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Occupy Wall Street: Protesting Taxation Without Representation?

Posted by Good German on November 1, 2011

Gadsden FlagJohn Atcheson writes on CommonDreams:

When government gives banks and Wall Street some $12.8 trillion of the taxpayer’s hard-earned money in direct funds, guarantees and near zero interest loans, and the fat cats turn around and spend it on bonuses and high-risk investments rather than fixing the real economy for the 99% who have been affected, don’t ask why people are angry.  Especially when not a single bankster or speculator has been busted for a plethora of real crimes, while people lose their homes to improperly documented foreclosures.When the one-percenters and their bought-and-paid-for government pass a faux financial reform bill that doesn’t actually change the way things are done in the Banks’ boardrooms or on Wall Street and people take to the streets, how can that be a mystery?

And yes, that means you, too, Clinton, Obama and the Democratic Party.  Your abject collusion with the one-percenters, while spouting populist rhetoric every four years, is in some ways more worthy of disdain than the Republicans’ outright embrace of the 1% Doctrine.

When the Supreme Court is dominated by corporatists and makes corporate- friendly rulings like Citizens’ United, assuring that government can be bought by the highest bidder, it should come as no great mystery when people take to the streets.

When the press becomes a wholly-owned subsidiary of corporate America, replacing truth, facts, and accuracy with “balance” and leaving reality on the cutting room floor, don’t act mystified when the people stop swallowing corporate propaganda, and seek truth on their own.

Read more here.

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  • Anonymous

    Something more relevant would be protesting the taxation that financially supports the corporate apparatus.  Our taxes practically subsidize all corporate ventures.

  • Mr Willow

    Great piece. 

    The only thing that is only remotely mystifying about this entire ordeal is the fact that the media, the government (unless it conveniences them), and Corporate America are still trying to figure out what everyone is so upset about. 

    They either don’t see—or wish to obscure from everyone not already privy—that the movement is not about reform, nor about favouring one candidate or party over another, but about pulling down the great edifices that have been constructed as palaces or shrines to Avarice and Narcissism. 

    Death to Mammon.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_BY6K4DLG4FCJTDIXFHCUCTAP2U NukL

    OWS is not a protest.

    “It is time for us to come together and build a new world through the
    power of the individual and the community. We are not here to make
    requests of a corrupt political system – we are here to take our lives
    back into our own hands. We are not acknowledging subservience. There is
    no higher power than the power of the people. We are not asking for
    assistance. We are declaring independence. Our demand is not to those in
    power, it is to those individuals still silenced. Join us.

    We are the 99%. We are not afraid. We are not waiting. We are working to make a better world.”

    http://occupywallst.org/article/call-action-join-month-global-uprising/
     

  • Vforvendetta

    That’s because they are beyond brainwashed….Remember these people have never had to do an honest day’s work in their entire lives.  They don’t realize that there are a lot of people out there who have something called a ’spine’ and don’t screw people over.  They also do not know the value of hard work.  This nation was created on the backs of the Okies, chinese immigrants, slaves.  People who gave their lives so that this nation could succeed.  But maybe all of us should screw them over and see how they feel.  The old money needs to be removed now.   All that’s happening is the creation of more new ‘old money’.  And the continuation of the corrupt system. 

  • Vforvendetta

    That’s because they are beyond brainwashed….Remember these people have never had to do an honest day’s work in their entire lives.  They don’t realize that there are a lot of people out there who have something called a ’spine’ and don’t screw people over.  They also do not know the value of hard work.  This nation was created on the backs of the Okies, chinese immigrants, slaves.  People who gave their lives so that this nation could succeed.  But maybe all of us should screw them over and see how they feel.  The old money needs to be removed now.   All that’s happening is the creation of more new ‘old money’.  And the continuation of the corrupt system. 

  • Guest

    Everyone knows that tax law is full of loopholes to benefit special interests, BUT it is rather disingenuous to call this a 99%er/no taxation without representation issue when a slim majority of nominal taxpayers have a zero or negative net income tax liability to the federal government. A lot of the moral weight of the argument is lost when so many don’t actually contribute (directly, at least) to the discretionary budget.

  • Elmyr23

    that is such a great point not thought by many. Most people like to look at the idea of the idiot mass but forget to look at the upbringing of the wealthy. Its a trap just to the same to think your special. And this helps to produce the same effect over and over again.

  • Elmyr23

    two sides of the same coin

  • Mamagriff50

    I am really surprised that more people aren,t pissed off, [ to busy texting and playing XBox I guess to know whats going on]. 95% of the people I know don’t even watch the news. People need to wake up and give a shit about today and tomorrow. The corporations and government love 95% of my friends for becoming so involved with there little gadgets, [ texting and games], they’re idiots to the present global economic situation. Wake up people! You’re getting screwed!

  • Mamagriff50

    I am really surprised that more people aren,t pissed off, [ to busy texting and playing XBox I guess to know whats going on]. 95% of the people I know don’t even watch the news. People need to wake up and give a shit about today and tomorrow. The corporations and government love 95% of my friends for becoming so involved with there little gadgets, [ texting and games], they’re idiots to the present global economic situation. Wake up people! You’re getting screwed!

  • Mamagriff50

    I am really surprised that more people aren,t pissed off, [ to busy texting and playing XBox I guess to know whats going on]. 95% of the people I know don’t even watch the news. People need to wake up and give a shit about today and tomorrow. The corporations and government love 95% of my friends for becoming so involved with there little gadgets, [ texting and games], they’re idiots to the present global economic situation. Wake up people! You’re getting screwed!

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=773433966 Rus Archer

    ah, yes, the new deal, that great institution that also gave us the fda and along with it the legalized slavery known as the prison system
    yes, the usa was a great place up until the 80s
    IF you were white, male and middle class
    surprise, surprisenothing new under the sun

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=773433966 Rus Archer

    how would watching the news make a difference?
    they don’t cover anything that matters in any way resembling truth…