(no subject)

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

If you want to get people to listen to you, come up with some facts, rather than just gather like a rabble in the streets.

Is the SEC Covering Up Wall Street Crimes?

The widespread destruction of records was brought to the attention of Congress in July, when an SEC attorney named Darcy Flynn decided to blow the whistle. According to Flynn, who was responsible for helping to manage the commission's records, the SEC has been destroying records of preliminary investigations since at least 1993. After he alerted NARA to the problem, Flynn reports, senior staff at the SEC scrambled to hide the commission's improprieties.

Here is the kind of thing you can get angry about. The unfocused "anger" of people hanging around on Wall St. ("occupying" it, if you will) is just not really that productive. Getting a clear focus on what the problem actually is would help their cause significantly.

The People vs. Goldman Sachs

It's the same as trying to clean up any weed; go after a root, not just a bunch of stalks.

Comments

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

yes. this is exactly what the 99% are angry about.

*applause*

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I'm watching Ken Burns' documentary on Prohibition. Some day they'll make a documentary about the "widespread hypocrisy, corruption and disregard for law" going on now. Maybe we'll still be alive then. Probably not.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

And it looks like you missed my point.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Concern trolling is always so adorable.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

*pinches his chubby pasty cheeks*

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

If you want to get people to listen to you, come up with some facts, rather than just gather like a rabble in the streets.

I thought you liked the Tea Party.

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

Woohoo, Morte! /offtopic

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

If you want to get people to listen to you, come up with some facts, rather than just gather like a rabble in the streets.

The Tea Party can claim how many seats in Congress?

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Relevance?

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Individuals can do sweet fuck all against the SEC or Goldman Sachs, it's going to take politicians with balls to clean up Wall St. Now, why would a politician go against those behemoths unless they were sure there was popular support? How better to show popular support outside of an election than with a demonstration?

It's like you hate democracy.

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

Why does it have to be outside of an election? Wouldn't it be more democratic and more effective for the people to express their desire for reform by hitting elected officials where it counts, in the ballot box?

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Polls, letter writing, media coverage, etc. In other words, all the usual ways politicians get feedback from the public. If those methods don't work, then democracy is pointless.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Also, the SEC is a gov't agency, so there doesn't need to be any significant balls to fix it.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

And furthermore, it's clear that the problems at GS were institutional, not individual. If the corporation is a person, and the problems lay within the corporation rather than the individual, then the penalty should be that GS gets removed from society for 5-10. Suspension of their license for a nickel, that aught to be fair punishment (I'm assuming you *do* license financial institutions there, or is deregulation gone so mad that anyone can set up a bank?)

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Certain banks require a charter. Private investment firms are just that, private firms handling private monies (ideally). Private hedge funds are even more unregulated, being entirely dark boxes of an insider's game.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Funny, when I read those links, I come to the conclusion that the problem at GS was a few specific people and I don't see anything institutional about it.

[not-hothead-yet.livejournal.com]

okay, thanks for the pinpoint. I can say many of us are angry about that specifically.

All better?

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

When you have a focused protest, you get focused results. That's not what's going on right now. So, good luck with that.

[not-hothead-yet.livejournal.com]

oh and FYI the people demonstrating (regardless of who they are) are not "like a rabble" they ARE "rabble"

Look it up.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rabble

Yes, I'm using definition #1 and you want to change it to definition #2. That's nice.

[il-mio-gufo.livejournal.com]

people hanging around on Wall St.

i'm sure this just makes the commission destroy records in a quicker, more efficient, manner. Incinerator please.

One incinerator coming right up.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

http://youtu.be/-qmFm6b5JUo

[nevermind6794.livejournal.com]

Yes, because our society and political world are laser-focused on well-reasoned argumentation.

[xforge.livejournal.com]

^^ That.

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

Have another glass of champagne.

As for the side topic of astroturfing:

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO_WC0FINmA
Feel free to skip past the Obama bit at the beginning.

Direct proof at around 10:00, as we watch the Koch brothers take reports from their minions of the multitude of tea parties they'd organized on the Koch's behalf.

(frozen) Don't forget to genuflect before your masters!

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

(frozen) Re: Don't forget to genuflect before your masters!

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

You forgot to put your trollface icon. (You do have one, don't you? You must.)