US Rep James Langevin Visits Occupy Providence
Tonight, US Rep. James Langevin visited the protesters down at Occupy Providence. I wonder if the protesters are aware that he is one of the very people they are protesting against. No, he’s not the CEO of Bank of America or Goldman Sachs. I understand they’re protesting against corporate greed, especially the greed that is perceived on Wall Street. However, who makes the rules that those banks played by? Congress. The members of the House and Senate. People like Jim Langevin.
Instead, it often seems that the protesters are simply starstruck when the celebrities arrive. Last week, Kanye West and Russell Simmons visited the New York protesters. Russell Simmons, one of the creators of Def Jam Records. I guess that doesn’t quite meet the standards of being “corporate”. Maybe because he’s a music man and not a banker, right? Well, no. He owns a credit card company. But they’re all above board and engage in fair trade? Ok, not so much there either.
Subpoenas have been issued to Russell Simmons’ Rush Card and four other prepaid card companies by the Florida Attorney General’s office who is investigating whether the card companies are forcing their users into paying hidden fees on every purchase.
Personally, I’m not against everything the Occupy people stand for. It just seems their message could be a bit stronger if it was more consistent or if they truly knew who they are railing against.
The protestors are actually trying to engage discussions with politicians. It’s not in their interest to refuse to speak with Langevin. It’s actually really powerful that any politician is going and speaking with them.
Coming to an “Occupy” town near you:
“Rome’s worst street violence in years injured 135 people and caused damage of one million euros ($1.4 million) to public property, officials said on Sunday, as the clashes ignited a political row. ‘
This is an anti-capitalist, anti-semite well funded movement. The useful idiot Brown shirts from Brown U. are pawns in the game. As they say in “Lost in Space”
“Warning Will Robinson…Danger ahead”.
I saw a large (8.5 x 11?) sticker for Occupy Providence slapped over an advertisement inside a RIPTA bus shelter.
Advocating for increases in public services by defacing the infrastructure and revenue stream of those services? Bad Form.
A question for people who share Dee’s opinion that federal politicians coming down to talk and being accepted is a good thing. If the CEO of Goldman Sacs stopped by the Occupy Wall Street, what do you think would be the reaction? Would you simply sit down and talk with him in hopes of him changing his company’s ways?
The system is broken, but unless someone is literally breaking laws, then they’re simply playing by the rules. The rules that people like Jim Langevin and Jack Reed created. These are the people who should be the focus of the anger, the politicians, not Wall Street. If you want to protest Congress and specifically the people who created the mess, I’ll be right there with you. And don’t forget who voted for these politicians. Probably many of the very same people who are protesting with you. Or they didn’t vote at all, which is a shame in itself. We had options to get rid of the people who caused these problems, people like Sean Bielat ran against one of the chief enablers of Wall Street, Barney Frank.
So take a look deeper into who the anger should really be directed at, which is the people who wrote the rules, not those who play by them.
“unless someone is literally breaking laws, then they’re simply playing by the rules”
This is something I have to reiterate all the time to my progressive friends. They’re all angry that ‘the banksers behind the financial collapse’ aren’t being thrown in prison. I keep saying that if they broke a specific law, they likely WOULD have been prosecuted. The only thing scarier than a system where financial contracts like CDOs were allowed to exist like they were is one where people can be thrown into prison without having broken actual laws.
Progressives tell a nice “story.” The story is as follows:
-Businesses driven by greed start screwing the environment, consumers, or their own workers.
-The Federal government recognizes the problem and steps in.
-Policy experts across Agencies meet, study the problem, reach a consensus, and enact regulations to protect society.
-The businesses are forced to play by the rules and society is better off.
That’s the progressive fairy tale. Convenient little ideology with clearly identified good guys and bad guys for college students and unions to make angry signs about. Okay, now here’s how it really works:
-A group of 50-100 Federal regulation writers work in a Federal Agency. They need work to do. Each year they decide on a few new regs that wouldn’t piss off too many big businesses or politicians.
-They publish notice of the new regulation in the Federal Register. Big businesses and trade associations write in on how the reg should be written, usually favoring them at the expense of smaller competitors.
-The reg writers hire consultants from industry so they can claim expertise and due diligence. The experts agree on nothing, racking up big fees.
-The reg writers try to make all the big businesses happy with the reg so they don’t go running to Congress.
-Word comes down that the Administration and some Congressmen want such and such included.
-Some union privilege provisions are thrown in last minute to buy the support of the labor leaders.
-Everyone is happy except for the experts and small businesses who get screwed with new costs, mandates, and paperwork, but who cares.
-A reg is born. Repeat.
See? Not such a great story. But unfortunately, that’s how it works in the real world. I know this because I am one of those reg writers.
Dan, you ought to come listen to what is actually being discussed instead of telling fairy tales you imagine represent what the people involved in the Occupy Movement think.
Russ,
Dan doesn’t need defending but his comment wasn’t a representation of the occupy movement. Read it again.
Russ – I understand that the Occupy movement is a confederation of many different ideologies. What I’m trying to do is educate people about the actual regulatory process so that they can focus on the correct problems of overreaching government and corporatism instead of being used as pawns by fool progressives and corrupt labor leaders.
As for your suggestion, I have no interest in visiting a dirty tent city full of spoiled college students.
Read the following twice. Once using the underlined words, Dan’s original, and ignoring the parenthesized ones; the second time do the opposite, using the parenthesized words and ignoring the underlined ones. You can have a lot of fun with Dan’s all-purpose vehicle. You can substitute any phrase and arrive at a hate filled gobbledygook of nonsense. Nice job of exposing yourself Dan.
I understand that the Occupy movement (Anchor Rising Blog) is a confederation of many different (stiflingly singular) ideologies. What I’m trying to do is educate people about the actual regulatory process so that they can focus on the correct problems of overreaching government (corporations) and corporatism (capitalism) instead of being used as pawns by fool progressives (conservatives) and corrupt labor (business) leaders.
OldTimeLefty
Your loss, Dan. Kind of says a lot that you’d dismiss people out of hand like that. I’ve been to more than one Tea Party rally.
And, Max, I think I was spot on.
OTL- Let me know when you have something to actually contribute like I did in this thread. All you ever do is insult people and play stupid word games. I have actual experience in the process I described. What do you have experience in besides Marxist hatemongering and complaining? It’s telling that you would solely focus on my irrelevant retort to the robot instigator Russ and completely ignore my earlier point about how the regulatory process is fundamentally corrupted by special interests. I’ve been waiting near 3 years now for you to offer anything of substance. I expect to wait much longer.
Russ – Why should I waste my time wading through the literal garbage of people who admit they have no coherent unifying message? I get it – they’re angry about stuff. Maybe if they actually study and experience the issues as I have then they’ll be able to focus their efforts constructively instead of living in tent cities and drinking between classes. I know plenty about Brown and its students, many of whom are now involved in this movement, or lack thereof. I consciously chose not to go there for college for good reason.
My mistake for suggesting it, Dan.
For everyone else, I heard Brown might have another Teach-In on Thursday. The last one was quite interesting (Dan I assume you already know all there is to know about Gandhi, the U.S. civil rights movement, economics, political science, sociology, participitory democracy, etc.)…
http://www.browndailyherald.com/occupy-teach-in-draws-full-house-in-salomon-1.2651788
Russ – I’m sure you’ll have a blast confirming all of your biases and filtering out anything that doesn’t mesh, as always. I’ve forgotten more about economics and American government in the past year than you know. Portraying yourself as intellectually curious is the funniest joke I’ve ever read on this blog – most of your “authority” citations are op-eds or web addreses with “progress” in the titles. If you ever stepped outside your extremely narrow intellectual comfort zone, I think you’d keel over and die.
I’ve actually been to and participated in two immigration related events at Brown and got to speak without being shouted down or being called a racist or anything,so I think it might not be a waste of time for someone interested enough to attend.
I don’t know sh*t about economics so it’s not something I’d wanna do.
Brown has some thoughtful people there,but the ISO/SDS punks get all the coverage.Isn’t it always that way regardless of political orientation?The media home in on the loudest A-hole on the scene.
Posted by mangeek at October 17, 2011 9:03 AM
“I keep saying that if they broke a specific law, they likely WOULD have been prosecuted. ”
It has been a few years since I had my finger on the pulse of Wall Street. But, I can tell you this. What I saw being done by the commission mortgage people at banks and mortgage companies should have resulted in prosecution. I did see similar people go to jail in the real estate crash of the early 90’s. They are uniform, and substantially correct, when they say “Everything I did then is legal now”. I really don’t understand why people don’t spit at “bankers” when they see them on the street.
Much of what I know they did to old ladies was “legal”. However, society is held together by a shared morality, not laws.
One example is an 82 year old woman with an 18 year old mortgage. Fleet bank talked her into “re-financing” to save $65.00 a month. They charged her $6,000 in costs, and added 30 years to the mortgage. She didn’t live long enough to recover the $6,000. She had no idea that 30 years was being added and had no idea what amortization is. This did become “illegal” 3 months after, and I am sure the new law didn’t come as a surprise to Fleet. But, there is no denying that they knew they were duping an old lady. She did live long enough with the decreased amortization, that Fleet was owed a balance of $20,000 more than if they had left her alone. Makes me wonder how much of that $6,000 was commission.
“If you ever stepped outside your extremely narrow intellectual comfort zone, I think you’d keel over and die.”
Said the right-winger to the leftie on the fringe right blog.
I have noticed that the media seems to want to describe the “occupiers” as “middle class” and representing “middle class” concerns. I have never heard this said of the Tea Party. In news videos I have seen the Tea Partiers look pretty middle class to me.
Well, I used to post on RIFuture, Russ, but a couple of undeserved bannings and a few dozen anonymous insults from the RIFuture account later and I decided I’d had enough. Not to mention that watching Pat Crowley’s union propaganda YouTube videos gets tired very quickly and the quality of that blog has become pitiful. It also doesn’t help when main contributors are a convicted murderer, a self-described international socialist, and a guy named Frymaster who screams in all caps at people and calls them children who need to shut up and sit in the backseat.
I’d consider you more courageous if you actually demonstrated an interest in contributing to the dialog here or having your assumptions challenged. All I usually see from you are “smart remarks” and cut and pasted blockquotes from various cherrypicked progressive websites. That’s why we refer to you as a robot.
I wonder what part of opposing the wars, supporting gay marriage, abortion rights, and drug legalization make you think I’m a “right-winger.” Libertarians align with conservatives around 70% of the time. I’d hardly consider the ideologies synonymous. I could have a fun time with progressivism by that standard.
“…a few dozen anonymous insults from the RIFuture account later”
Anonymous insults on a blog? Hehe, how could anyone be expected to stand that?!
“I’d consider you more courageous if you actually demonstrated an interest in contributing to the dialog here or having your assumptions challenged.”
And yet you respond to my empty musings again, and again!
As for contributing, on this thread alone I’ve posted information on last week’s Teach-In and the rumor (from someone who would know) that another, as yet announced event, is coming on Thursday. You chose to ignore/ridicule that. Fair enough.
Dan
We are in agreement; we both think your remarks are irrelevant.
Why do you call me a hate-monger? Am I a hatemonger because you don’t like what I write? Am I a hate-monger because we look at the world from different angles? You are welcome to dig into anything that I wrote in this blog, or anywhere else for that matter, that calls for or advocates hatred.
Are you so narrow that you mistake disagreement with hatred? I think that the hatred comes from you.
There is a story which illustrates the point.
So you see me as a hate-monger. Very telling, indeed.
Dan, You are very sadly mistaken if you think that calling people names is a contribution to this thread.
You think that you “actually contributed” to this thread since you asked me if I had “something to actually contribute like I did in this thread..”
Here are some of your contributions. What you wrote is in quotes. My comments are in italics.
I’ve forgotten more about economics and American government in the past year than you know. Braggadocio without bona fides.
Portraying yourself as intellectually curious is the funniest joke I’ve ever read on this blog. Sarcastic remark for the purpose of expanding exactly what argument?????
I have no interest in visiting a dirty tent city full of spoiled college students. Calling the demonstrators the great unwashed speaks volumes.
Okay, now here’s how it really works: The hauteur speaks for itself. Listen up you fools I got the real low down – Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
I know this because I am one of those reg writers. Which proves that some reg writers are there to suck wages from government contracts while holding a cynical outlook on the effects and consequences of their work. Sounds a bit too close to prostitution for me.
OldTimeLefty
Old Tyme Southpaw I noticed something. You never have anything to say…kind of like Hussein Obama. You are an impotent flamethrower. You’ve been putting off that talk with your socialist doctor haven’t you?
OTL – Spend as many posts ragging on me as you feel like – you’re only proving my point with every wasted word.
Let me know when you have something to contribute instead of just sucking people into pointless arguments.
But then that’s your purpose in posting in any thread, so perhaps you’re smarter after all.
OTL,
Try this one.
A married couple has a 22 year old son living at home, they are distraught by his behavior. Every time they have a party, the son pees in the living room.
Not knowing what to do, they take him to every psychiatrist is a 20 mile radius. The results are nil.
They hear of a new psychiatrist in town; grabbing their son, they rush off to see him. They describe the problem to the psychiatrist, who nods and taking the son by the shoulder leads him to a corner of his office. While there, he whispers in the sons ear. He then turns to the parents and assures them all will be fine.
That week end, the parents have another party and the son remains continent. The parents are ecstatic and rush off to congratulate the psychiatrist. They beg him to tell them what he did for their son. He replies “I told him not to pee in the living room anymore”.