No...this really is effin sad....

[Wilbur Kookmeyer]

Tools.

[Doc]

Apathy is worse.

Doc

[smithgrind]

Keeps me busy and entertained at work. Added bonus, The Occupy Camp is only 2 blocks away so I can get a hot plate on my dinner break and get my hands dirty in the vegetable and herb garden they started.

There's another camp at 4th and Burnside if you're burned out on this one, Wilbur. The new camp is more core! I think you'd dig it...

[Spent]

Doc is right.

Occupy Portland won't change sh*t but neither will sitting on your arse, while hoping next year's election will change something.

[Friend Of The Hawk]

Should be camped out at Fort Knox demanding to see the gold thats been missing for the last 30 yrs!!

[Tex]

Spent...really, what do you think that next year's election is going to change?
Occupy Wall Street and Portland is the real deal and I hope they keep going. Occupy fuking Bank of America and Chase!!!

[Spent]

Spent...really, what do you think that next year's election is going to change?
Occupy Wall Street and Portland is the real deal and I hope they keep going. Occupy fuking Bank of America and Chase!!!

I don't think elections can change a damn thing. That was my point. I'm with you, Tex. I'm still sceptical the Occupy 'movement' will achieve anything but at least they are f*cking trying and instigating much needed debate and attention on the big picture.

[Spent]

This is perhaps the best analysis I have read about the Occupy Movement. Chris Hedges is one of the most impressive American commentators of our times.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_movement_too_big_to_fail_20111017/

But the liberal class, by having refused to question the utopian promises of unfettered capitalism and globalization and by condemning those who did, severed itself from the roots of creative and bold thought, the only forces that could have prevented the liberal class from merging completely with the power elite. The liberal class, which at once was betrayed and betrayed itself, has no role left to play in the battle between us and corporate dominance. All hope lies now with those in the street.

[Tex]

Good stuff Spent! Seriously, what other avenue do we have but to use the street? The media doesnt get it, hell the top guy from Viacom made 80,000,000 last year alone. The most power we have is our consumption. Strategic choices about what we consume and who we consume from will instigate change. People are pulling out of big banks daily and going to credit unions. If we all walked away from BofA and Chase and Wells, we might make something happen.

[Wilbur Kookmeyer]

Spent and Tex, why don;t you wankers go get some OE and go spray paint anarchy emblems on the windows of Baby Gap...

So predictable and textbook.

So the top guy from Viacom made 80 mil...good for him. Just because he made a sickening amount of money does not mean I have a right to some of his money.

Yeah...vote with your cash, and who you do business with...but good luck with that. I hate to break it to you '99%' types but you ain't 99%...you ain't even 9%.

There is no support in the working world for these Occupy Fucknuts. (cool...I can type 'fucknuts' without being censored)

And might I add Sammy's Kids downtown are about to get their skulls cracked. Public sentiment is rising against them and they are seen as a nuisance more than a band of freedom fighters. Of course they don;t help themselves by aligning with groups protesting their student loan debt. That turned a lot of people off. Big time.

Those idiots....'yeah like i spent 9 years earning a BA in Elizibethan Poetry, and now that the rich people ruined our country I cannot get a job I am entirely unqualified for and thus I don't feel like I should have to repay the $213,000 in student loans I blew, even though I knowingly accepted the loan as I really needed the cash...it's not my fault..'. What retards.

Noiw that I think about it...huh...sounds like all the dumbasses that signed those voodoo home loans on the 80/20-split-no-money-down crap that sank our economy....

See everyone is busy blaming the 'corporations'...but I hate to point out that the Devil cannot force you to sin, he only provides you the opportunity. The choice is still yours.

Nobody made the idiots sign home loans they could not ultimately afford, and nobody forced anyone to sign for a student loan they would not want to repay.

Predatory loan practices? Sure...you bet. But that does not excuse the fucksticks from signing them. And that, my friends, is what precipitated the demise. And lets not forget, it was nto the 'corporations' that made money off of the balloning prices of homes. no...the beneficiaries of those false idols were our own friends, relatives, and neighbors.

Matter of fact...the banks...got stuck with the deflated values of abandon and foreclosed homes all over the nation. I don't feel sorry for them, and they are to blame as well, however...they may have coked their books...but it is the rest of the '99%' that lit the damn fire.

[Doc]

I'm pro-Occupy for several reasons...
But I have to thank Spent for the main reason...
This...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKbP1akVMGs&feature=youtu.be
So awesome.

Doc

[Tex]

He litterally said paddleboards and then turbans.....WOW

[Tex]

WK...

I have to challange your comment about the public sentiment over the Occupy Portland group.

When they marched past my building there were people throwing confettii from the offices nearby. I watched people with jobs actually show support for those that do not.

When the protestors worked with the Portland Marathon organizers to make sure the race went on a planned, OP got a lot of credit.

I agree with your statement that we all make choices. However, the choices that people have to make currently are not going to set them up for success. Kids in America are told everyday to go to college, get a job and you will get your slice of the pie. Reality is, college degrees do not = jobs. I got my MA back in 2003. I figured, hey, I have a MA, of course I will get work. I was lucky, I got four jobs:

1. Full time dad during the day
2. Catering for tips at the Governor Hotel
3. Parking lot security guard at the Old Spaghetti Factory. (Anything to put food on my family's table)
4. Donation site manager at Goodwill

Now people can barely get those and they have massive debt to pay on top of it.

It certainly is not going to improve our economy any time soon when people who want to work, got the education to do it but cannot get hired and owe an assload of money thus cannot buy that new car, bike, house whatever.

[Doc]

While certainly a college degree doesn't guarantee employment...
Those with a BA are unemployed at 4.5% currently...
HS diploma peeps are double that at 9.1%...
Those with some college don't do much better at about 8.8%...
But HS dropouts rock the bottom at over 13%...
Median earnings for HS vs College workers (30 year olds)...
Differ by about $15k for both men & women...
So, stay in school but watch the loans and debt.

Doc

[Spent]

So the top guy from Viacom made 80 mil...good for him. Just because he made a sickening amount of money does not mean I have a right to some of his money.

.

That is where I disagree. There is something desperately wrong in a system that allows a person to seize that amount of the pie. It gets to a point where capitalism is top-heavy and self-defeating. A capitalist can only make so much profit from other people and natural resources before it is run dry and we are beginning to see the inevitability of that outcome.

I think the Occupy Movement is beginning to demonstrate that Capitalism and Democracy are not necessarily the best of bed fellows. Where we go from here? Who knows. But real democracy is painfully slow and messy. Perhaps its time to participate and get dirty with it. It is conceivable that more working people will eventually get over the mainstream media's hang ups about radical hippies with confused messages, and begin to sympathize.

In fact that is already happening.

The Portland Bureau of Emergency Management and

Bureau of Planning and Sustainability

are pleased to co-sponsor this exciting presentation!



Community Resilience in a Contracting Economy

Presented by Richard Heinberg,

Senior Fellow-in-Residence at the Post Carbon Institute



Evidence suggests that the national and global economies are at a turning point. What can communities do about this? How do we maintain services and avert social decline and unrest? There are no easy answers, but asking the questions is our first, necessary step toward finding adaptive strategies.



Author of ten books, including The Party’s Over, Peak Everything, and the newly-released The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality, Richard Heinberg is widely regarded as one of the world’s most effective communicators of the urgent need to transition away from fossil fuels.



Please join us on Friday, October 21st at noon

in the Portland Building Auditorium (1120 SW 5th Avenue, Portland, 2nd floor)for this presentation.