Feeding and Diaper Changing on Wall Street UPDATED

October 13, 2011 By

Here is something I don’t understand. Why is it the Tea Partiers were able to clean up after themselves at all of their gatherings, no matter how large, but the Wall Street “occupiers” have to be told to leave the park so the city can clean up after them, at which time they will be able to re-enter the park and mess it up, again, without responsibility or accountability?

Is this what we’ve come to? Treating adult people like infants in need of a diaper change?

Wait, it gets better. They’re being fed by some great, unnamed adult entity, too:

‘I’ve been here for 12 days, and I’ve put on 5 pounds,’ he said, sitting on the ground in front of a handmade sign that said ‘Class War Ahead.’ ‘I’m eating better than I do at home.’

All he had to do was amble toward a ramshackle cluster of tables and boxes in the middle of the park and, without paying a cent, grab a slice of pizza or a warm slab of homemade vegan casserole. Last Thursday he had encountered ‘a bunch of Katz’s Deli sandwiches,’ he said. ‘That was good.’

I am disgusted by these perpetual adolescents. You want to protest, go ahead, protest — it’s your right to do so. But for crying out loud, be grown ups about it; clean up your own damn mess!

Katrina is wondering about this younger generation

Mark Shea says the division is not going to go away anytime soon.

I’m afraid he’s right. And I am increasingly convinced that our divided country is going to get more divided, because we can’t even talk to each other, anymore. Everyone’s mind is set. Everyone has dug into the echo chambers, and no one will be moved.

Antonin Scalia says “learn to love the gridlock.” That might be good advice for Washington, where gridlock can prevent bad policies from being rammed down our throats. But socially? I don’t see how it works.

Over on Facebook, I’m seeing lots of pictures from folks declaring their positions, or holding up summaries of their life stories, and I don’t see that doing anything purposeful. And as I wrote over there:

This is the struggle I have — to try to balance my American streak of “individualism” which is valuable and God-given, with my Catholic instincts toward the collective, which is also valuable and Christ-ordered. I think all of us have both instincts, and that these “wars” between “left” and “right” are simply about people’s natural inclinations to tilt one way or another (we all tilt while trying to balance).

If one is already tilting, it only takes a push, or a little over-emphasis, to tumble off to the side toward which one is tilted.

I am a Benedictine because Benedict is all about finding balance. I do it poorly more often than I like, but the idea is to keep trying, not to fall off the beam and then just loll around wherever we land.

But certainly in no case are we supposed to fall off the beam, loll around, and then expect the nanny government to wipe our bottoms.

Meanwhile, remember, back in 2008, as the elections approached, a number of folks on the left were speculating projecting that “Bush will declare a state of emergency! He’s going to suspend elections!” Why do Democrat politicans keep advocating just that sort of stuff, now?

Come on, now. You either support the constitutional structures of the nation, or you don’t.

And if you don’t — particularly if you have sworn to protect and defend that constitution — and you just can’t do it, you should resign your damn office and go join the babies in the park.

Ace has more thoughts on that

UPDATE: And then, of course, there are the perpetual Drama Queens, of which Nancy Pelosi is the Empress: You US Citizens must pay for abortions via Obamacare or “women will die on the floor!”

Nope. I don’t see how we regain balance. I’m trying…but I don’t know.

Meanwhile…A Libertarian Camps out on Wall Street

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About Elizabeth Scalia
  • Mark L

    Here is what I find frustrating.

    I have three sons. Two have gotten through college with engineering degrees. The third is halfway through. All three got through college with minimal debt — public universities in Texas, but very good academically. The two graduates have jobs and are fast-tracked for bigger and better things.

    I have five nieces and nephews. All majored in some liberal art. Only two have graduated. (a couple are perpetually three credit hours from their degree. None have skills that enable them to get a job much above minimum-wage level. All but one (my younger brother’s daughter, because her dad does not believe in debt) have massive college loan debt because it wasn’t enough to major in unremunerative fields — they had to go to prestigious private colleges.

    Guess what? My nieces and nephews expect *my* kids to bail them out. Indirectly, third-party through taxes that transfer my sons’ incomes into their pockets. And they do not even see anything wrong with that. The nieces and nephwes are entitled because my kids “won” andf the nieces and nephews lost in life’s lottery and therefore things have to be balanced out.

    I’d put what I *really* think, but the language does not fit in a Christian blog.

  • Leonard Campbell

    I’m guessing that Catholic Social Teaching and the position of the USCCB on the rights of the poor and that corporate America is supposed to assist people who work is not informing your position, here.

  • Ellen

    My son went to college for one semester, decided it was not for him and became a salesman. He works VERY hard. My daughter went to college and got a degree in marketing. She and I worked to pay her tuition and she graduated with no debt. She is an insurance broker and works VERY hard. I work at a university and meet students and faculty who have the same mindset that Mark L’s relations do.

    All I can do is sigh, work harder and pray that in the next election, we elect some grown-ups with sense.

  • http://catholicsensibility.wordpress.com/ Todd

    On the other hand, when you don’t like the message (protesting economic injustice) and you can’t tolerate the challenge, you discredit the messenger.

    I think you pretty much lost me at your first sentence. Do we know that the Tea Party cleaned up after itself? Or that these people didn’t? And does it matter? Corporations are tired of eating their lobster lunch and drinking their champagne on balconies above the protesters, so they get rid of them by any means necessary.

    I would no more trust a partisan opponent to give me the straight story on OWS than I would ask a Bostonian to enlighten me on the New York Yankees.

    Given that the politician whiners are known to inflate their clean-up costs, I’d say this whole line of tidy thinking is in doubt.

  • Terrye

    I have talked to some of these kids on facebook and have been amazed at the sheer ignorance of some of the statements.

    Why..did you know that Bush gave trillions and trillions of dollars to Wall Street and they never paid any of it back? Or that it was ok for Matt Damon to make more money on a picture than the entire working crew cause he did not take money from Dubya?

    First, I had to explain what TARP was and how much it was and who got it and who did not and how much has been paid back..then I had to explain that there was something ridiculous about people like Al Gore and Matt Damon and Susan Sarandon yakking about the distribution of wealth when they are so damn wealthy themselves…why not just give it away if they feel so bad about it?

    No, with too many of these young people it is gimme gimme gimme. I want free stuff.

    One of these days, they will be in for a rude awakening.

  • http://elizabethk-fthnfort.blogspot.com/ Elizabeth K.

    The interview with Jesse Jackson, jr. actually made me feel slightly queasy. I’m not an alarmist, and I tend to look at a lot of what’s happening as nothing more than political theater, but I actually was chilled when I listened to him compare our Congress today with “states in rebellion” in the Civil War. Who are these nutjobs???

  • SilentCalvin

    In regards to your thought: “Nope. I don’t see how we regain balance. I’m trying…but I don’t know.”

    I have been vexed about this (as I’m sure others have) for awhile- and as time passes, people become more alienated from civil society and the political system, the options narrow.

    My thoughts always turn to a horrid, “unthinkable” – yet logical – consequence, and the saddest part is that as the more thoughtful members of society (who take words and each other seriously) arrive at the same conclusion, the more likely it becomes. It will be the posers engaging in this despicable “revolutionary” behavior who will the most taken aback, least prepared to acknowledge a reality they unconsciously call for.

  • erica

    thanks for covering this, Anchoress. i appreciate your input and roundups as well as others’ perspectives in the comm box. blessings to you.

  • http://jscafenette.com/ Manny

    Yes thanks Anchoress for covering this. I was thinking the very same thing yesterday, I think it was. They are perpetual adolescents.

    @Mark L
    I understand where you’re coming from. I’ve got a degree in engineering and a second in a Liberal Arts, and it’s the engineering degree that brings home the bacon. But don’t under value a Liberal Arts degree. I would definitely say that my Liberal Arts side makes me a better thinker and communicator, which has served me well in my career. The real issue is the price of college. The inflation in a college degree (two or three or more times the inflation rate going back 20 to 30 years) I feel is artificially created. Somehow we’ve got to create an environment where the price of a college education comes down. There is no reason why a college should be charging $20,000 per year. I completely advocate students going to a local college over a big name university. I’ve worked with many engineers from all types of college, and I have not found a corrolation that an expensive school provided a better education.

  • Mary

    Messenger? These messengers may be justly characterized as “They tie up heavy burdens, hard to carry, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them.” They want “economic justice” but they either make ludicrous proposals or expect someone else to figure out how.

  • Dan C

    Jesse Jackson/Michelle Bachmann. Tea Party screechers. OWS whiners.

    I am a Catholic repelled by the Tea Party.

    I have no desire for “balance” because giving up to the Ayn Randians who won’t ever note that Pope Benedict wrote a third encyclical will warp the faith. I hope “balance” won’t come at such a cost of watering down justice.

  • http://catholicsensibility.wordpress.com/ Todd

    Mary, I don’t see anything of pharisees in protesters. The other side of the business wall, certainly.

    I also don’t think much of the need for clean-up. It strikes me as a sham to evict the protesters. There are a lot of dissatisfied people in the US. They’re not going away anytime soon. And they don’t have to be articulate to the satisfaction of
    Republicans to do what they do.

  • Terrye

    Todd…so who should clean up after them?

  • zmama

    “The real issue is the price of college. The inflation in a college degree (two or three or more times the inflation rate going back 20 to 30 years) I feel is artificially created. Somehow we’ve got to create an environment where the price of a college education comes down. There is no reason why a college should be charging $20,000 per year.”

    Manny- You bring up an excellent point and something I have been thinking since these OWS protests began. Any students or underemployed/unemployed liberal arts grads in those crowds should be directing an equal amount of anger towards their alma maters where, as you pointed out, tution has skyrocketed beyond the rate of inflation for decades. Thee school I graduated from 25 years ago, a private Jesuit
    university, has a tuition rate that is more than 10X what it was my last year there.
    My husband, who somehow is maintaining his job in the now defunct private student loan industry (for now anyway) has long bemoaned the fact that every time the government would raise the cap for the amount students could borrow, the universities would in turn jack up their tuition rates and the cycle continued to repeat itself. As for those evil student loan lenders the company my husband works for is actually a non-profit lender where any “profits” are channeled back into programs for students, including scholarships. You never heard of non-profit lenders I bet. He also believes not everyone should go to college. Although I don’t want my daughter to hear that because I would like her to go someday, I do agree with him that too little respect has been given to those high school students who wish to pursue a trade. I had numerous conversations with the contractor who did beautiful work for us over the past couple years re. this topic. I can hear in his voice and those of some of the men who came to work with him how down they are on themselves because they didn’t go to college and watch how hard he works so his 3 daughters can attend college. Yet I am in awe of the practical skills he has and the beauty he creates with his own two hands, which has transformed our home and our lives for the better. While I would like my daughter to attend college, I also would like her to develop some practical skills as well. I often think about my maternal grandparents who never even went to high school yet had the skills to run and maintain a farm for years. They raised a large family through the Great Depression yet my grandmother only went to 6th grade and my grandfather to 8th. Like my grandparents, the generation that made it through that era had a foundation of practical skills passed down from their own parents that the vast majority of us today are sorely lacking. That is why the best some of them can do is to lay down and, as the Anchoress wrote, wait for the nanny govt. to wipe their behinds. Our success, via technology and education, may in some ways be a hindrance. While it is not a necessary skill, my love of cake decorating, which I developed as a child, enabled me to find a pt-time job in a local bakery (until they went under due to the economy!) while I was not ready to return full-time to teaching due to family obligations. It is a thrill for me to share these skills, along with my skills as a potter, with my daughter and we dream about running a bakery together someday. To be able to create something out of nothing with your hands is such a gift and our world would be better if we honored more of these God given gifts as much as we honor intellectual gifts. Our Lord was a carpenter after all. I’m sure He knew the deep satisfaction of creating something of beauty with one’s own hands.

  • http://www.rosaryworkout.com Peggy

    Zmama, I just love your perspective! All work has dignity, especially when offered to God. The Holy Family provides the perfect example of the dignity of work.

  • http://catholicsensibility.wordpress.com/ Todd

    “Todd…so who should clean up after them?”

    People, naturally, should clean up after themselves. Tea Party, OWS, or whomever. They should also clean as they go along.

    I got the sense that “cleaning” was an excuse to evict them, hence my big doubts on the whole purpose of this post. The OWS people should be able to stay and protest as long as they abide by the law of the locality, and not necessarily to adhere to an artificial cleaning schedule of someone who disapproves of their message.

  • http://jscafenette.com/ Manny

    @zmama, you said:
    “My husband, who somehow is maintaining his job in the now defunct private student loan industry (for now anyway) has long bemoaned the fact that every time the government would raise the cap for the amount students could borrow, the universities would in turn jack up their tuition rates and the cycle continued to repeat itself.”

    Absolutely. The more the government puts out, either in reduced interest loans or financial aid for the disadvantaged, the higher the cost of college. There is a collusion going on between the government and universities. This has to stop.

    I would quibble on your point about some people not going to college. Yes, some people were not meant to go, but everyone with college level skills should have an opportunity to go. If they meet entry level skills, there should be a way to get it. I’m not saying they should get a free ride or go to the most expensive schools. But it should be affordable, and I support financial aid to families in poverty. I also think that students should be working part time as they go through school. Nothing should be a complete free ride.

  • Oregon Catholic

    So while the OWS wants the nanny state to “wipe their bottoms”, the Tea Partiers want the OWS types to pull themselves up by their bootstraps despite the fact the bootstraps have been cut off and given to foreigners or simply sold off to line the bootmakers pockets.

    Who is more ridicululous (and unChristian) in their demands? I say both are and we cannot give up on finding balance socially and politically or we will have civil war.

  • http://www.noodlingonit.com Kris, in New England

    Todd: to paraphrase you – I think you pretty much lost me at … Corporations are tired of eating their lobster lunch and drinking their champagne on balconies above the protesters, so they get rid of them by any means necessary.
    You take The Anchoress to task for the statements she made about the Tea Party and whether they cleaned up after themselves or not, yet in the same breath you expose your own hypocrisy.
    Do you know for a fact that these corporations feed their executives lobster? And from balconies? BecauseI don’t see any balconies on the high rises in NYC – or any other corporate office building in a major city.
    I have worked in the Fortune 100 for many years now and I can tell you what our executives eat for lunch: the salad bar just like the rest of us. My boss (a high placed exec) eats a petite sandwich and a small bottled water. I have stood next to our CEO while making my own salad – as he made his own.
    The fact is that the OWS protestors are more afraid of having their “movement” interrupted than to live in their own filth.
    Tea Party protests tend to last one day – not a month of encampments at a privately-owned facility.
    In either case, you discredit your own argument against The Anchoress with your hypocrisy.

  • ricki

    I think what frustrates me – and a lot of other people – about OWS is that I look at my own life – I go to work every day, I work fairly long hours some weeks. I pay my taxes, I do volunteer work with groups aimed at helping those who need help, I give money to a few carefully-selected charities.

    I don’t have everything I want in life (though I DO have the things I need). Life is a trade-off. You can’t have everything you want. (Nine times out of ten if you asked me what I would take if I could have ANYTHING, I’d say, “more time to do what I need to and what I want to,” but that’s neither here nor there). What I see from a lot of the OWS types that are featured on the news and such is that they want everything they want, now, and they want it without “paying their dues.” That they seem to think there’s a money tree somewhere that’s being hid from them, and they just have to find this tree and shake it enough…and then everyone will have what they want. And it doesn’t seem to work that way to me.

    And I think the people out there – like some of my current students – who ARE “paying their dues” and hoping for a better life in the future feel a certain frustration.

    I admit I’m also frustrated by the fact that a huge mess is likely going to be left for the city workers to clean up, including some things that city workers really shouldn’t have to deal with.

  • http://www.noodlingonit.com Kris, in New England

    On the subject of college tuition – My husband however financed 100% of his under-grad and post-grad degrees by working part-time on campus in the computer lab and part-time at the local grocery store. He took out the maximum in student loans at the time and after we were married, I paid them off faithfully every month. We went without certain things so that we could make that monthly payment. We didn’t buy a new car until we’d been married for 2 years; we didn’t buy a house until the student loans were paid off. We set our priorities and made them work.
    Why does that have to be so different with the OWS crowd?

  • Roz Smith

    There is a lesson far too many people seem incapable of absorbing in our excuse ridden and bail out driven world: Stupid decisions have negative consequences. When I look at the OWS crowd I see too many degrees in grievance driven fields like Gender Studies or unicorn and glitter pseudo disciplines like Global Sustainability, neck tattoos/body piercings and a what’s in it for me attitude. That means many of these people would be of negative value to employers even if the unemployment rate was close to zero.

    The older I get the more stringent I have become in deciding who deserves a helping hand. My assistance goes first to those who are best prepared to use it. That means ditch the demands, can the attitude, drop the self esteem psycho babble and stop seeing yourself as a victim of anything other than your own stupidity and wishful thinking. It also means use soap and water on a daily basis, watch your mouth, stay clean and sober, dress presentably and show up on time. Frequent use of Please and Thank You are also in order.

  • Doc

    So Todd, what is economic injustice and how do you resolve it without a Marxist solution?

    Yes, we do know the Tea Parties cleaned up after themselves. Conservative bloggers took great delight in pointing out (with photos) the contrast between the tidy Tea Party folks and Leftist dirtbags who have not, do not, and will not clean up after themselves. This was necessary because the corporate media dishonestly tried to paint the Tea Partiers as disruptive rabble. Seeing that the corporate media ignore the actual disruptive rabble who are their ideological allies, this was clearly a case of projection.

    Yes, the conservative bloggers are partisan opponents of OWS. The corporate media are partisan allies of OWS. It’s not a matter of trust for you, but rather accepting the reporting which reinforces your biases. The pics should be tough to ignore, however. Have you seen the one of the Lefty scumbag dumping on a cop car? If not, why not? You understand that this would be non-stop, vein-popping news on all the corporate media if a Tea Partier did this, right? How about the anti-semetic signs, statements, and messages? If you don’t know about these, are you bothered that the corporate media keep you misinformed, or are you comforted by this fact?

    Here is the problem, Todd. These OWS scumbags have not adhered to the local laws. Their law-breaking is ignored because these big city mayors are liberals who basically agree with the theme, so the cops don’t prosecute them for their many law violations.

  • Rhinestone Suderman

    Doc, from the sound of things, it seems like somebody with money is feeding the squatters, too. So much for the eeeeevil capitalists, eating lobster, whilst looking down on. . . blah, blah, blah. It’s the eeeevil capitalists who are feeding these guys. And supporting them in other ways.

    There are some indications that Soros, wealthy market manipulator, is funding much of this “grass roots” protest. (I wonder, are they going to camp out on his lawn? Or is wealth okay, as long as it supports the progressive cause?)

    When some sort of disease breaks out in the squatters’ camp, or rats invade, or they all get lice, they’ll be complaining that the city didn’t come in and clean the place up for them. The whole thing is just manufactured class war, of course, and an attempt by Marxists to bring down the government, and foment riots.

  • Teddie

    Hi!

    I am a New Yorker and am still trying to work out how I feel about the Occupy Wall Street protests. What is shocking to me is the fact that people have just accepted the statements that these people have not been cleaning up after themselves. I’m not sure what is being reported in the news outside of the City, but from the beginning I have heard and watched news reports that discuss how these protesters have actually been doing exactly that: recycling and cleaning up after themselves. One only needs to Google to find this out. And, on Thursday night when they believed they would be evicted, the protesters were cleaning the park in preparation for their departure.

    If indeed they had not been cleaning up after themselves, then the city could declare that they need to leave the park on public health grounds. That is not what was said and, at least on news reports in NYC, many have spoken out against this need to “clean” the park as a ruse to evict the protesters.

    No matter what you believe about this issue, please verify your sources. Media untruth and distortion is wrong no matter who reports it.

    [My "source" is a friend of mine who lives down there and says "the place is a pigsty" -- admin]

  • Rhinestone Suderman

    By the way, Doc, I have seen pics of the Anti-semetic slogans, and reports of squatters denouncing “Jew bankers”, and “The Rothchilds”.

    Very disturbing stuff.

  • http://catholicsensibility.wordpress.com/ Todd

    Thanks for responding, Kris.

    “Todd: to paraphrase you – I think you pretty much lost me at …”

    You were quoting, here, I think.

    I’m sure that conservative bloggers were all over how clean and nice and polite the Tea Partiers were, in between screams, death threats, and beatings. Again, I can always travel back east and count on Yankee fans to belittle Red Sox fans and vice versa. I don’t trust the mainstream media–why would I trust bloggers?

    “In either case, you discredit your own argument against The Anchoress with your hypocrisy.”

    Well, not really. In the eyes of some, I discredit any argument by not being a dittohead and refusing to march in lockstep.

    “The corporate media are partisan allies of OWS.”

    Hardly. They focus on the crazy, like the Anchoress and other bloggers. They focus on what sells. Several thousand Occupy groups, including two in my city of 60,000 are pretty much under the radar–or they don’t want to be acknowledged.

    “So Todd, what is economic injustice and how do you resolve it without a Marxist solution?”

    Take the Anchoress’s advice. Read Mark Shea. I think a good start would be to return to the tax system that worked for the US in the anti-Communist 50′s. You apologists for the filthy rich bore a lot of mainstream Americans. You don’t like people who don’t finish cleaning up their own trash? Point a finger at DuPont, BP, and Exxon. Ask about their diapers.

  • http://www.noodlingonit.com Kris, in New England

    Todd: you do in fact discredit your argument when you accuse someone of not knowing the facts, then make a sweeping generalization without providing your own sources (lobster lunches on balconies). I provided my own, first-hand source about what the corporate execs at (3) Fortune 100 companies can be seen eating on many days (just came back from the cafeteria where a Senior V.P. was finishing up a humble turkey sandwich which meeting with another Senior V.P). Where is your source for the lobster lunches on balconies?

    Rhinestone: Or is wealth okay, as long as it supports the progressive cause? Bingo! Susan Sarandon, Kanye West, Russell Simmons, Mark Ruffalo, Matt Damon and others – they all are worth millions of dollars (in the case of Simmons his net worth is in excess of $125 million), and it is obviously OK for them to support OWS. They have shown up in their $1,000 jeans and 10s of thousands of dollars in bling (West) and the OWS hoardes have been happy to be photographed with them. Because these millionaires support them so their filthy lucre is somehow … acceptable.

  • http://catholicsensibility.wordpress.com/ Todd

    “Todd: you do in fact discredit your argument when you accuse someone …”

    Actually, Kris, I did nothing of the sort. I asked: do we know the Tea Partiers always cleaned up after themselves? I’m just asking questions rather than accepting as gospel everything Brian Williams, Elizabeth, or her Republican (I assume) friend tells us.

    It is possible to engage in a bit of symbolic hyperbole and ask questions without making unjust accusations at people.

    For myself, I have every confidence Elizabeth and many commenters here *believe* that OWS are all slobs, and the Tea Party people were paragons of virtue and cleanliness. I lack that confidence. I don’t think they’re liars for bad-mouthing OWS. Just possibly misinformed.

    As Jesus said, there’s no sin in being blind. The problem is when people say that they see, but their blindness remains.

  • http://catholicsensibility.wordpress.com/ Todd

    I should say that I lack Republican belief in the notion of OWS: bad, Tea Party: good. There are certainly good and bad people of all sorts on either side. I don’t believe there’s a corollary between being conservative or liberal and having good manners, high morals, or having a special benefit to society. It takes all kinds.

  • Oregon Catholic

    Doc,
    You ask how to eliminate economic injustice. For one thing we can stop glorifying and idolizing corporate greed and pretending it’s the role of business to be amoral in the pursuit of profit.
    What if the goal of business (and exec compensation) was based on providing as many good jobs as possible and long-term sustainability while still making a reasonable profit for the owners, instead of finding every possible means to downsize and strip assets and manipulate stock prices to increase short-term profits?
    How about a new business philosophy that says a strong local economy is a worthy goal? How about a return to patriotism and loyalty to America by both business and consumers? The global economy, the over-consumption of cheap foreign made goods, and cooperating with the planned obsolesence and need for continuous expensive upgrades of must-have electronic gadgets will be our downfall.
    Corporations can move from country to country, but people cannot. Our corporations are leaving us behind to starve. Unless the middle-class is rebuilt through the availability of living wage jobs, Americans will be the ones making cheap products for the middle-classes in Asia and India.
    Conservatives, did it ever occur to you that the lazyness and reliance on the nanny state is at least due in part to workers being treated as expendable commodities? Why put out any effort at employment or try and build a family and a stable life when you can be let go tomorrow at the whim of your employer and lose everything? Too often there is no relationship (or social contract) anymore whereby employers reward loyalty and hard work and the employee can have some control over their economic future by being a good employee. If you stay too long at one company today you make too much and become a costly liability to be replaced with a newer cheaper worker.
    The diminishment of the middle class is the direct result of increased corporate greed and dishonesty over the last 30 years. A strong middle-class is what makes a society great – it provides the stability that profits both the wealthy and the poor when people pay taxes and have money to buy things.

  • Doc

    Who is an apologist for the filthy rich, Todd? Here is my “Buffett Tax”. Any liberal billionaire hypocrite who claims the rich are not taxed enough should stand aside while the government takes 0% of their income and 1% of their net worth. What could Buffett possibly complain about after the feds take their $400 million? He’d still have 39.6 million of his own. What are the odds of these rich liberals endorsing a solution like that one?

    Oh, one more rich liberal special. Phonies like the Kennedy’s and Kerry’s who insist that all oil exploration be shut down but refuse to allow wind farms where they can actually see them need to have a rusty oil derrick placed in the front lawns of every one of their estates, pumping away, just in case there’s anything of value down there.

  • http://catholicsensibility.wordpress.com/ Todd

    “Who is an apologist for the filthy rich, Todd?”

    A lot of people are.

    “Here is my “Buffett Tax”.”

    No thanks. Just return everything to the 50′s. I’d accept a GOP president if they rolled taxes back to when the US was prosperous in the 50′s and froze it there.

  • Rhinestone Suderman

    Varous news reports did indicate, at the time, that the Tea Partiers did, indeed, clean up after themselves. Also, since their gatherings tended to last, for the most part, to just one day, they never camped out anywhere, the way the Wall Street squatters are, and didn’t amass days’ and weeks’ worth, of trash, filled up (or unused) port-a-potties, etc. So, yes, their gatherings were much cleaner. Also, many of the accusations against them: that they were racist, violent, etc., were proved, in some reports, to be greatly exaggerated.

    Unfortunately, with the Wall Street squatters, we have seen them, and heard, them doing such things as defecating on police cars, making anti-semetic statements and contradicting themselves when they try and say what they actually stand for, or what they hope to accomplish by this (other than snarling up traffic for all those working/middle class Americans they claim to champion, and making it hard for them to get to work.) They say they want to replace capitalism. Okaaaaaaaay—what with? Marxism? Sorry, guys, but that just doesn’t work. There just isn’t a media monopoly anymore, that progressives can rely on to defend them, and cover up their excesses.

    This isn’t about individuals. Yes, there are good people on both sides, but I can see the differences between two schools of political thought—and I do not side with the squatters.

  • dry valleys
  • http://www.noodlingonit.com Kris, in New England

    Todd your full quote is: I think you pretty much lost me at your first sentence. Do we know that the Tea Party cleaned up after itself? Or that these people didn’t? And does it matter? Corporations are tired of eating their lobster lunch and drinking their champagne on balconies above the protesters, so they get rid of them by any means necessary.

    When you say you were lost on the first sentence, everything that followed was accusatory about the veracity of The Anchoress’ statements. Then you follow that on with other comments (since you don’t like the word accusation) for which you don’t have any evidence (that you have provided).

    That – is hypocritical.

    And yes, it does matter – OWS wants to be seen as non-violent, law-abiding people exercising their right to free assembly. Abiding by laws and being non-violent does not include defecating on police cars, spitting on members of the military, calling for violent revolution, among other behaviors that are beyond description. Demanding that people pay their tuition, buy them cars, pay for their housing … the list of their demands is endless and unreasonable.

    And the sorry part is – in general I actually do agree with their complaints. Taking taxpayer money and then paying out lavish bonuses is a serious error in judgment by corporate america, giving over half a billion dollars to a green energy company while circumventing all the rules about giving companies taxpayer money is also a standout issue.

    The way they are going about it, the sense of entitlement that oozes out of them with every word and action – is what makes them reprehensible.

  • Rhinestone Suderman

    Todd, if we “Return everything to the 50′s” you do realize that this might entail losing many social programs, and entitlements some on the Left find essential? No more government funded abortions, or birth control programs? (And, if this were to happen, you’d have the OWS claiming this was a terrible injustice, and that taxes should be raised to bring the canceled programs back.)

  • Rhinestone Suderman

    I also wonder if all this street theater with the OWS isn’t meant to distract our attention from Obama’s floundering re-election campaign, and the country’s disastrous level of debt. “The rich” always make a good scapegoat. Envy is never satisfied.

  • http://catholicsensibility.wordpress.com/ Todd

    Not convincing.

    I don’t remember seeing anything in reports, either among bloggers or broadcast media that Tea Partiers cleaned up after themselves or not. Though I admit I tended to read reports to get the gist of their message.

    “Unfortunately, with the Wall Street squatters, we have seen them, and heard, them doing such things as defecating on police cars, making anti-semetic statements …”

    Your “we” doesn’t include me. I’ve seen and heard none of this. When protesters left my state capitol grounds they chanted for pay raises for the police officers. The campus and main street here looked pretty much the same last night as it does any Thursday night–part of my walk home was along the march route.

    ” … everything that followed was accusatory about the veracity of The Anchoress’ statements.”

    No, not really. And as for the Hot Air links, I don’t find their site or their logic in their piece particularly trustworthy. Also not sure that in a city like New York you don’t get anarchy-leaning hangers-on just mixing it up for a little nonsense. I tend to trust the notion thay Hot Air reported that most protesters are keeping things clean. Given that, how ’bout we move on to economics, and a much, much needed diaper change for bankers and CEO’s?

    “I also wonder if all this street theater with the OWS isn’t meant to distract our attention …”

    I think the discussion about people cleaning up after themselves is intended to mask the real issue of economic injustice.

    My friends, we already have socialism, a system that rewards the whiny rich: bailouts, propping up banks, and a deregulated system that favors lawlessness among the powerful, then caters to their whining.

    [Google is a wonderful thing, Todd -admin]

  • wpdunn71901

    I.E. Todd to Wit
    ‘ there are none so blind that they willingly will not see’
    end of argument,
    you have revoked your right to be taken seriously.

  • zmama

    Why am I being accused of being “spammy”? Never had this happen before here. Quite frustrating.

    [We updated to the new version of WP and it seems to be a little buggy or something. I'm getting spammed like crazy...have no idea -admin]

  • deacon john m. bresnahan

    I hope President Obama and all the leading Democrats (who have strongly or in one way or another egged on the demonstrators and given them their blessing) are happy about the way their liberal-indoctrinated foot soldiers are behaving. Here in Boston these barbarians have been spitting on and virtually assaulting anyone they see in military uniform. I see in Seattle they are verbally attacking the police as PIGS (shades of the 1960′s). They started with attacking Wall Street and are marching on to other leftist battles.
    I feel strongly about their rotteness directed at our young military people since my son just finished 4 years in the army.
    But all this is the natural outcome of the class warfare mentality promoted and “get the rich” haranguing by Democrat Party leaders.
    I thought class hatred was supposed to be against Catholic social principles, but Catholics (Biden, Pelosi) seem to be among the leading
    purveyors of class warfare, not just promoters of economic justice.

  • Mary

    What leads you to claim that they are not acting pharisical, Todd? I gave my reason for thinking they are.

    As for returning to the 1950s — when will World War III start to allow this? And how will you ensure that the United States suffers no war damage and stands just about alone in that? Plus of course sending a large number of women out of the workplace — which would cut down on supply of labor, and also fight income inequality. (The difference between the wages of two lawyers and two factory workers will be larger than that between one lawyer and housewife and one factory worker and housewife.)

    And note those paternalistic companies got to be paternalistic even when you didn’t like it. They could fire you for drinking on your own time, for instance.

  • Rhinestone Suderman

    It seems to me that what angers many people about the fact that not everyone loves the Wall Street Occupiers is that there isn’t a monopoly on the media anymore, protecting them.

    Back in the 60′s, 70′s, the media, on the whole, supported the Left, and always howed them in the best possible light. If we were still back then, Life Magazine would be running a sensitive, black and white series on “The Young Idealists of Wall Street”. Everybody would be photographed at their best angle, with accompanying, beauitfully written “Interviews” (which might or might not reflect what was actually said), and the ultimate message would be, “The Kids have something to say!” If it was on T.V. at all, the press would interview the prettiest, most appealing young female protestors: “This is Granola Peacedove,! Hello, Granola, how are you this morning?” “I’m groovy, Mr. T.V. Spokesperson, and I’m just here to tell you that the Kids have Something to Say!” Any ugly incidents would never get on camera, or photographed, and any references to Marxism would be glossed over, or hushed up.

    Not so today. With cell phone cameras abounding, the Internet, You Tube and bloggers whon don’t push the accepted “narrative”, people can actually see what’s going on! The Wall Street Occupiers stand revealed in all their narcism and nastiness, and their message is all too clear—they want an end to capitalism (meaning they want an end to the U.S., as we know it), and they want Marxism.

    (And Todd, back when the bankers were getting their “diaper change”, and Fannie Mae and Freedie Mac were getting off the hook, a lot of said this wasn’t a good idea—that the market should take its course. We were dismissed as being mean ol’ mean-spirited meanies. We were tolod that Obama knew what he was doing, and we were just being divisive. If endless bail outs and stimulus plans, and expensive universal health care systems really are a bad idea, shouldn’t the Wall Street Squatters be camped out on the White House lawn, instead of trying to foment class warfare over “The Rich”. Oh yes, class warfare being such a wonderful thing, that will really help us, yah, right! /Sarc. off. )

  • Oregon Catholic

    “they want an end to capitalism (meaning they want an end to the U.S., as we know it), and they want Marxism.”

    We haven’t had real capitalism in this country for a long time. They want an end to what passes for capitalism, but is in fact far from it. Capitalism works well at the local level. It becomes problematic beyond that and impossible on a global scale. There is a reason the Church preaches subsidiarity. When people lose local economic control, like we have in this country, they resort to government ‘help’. If you want to avoid Marxism you don’t destroy the middle-class which is what big business is doing.

    Please, please, stop your silly partisan politics – both parties have sold us out – and pay attention to the message, not the current messengers. I am nothing like the people you see camping out, and I’m certainly not a socialist, but I agree with the anger they are expressing and I predict that people like me will become the face of this movement in time. I was downsized 2 years ago in my mid 50′s, making 85K per year, 1 year short of being vested in my company’s pension (coincidence? ha), and I doubt if I will ever be employable at the same level again. I’m too close to retirement age to be seen as anything but a liability in the corporate world. I was one of the comfortable haves and with nothing more than the stroke of my manager’s pen I became unemployed after losing 40% of my 401k and 30% of the value of my home (now down to a 40% loss). If my husband loses his job with his at-will corporate employer, and he worries about it daily, we’ll be truly lost.

    Those of you who come off as so smug because you think you are in control of your life should take heed – you could be me tomorrow. If you think the middle-class is essential to our survival and prosperity as a nation things have to change. Corporate-ethics has to stop being an oxymoron.

  • Rhinestone Suderman

    Oregon Catholic, we are paying attention to their message.

    I’m sorry for your financial troubles—but they still don’t make me want to listen to their message (which is becoming more and more anti-semetic, as the days go by; blaming the Jews, yet again, doesn’t help anyone.)

    I think that’s what’s actually bothering you.

    (And, given Socialism’s track record, I think that yes, this country already has too much, and, no, we don’t need anymore.)

  • Rhinestone Suderman

    Sorry for the confused message above; I should have said, “We are listning to their message. I think that’s what’s actually bothering you.”

    (Memo to self: Never post without at least 3 cups of coffee under my belt.)

    Again, I’m sorry about your financial troubles—but I don’t think envy-as-class-warfare, Marxism or 60′s street theater redux is going to solve your, or anybody else’s, problems.