we here in North America are getting an ever decreasing sized piece of the worlds' economic pie . Looking past the individuals to the issue these demonstraters should be forgiven as they are the ones speaking out about it . Others are taking the adjustment more quietly but all are mostly hurting . The Western economies and currencies are toppling over from mean lean countries that are not burdened by the costs of our entitled classes ,union activities ,armed forces expenditure ,and social programs .It has only been 20 years since the demise of the Yalta conference world partition .We in the West were anticipating an expanded market but didn't accurately forsee the power of the pent up cheap labour force in the East .