Randi Rhodes Forums

remember who you are talking to, i could find the negative side of a blow

never mind

Well, the Detroit version of Occupy Detroit, opened up this past weekend in a little used place called Grand Circus Park. And damn, it didn't have not one grand circus there! But it did have a tent city, and some hardy souls that had to take on 40 mph wind gusts and a dropping temp. The first night I went down there were maybe a hundred people and a lot of wind blown protest signs. We took the signs to the main street of Woodward, waved them, and tons of people blowed their horns in support as we FROZE OUR ASSES OFF! On Sunday, they were having a security meeting because it appears the many homeless of Detroit were there. But there was not that many people there, except for dazed and confused, Detroit Lions fans after their first loss. The police apparently made them move off the Woodward sidewalk, because there were now parade barricades up to contain, what there was of a crowd. And they found out the four police cars parked and patrolling the area, were there, when two of the homeless guys got into a fight. I swear, it was like they were beamed in with transporters and broke up that fight INSTANTLY! But that fight broke up the cops eating their Five Dollar footlongs and donuts!

It's a start, it's like hearding cats, and it's getting cold, but these guys are trying! I got into some very fun and interesting conversations with the young, the old, and even Congressman John Conyers office assistant. And when one guy asked me to hold his protest sign, as soon as he left, I was part of a photo opt! And except for having another one of these break out at the former home of Tiger Stadium on the 22nd at 5:00 p.m. the word was the Occupy movement was popping up EVERYWHERE in Michigan. We just need to have a more focused attack on the issues, because folks, in Detroit, WE HAVE FAR MORE ISSUES THAN NEW YORK, the WORLD, and the rest of you! Just driving home after looking at all the empty downtown incredible hulk office buildings, still trying to pretend they have somebody in it, most of the street lights on the state run FREEWAYS, were dark! Along with the rest of Detroit, because hardly anybody knew we were there, and this city, this state, our government here, is STUCK ON STUPID!

FIGHT ON BROTHERS AND SISTERS!

As the Occupy Wall Street movement continues to grow, the response from the movement’s targets has gradually changed: contemptuous dismissal has been replaced by whining. (A reader of my blog suggests that we start calling our ruling class the “kvetchocracy.”) The modern lords of finance look at the protesters and ask, Don’t they understand what we’ve done for the U.S. economy?

The answer is: yes, many of the protesters do understand what Wall Street and more generally the nation’s economic elite have done for us. And that’s why they’re protesting.

The reasons for the creation of the 99% isn't limited to 5 days a week, 8 hours a day.
The inequity's in America today go in 7/24/365. I can see the tractors mowing down tents and 'Occupy' space at dawn on Saturday morning. Occupy 7/24/365 !

That is ten kinds of awesome.

remember who you are talking to, i could find the negative side of a blow

never mind

.......Lecea's story of low-wage struggle and joblessness were repeated, in one form or another, time and again during the weekend I just spent at Liberty Park. Whether it was suffocating student debt or an impossible job market to crack, the issue here is money. Or, more specifically, the way money in America keeps moving toward the top of the economic ladder, putting a squeeze on those not fortunate enough to be on the upper rungs.

"I went from having a savings to having to tap into my savings," he said. "There are a lot of people here who just don't have a voice. That's what this is about." Columnists and pundits have written off OWS participants as people who are "jobless because they don't want to work" and if they took "a shower they can get a job if they went to college," as Bill O'Reilly described the movement on his show The O'Reilly Factor.

Harry Bowman, a Michigan State University grad who had just spent his first night at Liberty Park, told me just how wrong O'Reilly and others in the right-wing chattering class are.

"There are no jobs," he said. As for placing the blame for that situation, Bowman believes that the place to start is obvious. "If people can't agree that Wall Street sucks, then something is seriously wrong with the American people."

It's absurd to label the movement as unfocused considering the overwhelming number of constructive conversations I heard while meandering through the park. Where critics see mostly unfocused anger and resentment of the rich, I saw a movement blossoming into one of the most beautiful moments of my generation.

The financial meltdown of 2008, the ensuing bailout of Wall Street, the ongoing foreclosure crisis, continued economic upheaval and the ever-expanding gulf between this country's richest people and the rest of us have combined to unite these people in a common feeling of betrayal. This is my generation, and this is something I needed to see firsthand. What I saw at OWS was an extremely diverse and educated conglomerate of people who have found solidarity in their quest for a government run the way it should be: by the people, for the people.

If someone were to throw a stone in Liberty Park, it could hit doctors, the "Granny Peace Brigade," anarchists, communists, libertarians, socialists, teachers, security officers, students, the young, the old, the homeless, poets, artists, Asians, Europeans, blacks, former police officers, former firefighters. You name it and they're probably represented.

Because of the far-reaching diversity found here, there's also a collective flip-of-the-bird to everyone who's looking to slap a label on the community. Suggestions that OWS is the liberal response to the Tea Party are repeatedly shot down. Instead, what you hear are references to this being a much bigger movement than the one being mounted by the malcontents on the far right.........