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It isn't, but is seems to be a burgeoning movement. I was very surprised by just how encouraging those passing by were. Of course there were some, "Go get jobs!" folks, but they were easily outnumbered by those waving, giving us the thumbs up, or coming by to talk with us about what they could do.
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The AFP is an annual multi-day conference, supported in part by large financial donations from the David and Charles Koch. The protesters evidently weren't trying to get into the conference center so much as they were trying to impede anyone else from getting out. There may or may not have been some arrests, depending on who you talk to. Three occupiers were injured when they moved in front of a car which was trying to get through a green light.
quote:The event made news for the reason that the October 1 march on the Brooklyn Bridge made news: It was a mess, and authorities didn't know what to do. Attendees at the summit today tell me they were stuck in the building as protesters tried to get in and police kept the two movements apart.
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That's not right. If you want the freedom to assemble and have your voice heard, then you should allow others that same courtesy. Trying to walk into a venue and out shout the other side is counterproductive.
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re: senoj retep. I have been in the occupy movements in SF and Oakland. I have attended many of the demonstrations and also Occupy SF traveled to and participated in the Oakland general strike. i am a public contact for one of the working groups. The media coverage from the general strike is very skewed. When I participated, there were tens of thousands of people peacefully protesting and picketing at the ports. yes I know there were some persons who let frustrations eg violence show but there ware so many ppl who did not engage in any violence. The longshore union I was told will be paid for their day of nonwork because of unsafe working conditions. There are so many different views you can take if you excise pieces of any moment in history. May I suggest reading or following the locals who actually participated in the movement. Also if ppl are put off by the general violence which I seen only with the police, I would refer you to the fact that there are provacateurs from the police and media.
I have lost my glasses and am using an unfamiliar computer so cannot ezlink these for you. I have just taken a shower and My biggest peeve for me to leave would be dirty socks and uns. I will stay as long as I can do this.
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How many racist signs did there need to be at Tea Parties in order to safely characterize Tea Partiers as racists, again?
Conversely, how many sexual assaults have to occur at OWS events before it's fair for people to characterize Occupiers as rapists? Or, how much vandalism before they can be called vandals? How many assaults before they can be called thugs?
Just to be clear, I don't think that the average Occupier is a raping vandal thug, any more than I think the average Tea Partier is a racist. But I do think the media's bald-faced hypocrisy on this is pretty outrageous.
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You're comparing two things that are quite different. Generalizing from professed opinions is not the same as generalizing from actions; regardless of the legitimacy of either, I suggest that the latter is always less legitimate than the former in relative terms.
The obvious reason for this is that opinions don't have to be professed to be held, whereas you can't call someone a rapist or vandal until they have actually committed the act in question.
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quote:How many racist signs did there need to be at Tea Parties in order to safely characterize Tea Partiers as racists, again?
It took more than that, for serious people to start thinking that. Things like the strong long-lasting (in the face of all sorts of evidence) Birther nonsense, support for racist policies on the federal level.
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I don't really have any comment on the Birther thing; I recognize that it existed, but I never actually encountered a birther at any Tea Party, and every single conservative blog and pundit I follow mocked Birthers mercilessly. So... yeah. I got nothin'.
Regarding "support for racist policies on the federal level" ... whew, man, that's pretty harsh. We've discussed this before, and I understand that based on one's ideology they may feel conservatives are embracing racist policies... but in what way is it productive to use that language, rather than arguing from a somewhat more objective/intellectual stance against said policies? Wouldn't that be better?
Put another way... by this criteria, it's reasonable for a hardcore libertarian to call Occupiers (or even run-of-the-mill moderates) "thieves" since they support state taxation for non-core services. Do you think that it is in any way productive or helpful when a libertarian or minarchist calls you a thief? What value does that exchange provide, to either participant? Wouldn't it be more productive (and civil!) for them to argue with your positions directly?
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quote:every single conservative blog and pundit I follow mocked Birthers mercilessly
This may be a case of confirmation bias, then. You realize that the Birther idiocy is still viable enough that Republican candidates for President can get a bump in their polls by expressing doubts about his citizenship?
quote: by this criteria, it's reasonable for a hardcore libertarian to call Occupiers (or even run-of-the-mill moderates) "thieves" since they support state taxation for non-core services
I think there's a bit more of a stretch here, actually, since once you've conceded that the government has any right at all to demand money for any services, you're just left quibbling over what constitutes a "core service" of the government.
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Well, when we're talking specifically about those policies-such as fences, punishing those who harbor illegals, mandatory papers-carrying, questioning based on race-I talk about things more specifically. But here the question was specifically about racism.
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quote:every single conservative blog and pundit I follow mocked Birthers mercilessly
This may be a case of confirmation bias, then. You realize that the Birther idiocy is still viable enough that Republican candidates for President can get a bump in their polls by expressing doubts about his citizenship?
Oh, it could easily be confirmation bias! I tried to ignore Trump as much as possible, so forgive these next questions (and if you don't know the details offhand, I'm not asking you to search for 'em, it's just idle curiosity): How significant of a bump was it, and is there some way it was definitively pinned down to his embracing of the Birther crowd, or is it a correlation/causation sort of a situation?
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote: by this criteria, it's reasonable for a hardcore libertarian to call Occupiers (or even run-of-the-mill moderates) "thieves" since they support state taxation for non-core services
I think there's a bit more of a stretch here, actually, since once you've conceded that the government has any right at all to demand money for any services, you're just left quibbling over what constitutes a "core service" of the government.
Sure. Anarchists, then. So say you're talking to an anarchist... If meaningful dialogue between you two is possible, I suspect it will not involve him calling you a thief. If he does that, I think he's signalling that he's more interesting in name-calling than in actually arguing his position. What do you think?
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Well, when we're talking specifically about those policies-such as fences, punishing those who harbor illegals, mandatory papers-carrying, questioning based on race-I talk about things more specifically. But here the question was specifically about racism.
Well, right, here the question is specifically whether or not it's valuable to characterize people in favor of those things as racist. I don't think it facilitates any sort of understanding, or discussion, or hell, even argument. I think, in fact, it is a label specifically designed to shut down dialogue or argument. And I think that's lame.
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I think this brief video will be helpful in illustrating where I'm coming from, Dan.
quote:Well, right, here the question is specifically whether or not it's valuable to characterize people in favor of those things as racist. I don't think it facilitates any sort of understanding, or discussion, or hell, even argument. I think, in fact, it is a label specifically designed to shut down dialogue or argument. And I think that's lame.
I wouldn't go so far as to call someone who supports such policies a 'racist', anymore than I'd say of someone who told a lie, "You're a liar!" They are, however, racist policies and humoring the sensitivities of people who support them doesn't seem to be especially worthwhile.
To be clear though, it's not my starting point. When talking about those things, I point out that they don't work, they're unAmerican, violate all sorts of laws, and they target specifically based on race. None of those things, for these particular subjects, are really very debatable. A wall wouldn't work, and it's a stupid way to attack the problem. Punishing private citizens who help illegal immigrants-even church programs-is unAmerican. Questioning based on race is legally problematic.
Those are remarks designed to shut down argument, because there's not much to be argued about. But-again-they aren't what we were talking about. We were talking about to what extent the racism label can apply to the Tea Party, and how much it stems from signs of all things.
My point is there's actually quite a bit more than just signage at rallies to bring to that discussion, such as a higher degree of support for...well, let's just call them racially biased policies amongst the right-wing/Tea Party.
Put another way, "That's a racist policy," is actually quite different than, "You're a racist." In fact, reading the former statement as the latter is a not-uncommon way of shutting down criticism of...racist policies. If the person defending them changes the subject to, "You're saying I'm a racist!" well suddenly the topic is very different. They're allowed to get angry about that-it's a personal insult! And it's much easier to reject than is the claim 'support for race-based questioning is racist'.
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I think this brief video will be helpful in illustrating where I'm coming from, Dan.
quote:Well, right, here the question is specifically whether or not it's valuable to characterize people in favor of those things as racist. I don't think it facilitates any sort of understanding, or discussion, or hell, even argument. I think, in fact, it is a label specifically designed to shut down dialogue or argument. And I think that's lame.
I wouldn't go so far as to call someone who supports such policies a 'racist', anymore than I'd say of someone who told a lie, "You're a liar!" They are, however, racist policies and humoring the sensitivities of people who support them doesn't seem to be especially worthwhile.
To be clear though, it's not my starting point. When talking about those things, I point out that they don't work, they're unAmerican, violate all sorts of laws, and they target specifically based on race. None of those things, for these particular subjects, are really very debatable. A wall wouldn't work, and it's a stupid way to attack the problem. Punishing private citizens who help illegal immigrants-even church programs-is unAmerican. Questioning based on race is legally problematic.
Those are remarks designed to shut down argument, because there's not much to be argued about. But-again-they aren't what we were talking about. We were talking about to what extent the racism label can apply to the Tea Party, and how much it stems from signs of all things.
My point is there's actually quite a bit more than just signage at rallies to bring to that discussion, such as a higher degree of support for...well, let's just call them racially biased policies amongst the right-wing/Tea Party.
Put another way, "That's a racist policy," is actually quite different than, "You're a racist." In fact, reading the former statement as the latter is a not-uncommon way of shutting down criticism of...racist policies. If the person defending them changes the subject to, "You're saying I'm a racist!" well suddenly the topic is very different. They're allowed to get angry about that-it's a personal insult! And it's much easier to reject than is the claim 'support for race-based questioning is racist'.
Yeah I've seen that video, and I like it. I also totally agree with your assessment of every policy suggestion above.
Lots of people accused Tea Partiers, not of endorsing policies that might be racist, but of being racists themselves. Far as I have seen, this is not a case where anyone needed to flip it and make it about who they are... that was the narrative from the get go. Did you see something different?
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Has the tea party at least shifted to the point where at least half of them acknowledge that Obama was born in America? Like, so that this is no longer literally a minority position?
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quote:Lots of people accused Tea Partiers, not of endorsing policies that might be racist, but of being racists themselves. Far as I have seen, this is not a case where anyone needed to flip it and make it about who they are... that was the narrative from the get go. Did you see something different?
That was the narrative for some people, sure. Plenty of people find it difficult to distinguish between 'support for racist policies' and 'racist'. Speaking for myself, though...I don't find a whole lot different about it either. I'm splitting hairs because it makes actually discussing the racist threads in those policies easier, not because I don't think supporting them points to any kind of racism.
The Tea Party in particular, and conservatives in general, are allowed to dodge being called on support for racist policies by pointing out that they're not racists. That's an insult! By the time the hapless liberal/Democrat manages to get the conversation back to those same racist policies, if they ever do, they're on the defensive-not the person who thinks it's kosher to question 'Mexican-looking' pedestrians.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Has the tea party at least shifted to the point where at least half of them acknowledge that Obama was born in America? Like, so that this is no longer literally a minority position?
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: The Tea Party in particular, and conservatives in general, are allowed to dodge being called on support for racist policies by pointing out that they're not racists. That's an insult! By the time the hapless liberal/Democrat manages to get the conversation back to those same racist policies...
When on earth does this happen? My impression of the exchange is more like, people interviewed to talk about tea parties saying "oh well the only reason they don't want the health care reform bill to get passed is because they hate Obama. And you know why so many people hate Obama, right? It's because they don't want a black man in the white house!" and the interviewer nodding sagely.
Which, by the way, is a much more relevant topic. Tea Party involvement in dumbass immigration reform was relatively minor compared to protesting stuff like Obamacare and the stimulus. And from what I saw the accusations of racism kept flying, even when the conversation was localized to these topics.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Has the tea party at least shifted to the point where at least half of them acknowledge that Obama was born in America? Like, so that this is no longer literally a minority position?
Citation needed.
Man, you weren't kidding about confirmation bias, given that this has already been discussed, here.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Has the tea party at least shifted to the point where at least half of them acknowledge that Obama was born in America? Like, so that this is no longer literally a minority position?
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Dude, I'm willing to acknowledge that they made up a statistically significant group, but... a majority? When nearly every major outspoken Tea Party advocate thinks they're crackpots fixating on a detrimentally stupid conspiracy? Breitbart, Coulter, Beck, Reynolds, basically all of PJM's contributers... all of these people have repudiated the Birthers. Who hasn't, exactly?
I'm not basing this off of my personal experience at tea parties, as I've only been to one (not many of them where I live). I'm basing it off of everything I've seen online. If this is confirmation bias, then introduce some new data to my blinkered perspective, please.
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Man, and that was as late as the part where Donald Trump became a ~tea party darling~ by making a big issue about Obama's eligibility to be president.
Which, of course, goes back to what Tom said. I had hoped that sort of thing was literally impossible to ignore, but..
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"As late as"...? I assume you're trying to imply that it was a larger percentage earlier, but again, I'd love to see some evidence. Trump made the Birther issue bigger than it ever was before that, so I'd bet that was the height of Birther-enthusiasm (addendum: just browsed through the timeline on wikipedia and the height of Birther fury was during Trump's farce.)
I could play a game of technicalities and point out that even the highest stat is not "at least half of them" but honestly, I'd rather just admit that 41-49%% is insanely higher than I ever would have pegged it at.
Re: my confirmation bias... What can I say? When I'm hungry for politics I tend to read pundits and blogs, both right and left (to avoid confirmation bias!), and avoid any mainstream news outlets. And pundits, both right and left, have been pretty overwhelmingly mocking and dismissive of Birthers. Rightfully so.
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Dude, I'm willing to acknowledge that they made up a statistically significant group, but... a majority? When nearly every major outspoken Tea Party advocate thinks they're crackpots fixating on a detrimentally stupid conspiracy? Breitbart, Coulter, Beck, Reynolds, basically all of PJM's contributers... all of these people have repudiated the Birthers. Who hasn't, exactly?
I'm not basing this off of my personal experience at tea parties, as I've only been to one (not many of them where I live). I'm basing it off of everything I've seen online. If this is confirmation bias, then introduce some new data to my blinkered perspective, please.
Dan, Did you even look at the link I posted. The week before Obama released his long form birth certificate, only 34% of people who identified themselves as Tea Party said they believed Obama was born in the US. 45% of people in the Tea Party said they believed he was not born in the US. That's not a insignificant number of marginalized cooks.
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Nope! I hadn't! We crossposted. I've since looked at it, though. And responded. Above your post asking if I saw it! Man, that cross posting has now conspired to make both of us look like oblivious jerks, but hopefully everyone will see it's not true.
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quote:If this is confirmation bias, then introduce some new data to my blinkered perspective, please.
the majority of tea party members, when polled, haven't figured out that the president was born in the united states. Less of them believe the truth than believe a falsehood. This is also not new data. This is available from a whole smorgasboard of easily googleable polls on the beliefs of the tea party. It is also not difficult to find prominent tea party leaders and officials jumping wholeheartedly on board with birther claims, or support for people who are riding Birther paranoia, like trump or taitz.
Just look at the pie plate on Rabbit's link.
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I did see Rabbit's link (see above about crossposting!) and yeah, I'm totally eating crow about the average tea partier, I guess. Or at least, roughly half of tea partiers, as reflected by a single poll. It's a tad depressing, in any event.
Re: tea party "leaders" and "officials"... eh, if you mean movement organizers like that idiot from the Tea Party... Express? Train? Space Shuttle? Whatever it was called... who made those ridiculous and, yes, racist comments about Obama before vanishing into obscurity a few years back... yeah, I'm not surprised.
But people like that aren't much more (or less) equipped to "speak for" the tea party than any random guy with a sign. They're just the ones that took some extra initiative and/or had some capital to help organize people. The tea party ideological leaders, the guys the tea parties want to speak at their events (people like Breitbart, as I mentioned above), have always decried the Birthers as ridiculous and stupid, damn near unanimously.
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It's worth noting that Rick Perry has also said that, as far as he's concerned, it's an open question.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Whether or not he actually believes that or was using it as a desperate attempt to pander to the Tea Party is also an open question.
Of course, in neither scenario does he come out looking particularly good.
And I would add, that both scenarios contradict Dan_Frank's contention that birthers are a tiny marginalized minority within the Tea Party.
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Yup. My personal opinion is that Dan's got some pretty big blinders up about the Tea Party (but then, that's hardly rare in politics-guilty myself), but throw something like that on the wall and it sticks!
My overall feel is that the Tea Party leadership (like many political groups) does a little dance around issues like this. The heavy hitters, such as Perry and the commentators you mentioned, Dan, can't take a firm stance in support of the controversy. It is after all a profoundly stupid issue, and expressing support of the possiblity that 'maybe he ain't!' says some pretty unpleasant things about the speaker to serious-minded observers.
But they can do things like point out, "Well it's not totally 100% proven yet. I can understand why some people think..." They can express permission for other people to still believe, but still be safe themselves from accusations that they believe themselves. They get to have their cake (support from believers) and eat it too (protection from accusations). Politically speaking it's a very cynical and effective strategy.
Not unlike vigilante border patrol, actually, now that I think about it. Politicians do it for their far fringes all the time, of course, but there's no doubt in my mind that the Tea Party in particular does it on a variety of issues-such as this one.
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Well, Rakeesh, the only part where I disagree strongly with you is re: "the heavy hitters." Oh, it's true for some presidential hopefuls (Perry, Palin, etc. all take the "Well I think he was born in the US but eeeeh why is he so reluctant to show his birth certificate? Hmmm?" route), because like all presidential hopefuls they want to appeal to everyone with a snowball's chance in hell of voting for them, so they pretty much just end up being mealy mouthed, wishy washy losers. I've never really tried to defend them, I don't think, nor will I. Almost all presidential candidates dance this dance, on a variety of issues that may or may not be considered a deal breaker to you.
But there are other tea party heavy hitters. People on the "hard right" as you guys would define it. People like Breitbart, Beck, and Coulter. And I mentioned the right-wing blogosphere, right? Reynolds, PJM contributers, Powerline contributers, etc... most of whom have been featured speakers at various tea party events. In fact, these are generally people the tea party creams their jeans for (for god's sake, Breitbart is their hero), and every one of them has called the birther phenomenon fundamentally idiotic and ridiculous. As I said before, I think most of the intellectual face of the tea party, such as it is, has dismissed the birthers completely. But I agree, the presidential candidates associated with the tea party have not, probably because they don't think they can afford to. Which sucks.
I went away from this post for a bit, and coming back to it, something else occurs to me. The birther issue came up in this thread out of the discussion of racism. So, here's maybe where Rakeesh would say my pro-tea party blinders come back on, but I think it's interesting that people equate the birther thing automatically with racism. Certainly that's part of it for many birthers, no doubt, but I think the wider appeal is simply that it would make Obama's presidency illegitimate and so we'd have to get rid of him. I think, to a lot of Republicans/Tea Partiers, a willingness to buy into the birther BS is probably akin to the McCain birthers of '08 (he was born in Panama so he can't be president!) which thankfully died quickly (although that could just be because Palin-frenzy overshadowed it once he announced his VP, and he didn't win and never really had much of a shot) or stolen election hysteria in '00. A large subset of people aren't content to fight their battles via the ballot box, and would rather find a way to say that the president is fundamentally illegitimate and should be booted from office.
It's stupid. It shouldn't happen. But it isn't always racially motivated. I wonder especially if the massive uptick in birthers after the Trump thing had more to do with this phenomenon than a sudden influx of even more racists. What do you think?
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For the record, I don't think Coulter, Beck, or Breitbart are on the "hard right." I think they're liars and thieves and charlatans who pretend to hold political opinions when in reality they are merely cynically partisan for their own personal enrichment. I think Charles Koch, Rick Santorum, and Pat Robertson are on the "hard right."
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I found this linking to reports that while Breitbart himself, when asked directly about Birthers, would...well. He'd call it stupid and ridiculous and a losing issue, but was often careful to point out it was because they 'didn't have the evidence'. Not because it was a bunch of lies, mind you-but because it couldn't be converted into a winner at the polls. But for quite some time, at the very least, his own website fostered a lot of Birther nonsense.
This is the sort of thing I was talking about re: the dance. And yes, most politicians do it, but not over an issue so transparently founded in a bunch of BS.
As for whether the Birther hysteria was itself connected to racism...well. To be honest, I'm not sure what evidence would convince you of that aside from petitions from a majority of them stating, "We are so upset about this possibility because he's black." Yeah, the dots connecting are 'if he's not a citizen, we hafta get rid of him'. Obviously. The question after that is why is it so important to get rid of him?
For me, the belief in the 'evidence' of a conspirary the Birthers had was so dishonest I looked for other explanations. The claims they were making was just such a non-issue. But...for a black President with a 'Muslim-sounding' name...well. *shrug* This all comes back to the question we've talked about before, namely-which party have a bigger race issue, the left or the right? We haven't really gotten anywhere on that before, and it seems unlikely we will now.
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To this day, I still regularly see posts in comment threads on media sites insinuating that Obama is somehow a secret Muslim.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: To this day, I still regularly see posts in comment threads on media sites insinuating that Obama is somehow a secret Muslim.
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I googled to see what Glen Beck had said about the birther movement. Some of the comments on the first site I found (The Blaze) were hard to fathom. For example:
quote:WHO is this man in the WHITE HOUSE? Why won’t he just show his Birth Certificate. PPS: This is NOT the main issue…but it could be…he‘s not supposed to be in office or he’s the Anti-Christ (who just appeared) …Since I believe in Revelations’ teachings…I can believe almost anything about him. HE talks like the ANTI-CHRIST; HE moves like the ANTI-CHRIST; HIS EYES (the mirror to one’s soul) are pure EVIL…EVIL. SO don’t YOU go telling US what to believe when many of us have spent a lot of time digging through pages of records and comparing things like the TIME LINE and the US PASSPORT issuing records, and have seen the foreign aid application to Occidental College (Obama’s first) … YOU don’t have to believe it…fine. We don’t say you do. BUT the only people who approved this guy were PELOSI (yeah, right) and FEINSTEIN (more ?) something stinks… YOU stick to educating us about the CONSTITUTION and our FOUNDING FATHERS and the MUSLIM quest to take over the WORLD, we get it that you don’t agree, but since we’re not SHEEPLE…we are entitled to our own belief… there are Millions who agree with me that Obama is a MUSLIM WOLF in SHEEP’S CLOTHING, Sponsored by GEORGE SOROS and Communists/Socialists/Marxists brain washed by COMMIE PLANTED PROFESSORS in YALE, et al and his goal is to destroy EVERYTHING GOD made. I will be the first to apologize if I see a real, and I mean forensic experts (several of them) testimony that it’s real.
One of the responses to the above:
quote: my reading of the Bible and prophecy leads me to think that the anti christ will be a homosexual jew? Although I realize i’m labled as an anti semite I think that is a pretty common interpretation. Not just trying to be ugly or smart..
Excellent reason to doubt President Obama's anti-christ credentials.
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Re: Accusations that the GOP is intentionally sabotaging the economy, I'm reading through this and finding some interesting snippets:
quote:The intransigence over the debt ceiling enraged Republican stalwarts. George Voinovich, the former GOP senator from Ohio, likens his party's new guard to arsonists whose attitude is: "We're going to get what we want or the country can go to hell." Even an architect of the Bush tax cuts, economist Glenn Hubbard, tells Rolling Stone that there should have been a "revenue contribution" to the debt-ceiling deal, "structured to fall mainly on the well-to-do."
posted
Further up on the first page, there are some quotes from members of the Reagan administration.
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Now, the video has zero context to it, I don't know what was going on before this, but when the video starts, I see students with linked arms, and cops who out of nowhere just start attacking them, and continuing to attack a couple of them once they are down.
I can't imagine what context would make this okay. It looks pretty bad.
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I've been watching back to back videos of Occupiers (a lot of Black Bloq a**holes, but not entirely them) smashing property and shoving old ladies down stairs and knocking cameras out of peoples' hands and generally being violent menaces, so I will admit I was primed to see some sort of provocation you'd missed. But... I didn't. I mean they're being sort of pushed forward by the guys in the back, and I imagine they probably crossed some invisible line and were failing to comply with police demands that they back up (how could they, without the whole crowd backing up?)... but that's utterly worthless as an excuse for this behavior. Those cops went so far overboard it would be comical if it weren't horrifying.
In fact, the footage in that minute and a half is absolutely worse than all of the various Occupier violence I've seen spread through dozens of camps throughout the country. Damn.
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Of course there were some, "Go get jobs!" folks,
Funny story about this -
apparently a much significantly higher percentage of occupy protesters are employed, compared to members of the tea party.
also as documented by this infographic, they're better educated, are supported by the majority of the american public (in comparison with the tea party's dwindling 20%), and the protests already dwarf tea party activity at its peak, by an order of magnitudes.
welp, this thing just keeps going and going.
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If you subtract those who are reported retired, Tea Partiers are more highly employed than Occupiers, not less (85% to 70%). Other reported metrics, like educational level attained, party affiliation (or lack thereof), <edit>and income level</edit> are strongly correlated with age, so the differences reported may be primarily inter-cohort effects, since (as reported) OWS is primarily a youth movement while the Tea Party skewed significantly older. Furthermore the comparisons of relative protest size are significantly skewed by Occupy protests in Europe, which have dwarfed in size (by orders of magnitude) Occupy protests in the US. I'm not sure how such protests should be counted, but in terms of US policy and opinion I think the more relevant comparison is purely on a domestic basis. I'll be surprised if any domestic Occupy protests ever top the 320,000 person Tea Party protests on tax day in 2009.
Also, I think a more fair favorable/unfavorable comparison would be to compare people's opinions of the Tea Party in mid-2009, rather than today. If you do that, OWS still garners more support, but the difference is significantly less. This article, for instance, reports a poll* from July 2009 where the Tea Party's favorable/unfavorable is 41/22, which is comparable to OWS reported favorable/unfavorable on the infographic of 53/23.
So, all in all, the infographic analysis isn't too bad although they could have done better, but I'd say Samp's interpretation of it is significantly skewed. As to whether "this thing" will just keep going and going, my honest opinion is that if it doesn't get integrated (or co-opted or captured or whatever) into the Democratic machine within the next few months, it will continue to dwindle in importance until it is essentially non-existent. But then, I *did* predict an imminent Perry resurgence a couple of weeks ago, so maybe I'm not the most reliable political prognosticator.
*It's a Rasmussen poll, so the house lean should probably deduct about four points from the reported "favorable" column, giving something more like 37/24 favorable/unfavorable.
<edit>Further evidence of favorable/unfavorable comparability; a Quinnipiac poll reports a 30/39 favorable/unfavorable divide for OWS as of November 3. I can't find the source for the favorable/unfavorable result reported in the infographic, so I can't speak to the reliability of that pollster, but Quinnipiac has a fairly good reputation without a significant house effect, as I recall.</edit>
<edit2>It looks like maybe it was this Time poll which was reported out on Daily Kos. The fact that OWS's net favorable-unfavorable has gone down a total of 30 points in under a month is, I think, remarkable.</edit2>
posted
I'd like to see that divided by Fox News viewers and everyone else. Fox has been hammering OWS for the last couple of months.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Here is another interesting OWS infographic. Some of the numbers are a little off of Sam's, which may be statistical variation or it may be because it was taken at a different time (this one has been floating around for at least a few weeks i believe). Still, it's interesting, and also includes some metrics the comparison graphic does not.
PS: Sam do you prefer Sam or Samp? I used to do Samp, but then I got the impression that Sam may actually be your name (Sam Primary, derp) so... yeah.
PPS: I love how that infographic actually seems to be implying that OWS "wins" in civil disobedience because they've had more arrests. Maybe I'm projecting motives on the infographic, but that's the impression I got, and I just... wow.
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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