Last night Jon Stewart devoted the first segment of The Daily Show to an overview of the Occupy movement. He discussed the criticism of movement’s lack of solutions or “demands,” and the failure of those in government (thus far) to offer solutions as well as. It’s a great clip, check it out.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-5-2011/parks-and-demonstration?xrs=share_copy
12 Responses to “Jon Stewart on Occupy Wall Street/ Boston”
Think Occupy Wall St. is a phase? You don’t get it
http://www.rushkoff.com/blog/2011/10/5/think-occupy-wall-st-is-a-phase-you-dont-get-it.html
“Yes, there are a wide array of complaints, demands, and goals from the Wall Street protesters: the collapsing environment, labor standards, housing policy, government corruption, World Bank lending practices, unemployment, increasing wealth disparity and so on. Different people have been affected by different aspects of the same system — and they believe they are symptoms of the same core problem. Are they ready to articulate exactly what that problem is and how to address it? No, not yet. But neither are Congress or the president who, in thrall to corporate America and Wall Street, respectively, have consistently failed to engage in anything resembling a conversation as …. ”
….Anyone who says he has no idea what these folks are protesting is not being truthful. Whether we agree with them or not, we all know what they are upset about, and we all know that there are investment bankers working on Wall Street getting richer while things for most of the rest of us are getting tougher. What upsets banking’s defenders and politicians alike is the refusal of this movement to state its terms or set its goals in the traditional language of campaigns.”
Absolutely, they know that they are wrong and are worried that the people have said they are not going to take it anymore. Yes, they do know what this is about, it’s about their greed and unwillingness to give back to the people who bailed them out!
It’s great to unify under an overarching ideal such as ending Wall Street greed and last Friday no one could expect anything more than that – but now you have the momentum and the democratic tools to match the ideas you all came with. You can begin to get more specific.
You now have the attention of Boston and the country! You can suggest things that Washington never could! You can speak directly to the country with a loud and clear voice and put yourselves behind one solid effort.
Please don’t just accept Jon Stewart’s intimation that there is a “political ruling class” to do it for you. This diminishes every one of us. You have created a functioning community and democracy from just a bunch of tarps, aluminum poles and common sense – you can do this too! No one expects Occupy to fix our country economically – but we’re really hoping for suggestions.
on October 7th, 2011 at 12:57 pm #
[…] what could the OCCUPY effort do to help align the goals of the effort to activities which are reasonable and fair for […]
Occupy Wallstreet could benefit from a cohesive message. The problem they are facing is in encompassing too much. It seems to me that every liberal agenda has shown up on the doorsteps of Wallstreet and government buildings around the country with a list of grievances and nobody knows what to make of it. A lot of noise is flying around and someone needs to step forward and put it into a few words. Such as “”we are against corporate bailouts” or “we feel corporations should be free to fail by their own mistakes” or something. Anything would help.
They also need to step forward and aggressively answer the media’s concerns. Where are people getting electricity from? How much electricity are they using? What is the increased cost to the police department? Who is providing trash service? Who is providing bathrooms?
I am part of the 99% and feel under-represented. Each US House representative represents 700,000 citizens! We need to make that number smaller by increasing the number of seats in the House so our government can accurately reflect the beliefs of its citizens.
I agree with you! Look to New Hampshire as an example…the NH House of Representatives is the 3rd largest legislative body in the world with each legislator representing less than 3500 people. More people get to participate and there’s no incentive to make a lifetime career out of it with the $200 paycheck!
The difficulty is figuring out what the critical mass of the House would be…the NH ratio would give close to100,000 legislators to the US! That government would need a government to function!
If we want to change The System- this is a real solution.
Other democracies like Canada for example has a population 33million with 308 members of parliment- that’s one official for every 109,000 citizens.
—-With smaller districts and better representation this could end the 2 party monopoly which has been strangling our democracy and our voices—-
There is a great conversation on this topic on npr: http://www.npr.org/2011/01/24/133184399/Op-Ed-America-Needs-A-Larger-Congress
Occupy Boston Needs Focus
Karin Friedemann
In order for a movement to succeed, it must have a clear demand, or motive. I believe that Occupy Boston has gained the international respect required to make a request of the honorable governor, Deval Patrick, and which I believe he will be happy to deliver and I believe it will make all of Massachusetts very happy.
What I suggest is beautiful to the Tea Partiers because it emphasizes States’ Rights, while it is also beautiful to those who voted for Obama. The Boston protesters are in a position to ask for MassHealth for all citizens of Massachusetts. Even the rich will benefit from this proposal.
A self-employed head of family can pay over $1000/month for health insurance, and he still has to pay co-pays and deductibles. Unless someone in the family gets hit by a bus or comes down with cancer, he pays far more than he receives from the insurance company. It is probably the greatest ripoff in human history. Even childbirth by C-section is cheaper to pay out of pocket than a year of health insurance. Massachusetts residents who opt out of paying for health insurance are punished by law. Yet, a poor family in Massachusetts gets free dental, vision care and doctor checkups as well as free prescription medicines!
Health is something the rich and the poor can all agree on. Nobody wants to die. Everybody wants to live in comfort. I believe the people of Massachusetts would agree to a tax increase that would eradicate their need to pay for health insurance. I am convinced it would be less than what they are already paying. Even those who pay for insurance are often limited in their health care choices. If you want to go to an acupuncturist or a naturopath, most insurances won’t cover it anyway. MassHealth actually pays for chiropractic. For anyone that ever experienced a neck injury that’s better news than anything.
Nurses, pilots, electricians, and the entire AFL-CIO joined this movement. It’s a good time for Massachusetts to step forward and represent the needs of our citizenry. The Founding Fathers never mentioned National Health Care in the Constitution. That is because this is a local issue. We take care of our own in Massachusetts. That is all we can do, and encourage others to do the same. We the People need to universalize MassHealth for all citizens of Massachusetts!
Karin Friedemann is a Boston-based freelance writer.
The bit about the political ruling class was a joke!
on October 17th, 2011 at 3:02 am #
[…] Last night Jon Stewart devoted the first segment of The Daily Show to an overview of the Occupy movement. He discussed the criticism of movement’s lack of solutions or “demands,” and the failure of those in government (thus far) to offer solutions as well as. It’s a great clip, check it out.” (via Occupy Boston) […]
on October 17th, 2011 at 3:04 am #
[…] A few days ago, Jon Stewart devoted the first segment of The Daily Show to an overview of the Occupy movement. He discussed the criticism of movement’s lack of solutions or “demands,” and the failure of those in government (thus far) to offer solutions as well as. It’s a great clip, check it out.” (via Occupy Boston) […]