Ramblings #14

What is the difference between the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street? While looking for information online, I came upon the chart you see above. Is it entirely true? No, probably not. The media tends to focus on the most insane members of the tea party and make it look as though they are representative of the entire movement. On the other end, they also focus on the most bizarre OWS participants as well, often showing dirty, unkempt homeless people.

What I don't get, though, is why there is so much hatred being directed at OWS. The Republican presidential candidates are attacking them, the police are (literally) attacking them. Do they fear we are the beginning of another American revolution?

It seems, for many, there is a misconception that OWS just wants free government handouts, and asking for something like "complete debt forgiveness" for student loans seems a bit extreme. But what are their real goals? This is what I found:

Goal 1:
Put a human face on the tens of millions of average Americans from every social, political, and economic strata who have had to put on hold plans to have a job, form a family, own a home, and live a normal life as the result of the dysfunctional mess that the United States has become. Occupy Wall Street is a way to let people across the country know that they are not alone in their struggles.
Goal 2:
Spotlight that the industrial-scale financial fraud at the core of the modern financial-services industry is a major source of this mess, and - because the entire political and legal system has been bought off - virtually nobody is being held to account. Just as we have the right to defend ourselves when we are being mugged, Americans have the right to defend ourselves from corporations that exploit our markets while moving jobs overseas or that evade taxes while using our roads, schools, and other public infrastructure.
Goal 3:
Point out that no partisan "10 Point Plan" will solve the mess we're in. The profound changes that we need will require the hard, slow work of rebuilding popular consensus by engaging with ideas from every point in the political and social spectrum. Wall Street and big corporate interests love never-ending political paralysis precisely because it leaves them free to cold-bloodedly strip the country bare.

Sounds reasonable to me.

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Sometimes if you wish for something long enough, miracles can actually happen. No, I'm not talking about winning the lottery. I'm talking about the best live concert ever...Roger Waters "The Wall Live" is coming to Austin! Yes, on May 3rd, 2012, the Roger Waters show will be performed at the Frank Erwin Center, a mere 20 minutes away from my house. He is doing one more tour of North America, hitting many of the cities he skipped the first time around. Frequent readers of my blog will know that the last time I had to travel to Dallas to see this show, and ended up having to pay my sister a hundred bucks to watch my kids, in addition to getting a hotel in Dallas. It was an expensive trip, to say the least.


Of course I will go again next year. There is no way I would not go. But...I will probably opt for slightly cheaper seats this time. This is a show that is so huge, it would be in your benefit to sit farther back.
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We had a breakthrough last night with Kyle. At 4 1/2 years old, Kyle is still not potty trained, but yesterday he finally succeeded in using the toilet. We have been trying everything: bribes, threats, you name it. Nothing was working. But finally we had some success.
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I didn't realize it until after the fact, but October 21st came and went without "Doomsday" occurring. Religious wacko Harold Camping was wrong again. I think it's time for this senile, old, false prophet to just fade away into obscurity.

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In one of my more recent blogs, I predicted that Obama would probably lose in 2012. Although, it's still a year away, I think that maybe now he has a 50/50 chance. If Herman Cain is the best candidate they have to run against him, I can't foresee a big victory for the GOP in 2012. All the Obama campaign has to really do is show how the "9-9-9" tax plan will raise taxes on just about everyone except the nation's wealthiest. People do have a bad habit of voting against their own interests, but this is very simple math, people.