Thank you so much for posting this.  I was wondering when the PDD community was going to discuss this. Thank you everyone who is a part of Occupy Duluth.  I am grateful to you.

I'm not rich, not even close, but I don't consider myself as part of the 99% as is claimed, and I am not part of the 1%. I'm an average Joe who has worked hard, found my own way to pay for school (joined the Army), has worked since I was sixteen at both great jobs and not so great jobs, and realizes that it isn't the government or wall streets responsibility to take care of my wants and needs, but my own. I don't protest because I have responsibilities in my life and can't afford to bang drums and fly signs all day griping about how terrible it is that others have more than me. This is America and if you can find a way to make millions then do it! If not, don't bitch about those who have. Want an education? Work your way through college, join the armed forces, get scholarships, apply for grants. I for one have no empathy nor sympathy for your cause nor do I wish to be considered the 99%. Speak for yourselves, not those of us in the world who don't share your views.

Good job, Joel and all!  Keep it up!

This is just the beginning. We shouldn't expect simple demands regarding the complex problems the demonstrators are identifying. The richest 1% own 42 % of financial wealth, and the bottom 80% own only 7%.  That's bad enough, but the rich don't just use their wealth to buy yachts and mansions, they use it to buy out our democracy, at our expense. The national Chamber of Commerce is out front in the class-war being waged against average Americans. (U.S. Chamber Watch.) So much so that many local Chambers are parting ways with them. The Occupy Movement is true populism, still finding its voice. More power to them.

I don't think the complaint is that they don't have as much money as a wall street banker, it's that corporate money has corrupted the political process.

And there are people who thought they were part of the "haves," until they lost their health insurance, got a long-term illness, and proceeded to bankrupt themselves.  Disheartening to see, worse to experience, while reading about the corruption of morals and of our "democracy" by and for big corporations.  

My dad, a very hard worker, former military, and small business owner, about as rock solid Republican as they come, would have been appalled at the state of our country, the discrepancy of wealth, and the disappearance of the middle class.

So maybe the goal, hazy as it is, is simply to start talking about how we can get our country back and become a decent society again.

I am so grateful someone is actually drawing attention to it.  Thank you so much.

I wish people would really push back. Just some drum and noise ain't going to cut it. Winter is coming and soon they will be gone.

Wow. I can't believe I missed all this exciting discourse!!?! Yeah, Paul, that Dylan Ratigan video -- even though he makes good points -- kinda gets under my skin. 

Also, it's great that you brought up that great big (stock) question that all the skeptics of this epically huge movement ask: "Why are they doing this?? What do these people want??!?!" My personal take (and may it have you wishing you'd never asked) is this: Why is it so necessary to focus on the end goal(s)? Isn't it about the process? How many grandiose projects do we undertake, how many true adventures have definitive destinations/endings? Okay, I admit this is a politically motivated and, admittedly, pretty damn well-organized effort by an inordinate amount of disenfranchised people, not a trip to the Boundary Waters, but it's still an adventure in democracy. Engaging in a process that may (or may not) bring about the change you'd like to see is what it should be about. Lest we forget what country we live in.

I dunno, "Bob..." Is Duluth a good place to raise a family?

Goes for almost any town almost anywhere.

Occupy Austin, whirling into action and chaos at a public space near you

Aaah shucks, B-man...

Yeah Goose, a really good, rich guy. Are you his secretary? Is that why you would stick up for such an abomination? His salary is actually closer to $185,000 per year. Hmmm, what has he done for the business community in Duluth? Why isn't the protesters on his doorstep. He's one of the 1%, isn't he?? Why aren't people completely up in arms about that? It's a fucking outrage. Here's the Chamber's filing.

+1 DoubleDutch (as usual)  Further, I nominate DoubleDutch as PDD den mother.

Paul, is that coming from you? Haven't you noticed the makeover/takeover of the riches of the world, of the people of the world, of the earth itself by a few? 

Please read up on the response of the Icelandic people to their debacle. They are in the process of rewriting their constitution. They have issued arrest warrants for the banksters that threw them to the curb. They have thumbed their nose at the threats of the IMF.  

High time Occupy is on the bandwagon: with Greece, Spain, Italy, maybe even with Iceland.

My favorite slogan from OWS:

"I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one."

It's pretty clearly defined to me,  just like a multi-headed dragon, complex and sometimes hard to describe. I just watched this film called Ironclad, about King John, a truly great bastard of history.  It was a gruesome epic about a few folks, against great odds, who finally decide to make a stand at long last, against the tyranny who'd plagued their land through many years. 'A pittance for the king' was always the slogan, war was the answer, and monarchy was all they ever knew. 

For thousands of years, those our mostly ancestors, lived in fear of disease and invasion by their neighbors, and in fear of their king who would often use his 'subjects' to achieve his private futile means.  Then there was Ghengis Khan, not the only time a ruler with a few devoted followers would almost take over the world.  Granted, he allowed freedom of expression though religion, but if for one instant he doubted your allegiance to him, it was the village ... man, woman, and child.  We may have freedom of religion here, but many are still ostracized for their choices, and we still won't elect a non-Christian president. 

And so it would seem, that the prevailing 'shit-pattern' of all these years of hacking each other to pieces, with no good cause, was having one person in charge of everything. Or fighting over the ideas of one person. 
 
Never long until greed and/or insanity takes over the free goodwill of a lone ruler.  Our 'founding fathers,' in their divine brilliance, having experienced firsthand the effects of inbreeding on a ruling class,  tried to create a counter-revolutionary system to the one they tried and didn't like, and when they decided to leave it, wrote into their own final credo of how to run the show, in their best efforts to save the future by  avoiding the ruler syndrome, that if those folks didn't like how their system was going, it was their civic duty to make their own plan and change it. 
 
So as we play witness to the Arab Spring of 2012, amidst yet another long year of leading up to yet another Election Day Blues, we may find ourselves asking if deregulated derivatives, shoddy corporate craftsmanship, a Global Spending Crisis, and meltdown, and the War on Countless Fronts, all spiraling out of control like a great Morning Glory doesn't all add up to some glowing light bulb in our complex Homosapienses brains? Something as it were was happening here and we weren't sure what it was? As though the Great Concrete Gulf Oil Blowout, Gulf War, and Golf weren't somehow all shenanigans  related?
  
The cold hard facts are, the current plan sucks, the endless bickering between two parties is your lordship madam.  And for Evolving Man, this is beneath our true potential.  At minimum, by making all politicians have doctoral degrees, be vouched for by their peers might be one of the ways out our of biggest problem, waring among the classes, and the wealthy who run the show, but just how relative is it to our human potential?  We're arguably far better off now than in the days of the Viking invasions, or being eaten by a Cave Bear? We can even still tie our shoes!  As we not -so- slowly poison ourselves with petrol in the plastic we eat and drink, and dump when a cheap biodegradable alternative is certainly within our easy grasp. Why aren't we putting farmers to work growing hemp, wheat and corn? And everything else? Having by way of incentive and  birth right,  choked ourselves with our own policies, and not choked the wrong people with the right policies, hence encouraged a system which attracts leaders of no great moral character, usually without degrees, and without intensity that isn't all fire and brimstone, and henny penny sky is falling, while still retaining their abilities to accept endless bouts of hookers, alcohol, and blow in the best hotels with their 'lobbyists' or buddies as you and I call them, on all expense payed trips to their offshore accounts which may include anything from pharmaceutical, oil, insurance, to just plain money that was never there in the first place. And at their age, if they loose their vitality, Viagra. So if people feel like getting together, young and old alike, and "occupying,"in a nonviolent manner, hanging out if you will, if it makes them feel better, while they draw up their own lists of shit needs fixing, isn't it the American Way?  People getting out and meeting their neighbors in an often otherwise closed shade, fenced off world, meeting folks they didn't grow up with, and getting out into it on a beautiful Autumn day? Sounds like a good idea to me. Maybe the question really is, if you've ever felt like a subject or a number, or maybe you sit at a computer all day in an office and dream of being out in nature sometimes instead, then mightn't you draw up your own things what need fixing list, and go out and share them with your neighbor.  Sky is the limit.

"The money isn't real Son"  George's dad

Right on, Codie and OGDulutian.  Voting is a joke anymore at the federal level.  It seems like every Congressperson now (WWWD?) is bought and sold to some extent.  Even votes that seem to count (e.g. Franken votes) get us nowhere ultimately, when a small group of bought-and-paid for representatives can shut down what the people want to see their government do (e.g. national health care, supported by the majority of voters).

Voting, just to show you're a caring, proactive citizen, is a sham too, I think.  Casting a vote used to mean something.  Now it just means an empty gesture.

That is why I am thrilled to see Occupy Duluth et al. loudly point out what we all know to be true:  corruption motivates the 'people's representatives.'

And Richard Thomas took that photo.

Okay, so I have to actually agree with JAdiaz on this one. Back when we employees of WI actually had unions, I always felt bad that Bush/McCain/etc voters saw their union dues going to support Dems.  I would have been mightily pissed off if my dues went to support the Bush/Cheney Campaign of Doom.

Codie: Unions were a great thing once upon a time, like our government. The fact is that both unions and corporations should have a say or neither should. As was pointed out, why should Unions be allowed to collect dues from all members and use that money to support candidates that a portion wants nothing to do with? Unions are no better than corporations anymore frankly. Unions brought us a ton of great things back in the day, but now they extort their own members and the tax payers as much as major corporations. I can't get behind a movement that is so one sided and so ill organized in its goals.

@Jadiaz- Unions are more important now than ever. The common, simplistic argument against them is usually: "they protect slackers." However, problem employees, who are an exception, can be fired through legitimate channels. Corporate profits are at an all-time high, yet more and more people are falling into poverty. No progress has ever been made in the fight for economic fairness without a struggle, usually with unions at the forefront. 

Job security is a wonderful thing. So are all the other benefits that unions have brought us, including  benefits now enjoyed by non-union workers. Anti-union Walmart is the largest employer in the United States. Three of the richest 10 Americans is a Walmart heir (it was four until recently). Yet Walmart is the poster child for low wages and crappy benefits. In fact, Walmart just scaled back its pathetic health benefits. No union to question that? Tough luck. The official poverty level for a family of four is $22,314. Over 769,000 Walmart employees earn less than $9 an hour, which would put them in poverty. When they need food stamps or other help, that is basically taxpayers subsidizing Walmart. 

Unions may not be perfect, but they are a tried and true way to better the lives of working people. Authoritarians hate them, because they have a democratizing effect in the work place. Godwin's Law Alert: Unions were one of the first things Hitler went after. Likewise, most every other right-wing despot. It's time for more and bigger and stronger unions. Thanks to those involved in the Occupy Movement.

Right wing Despots eh? How convienent you forget about the Left Wing Democrats in Massachusettes going against Unions in that state. But hey, keep invoking Hitler to keep your delusions that every conservative, heck only conservatives, are heartless evil people. Cause we all know only liberals can care about people.

New Yorker: A Walk in the Park

Here's another one for Jadiaz:



Source

I had to laugh at WDIO's Oct. 24 "news"report about David Ross's taped comments about the Occupy Duluth movement, and the movement in general, that kicked off this thread. WDIO's "news" story is headlined:  
"David Ross Takes Heat for 'Occupied' Comments."
http://www.wdio.com/article/stories/S2342736.shtml?cat=10335.

WDIO refers to the Youtube video, so I went there to see who was giving Mr. Ross grief for his opinions. There are 3 comments posted there by
1. retrognomerecordings; 2. Skrunkcat; and 3. varnishyourboard. Only one -- by Skrunkcat -- is (mildly) negative.

WDIO also referred to a local website that's run by a right-wing extremist who goes by several screen names as their source for this story. So I held my nose and went there. The website looks like the Weekly World News and reads like a middle-schooler is writing for it. A link to the video was posted there, as WDIO claimed, and, yes, there were comments critical of David Ross posted there! There were six comments, and they were posted by such solid citizens as 1. David Smith. 2. Tony R. 3. Butch; 4. Scott M; 5. Dave; and 6. Dan H. The comments were all, as is to be expected, very nasty.

So, my question for WDIO is, how is this news? Who gives a damn what a half-dozen sock puppets who don't even have the cojones to identify themselves post on a website run by another anonymous sock puppet?

I'm just disgusted that WDIO would reach down into the sewer like this and air such blather. But then, this is the same news program that airs stories about cats stuck in trees and dogs chasing cars, right? Talk about people being asleep at the switch there. I'd love to know their rationale for airing such crap, and sent them an email. Haven't heard back though, and I am not holding my breath.

ryanunderwood, interesting insight. My first notion was to call you a tool, but I see you are one of Jesus' people and I respect that; however, where exactly does your religious affiliation, your blog/insights, and middle-class-ness put you, in regard to the OWS movement and the 99%? Does the movement have god on its side?