Insight - Occupy Wall St, the start of a new protest era?

[xchrom]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/10/07/uk-wallstreet-protests-history-idUKTRE7964DY20111007

(Reuters) - When Paul Friedman met the rag-tag youth camped out near Wall Street to protest inequality in the American economy, he felt he was witnessing the start of a protest movement not seen in America since the 1960s.

And Friedman should know. The 64-year-old was a student organizer during the anti-Vietnam War movement, protesting from 1964 for 11 years until the war ended. He also joined Civil Rights actions against racial segregation in America.

On Wednesday, as thousands of union workers marched to show solidarity with the movement called Occupy Wall Street, he walked shoulder-to-shoulder with dreadlocked college dropouts, unemployed youth and students, who for three weeks have camped out near Wall Street and who have no plans to leave.

"It felt in my gut very much like what I was a part of in the 1960s," Friedman said. "What people are expressing ... is an experience that their opportunities are shrinking, not growing and their hopes are shrinking, not growing, and that is an unnatural feeling for the young," he said.

[mdmc]

1. Between the tea party and OWS the result has been an increase

in participation.

There is a movement in America..

[Le Taz Hot]

2. Revolution is in the air.

For those of us who were around in the 60's -- you can smell it, can't you?

[malaise]

3. Get thee to the greatest page

:fistbump:

[xchrom]

4. ...

:toast:

[Tsiyu]

5. Every population has its tipping point

Even a diverse, 300-million-member population has a point at which the many who are hurting will join forces against the few who are hurting them.

Politicians and talk hosts, without a Fairness Doctrine, have spewed lie after lie after lie about what government should do and what they won't do for the common citizen. While crying out for smaller government, the politicians and talk hosts have attacked the common man's rights, earnings, education and opportunities, through restrictive laws on the 99%, while insisting corporations are people who can act with complete impunity when they damage the common citizen, the environment, the economy.

The politicians and lobbyists and talk hosts believe their own lies, and they believe that we believe them and that we will continue to believe them as long as they keep spewing them. Unfortunately, the politicians and lobbyists and talk hosts are the only ones who believe the lies anymore.

I notice that FOX radio has stopped running their "Do you believe in freedom of speech.... of your right to express yourself?" The teabag astro-turf bowel movement they helped bankroll fizzled, so now they seem to have lost their taste for "Freedom of Speech." Goddamn transparent fools.

Americans will take matters into their own hands if the imbalance is not corrected. This is merely a taste of what most Americans are feeling.

NOW Washington must restore our freedoms and hold affluent criminals accountable and regulate their activities in the future.

NOW, Washington must restore decent wages and health care and education to its citizens.

NOW Washington must stop the Prison Nation their laws - courtesy of the For-Profit Prison industry - have crapped out on the landscape rather than spending money on schools and mental health facilities that actually HELP communities.

People aren't playing, even if Congress and Obama are.