Occupy Bay street

[FiReSTaRT]

If throttling p2p file sharing is the most we have to worry about when it comes to internet openness I'll take it... and I've been with Rogers for ages, they never throttled. TekSavvy doesn't (seem) to either, so what's the fuss?

Throttling is how it starts and is a logical step before outright blocking. You also seem to conveniently sidestep the fact that sites have been shut down without due process either due to accusations of piracy OR because they disseminated information that the US government didn't want to become general knowledge. It came to the point where they pressured foreign governments to trump up charges against a site founder.

And in two months of Occupying exactly how much progress was made towards figuring something out? None. If anything I would say we are even farther from any type of solution now than we were at the onset of the Occupy protests. Their message was unclear, unfocused, vague and in some instances they even went so far as to alienate the very people they claimed to represent. Some seemed to want socialism (or even borderline communism) while others seemed to want libertarianism.

How do you address or satisfy the concerns of a group when their views and hopes are so extremely skewed?

To me it looks like a broad group of people with differing political views stood up and said "the society as it is has a problem." That's the logical first step to solving it. Along the lines of a person coming to an AA meeting and admitting to it. Would you tell that person that he is a failure because he hasn't quit boozing a year ago?

 

[mmmnaked]

The sites which get shut down ARE file sharing sites and services. Copying and distributing copyrighted material is illegal, get over it. Find ways around it, the rest of us do. What makes it okay for me to start a website listing copyrighted downloads and then making money off the traffic coming to that site? That's ********. Those sites SHOULD be shut down.

Wikileaks? Last I checked it's still up.

 

[FiReSTaRT]

The sites which get shut down ARE file sharing sites and services. Copying and distributing copyrighted material is illegal, get over it. Find ways around it, the rest of us do. What makes it okay for me to start a website listing copyrighted downloads and then making money off the traffic coming to that site? That's ********. Those sites SHOULD be shut down.

Wikileaks? Last I checked it's still up.

Some weren't.. Some were doing stuff that was perfectly legal in their countries (like posting links to torrent sites but not hosting any pirated content or even torrent seeds) and still got shut down.. Even worse, some were doing stuff that had nothing to do with piracy and was perfectly legal in the US and STILL got shut down. The main point is that they got shut down without any due process. Purely on a whim of people who weren't elected to do anything. They were simply put in place by the corporate world but on the taxpayers' dime in order to maximize their profits by hurting people whether they did something wrong or not.

The site is up NOW but it took a lot of public stink raised by people all over the place. In the beginning even that was not enough so they had to scrounge for domains and hosts as they were all being shut down due to US pressure. The US government went so far to nudge Visa, Master Card and Pay Pal to freeze the funds that Julian Assange would have used for his legal defense on those trumped up rape charges. That means that the US government and their corporate community did their damndest best to prevent an individual from receiving what we all would have considered to be his due process.

 

[caboose56]

To me it looks like a broad group of people with differing political views stood up and said "the society as it is has a problem." That's the logical first step to solving it. Along the lines of a person coming to an AA meeting and admitting to it. Would you tell that person that he is a failure because he hasn't quit boozing a year ago?

That describes the first few days of the Occupy protests. Then what happened?

 

[Brian P]

On the news today, they showed a little follow-up protest to Toronto's "occupation" ...

The protesters are wanting more money for public housing etc and they want Rob Ford to stop budget cuts, i.e. they want MORE HANDOUTS.

Too many handouts is exactly what has been getting governments around the world in trouble and is the opposite of what's needed.

Part of what's needed to "fix" our financial system is to CUT government spending (i.e. handouts) and REDUCE the size of government, because government as we know it (together with all the handouts that it makes) is unsustainably too big. The ne'er-do-wells will not like what it's going to take to fix that.

Canada will not need nearly the scope of cutbacks that the eurozone countries need and which the USA will need (although they haven't yet fully acknowledged that they will need it). It will be interesting to see what happens out of the American government's recent failure to come to an agreement on the budget cuts.

 

[mxs]

I personally don't see a connection between "Occupy xxx" and government cut backs (not that I disagree with them if they are done carefully and not without thinking). To me "Occupy events" have been about how the crooks in financial world ended up with pockets full of money at the expense of the ordinary and poor people. None of the crooks have ended up in jail, but millions of people cannot afford to pay mortgages or get jobs ..... that is a problem in my view.

 

[imnothng]

I personally don't see a connection between "Occupy xxx" and government cut backs (not that I disagree with them if they are done carefully and not without thinking). To me "Occupy events" have been about how the crooks in financial world ended up with pockets full of money at the expense of the ordinary and poor people. None of the crooks have ended up in jail, but millions of people cannot afford to pay mortgages or get jobs ..... that is a problem in my view.

Excuses excuses.... all they have to do is work harder and they can get jobs. Just a bunch of lazy no good dirty hippies that are too lazy to work.

That was sarcasm btw, I wouldn't want to be mistaken for a republican.

 

[afong56]

On the news today, they showed a little follow-up protest to Toronto's "occupation" ...

The protesters are wanting more money for public housing etc and they want Rob Ford to stop budget cuts, i.e. they want MORE HANDOUTS.

Too many handouts is exactly what has been getting governments around the world in trouble and is the opposite of what's needed.

Part of what's needed to "fix" our financial system is to CUT government spending (i.e. handouts) and REDUCE the size of government, because government as we know it (together with all the handouts that it makes) is unsustainably too big. The ne'er-do-wells will not like what it's going to take to fix that.

Canada will not need nearly the scope of cutbacks that the eurozone countries need and which the USA will need (although they haven't yet fully acknowledged that they will need it). It will be interesting to see what happens out of the American government's recent failure to come to an agreement on the budget cuts.

does the definition of 'handouts' extend to massive corporate bailouts? overly generous tax breaks or flat out funding giveaways to corporations in the form of taxpayers' money to incentivize companies to stay in canada?

i'm not saying that saving gm through a bailout was wrong, it's just hypocritical to criticise supporting one level of society while tacitly accepting the other.

what exactly is wrong with supporting public housing or stopping some of the more egregious budget cuts being proposed?

if 'stimulus' spending is intended to put money back into the system, just what exactly do you think people on the lower end of the economic spectrum will do with any money they save through having affordable housing? they will put it right back into the system. for the most part, the poor and working poor of canada spend every last penny they have, and directly support our economy. they generally don't have the capacity to remove money from the economy.

putting more money in their pockets is perhaps the best way to spend stimulus money, whether that be in the form of tax breaks, subsidies for affordable housing, or yes, even fewer budget cuts by tommy boy.

the financial difficulties of the eurozone are only partially the result of overly generous 'handouts', much of it was due to outright criminality, and yes, corporate welfare. . .furthermore, those countries have more serious problems, like the fact that the eurozone system itself is flawed, but then again, we already know what that is like, given the last decades under nafta, and then the wholesale capitulation by harper into a resources-based economy and the abandonment of our manufacturing sector.

 

[afong56]

It's still money that the civic government doesn't have, for something that didn't need to be done. If I don't have money for rent, I don't go out for pizza.
Given that we have a nominally free society you get a lot more done by working through the system, than you do by trying to go around it. You can even 'take over' the existing political parties, from within, if you care to get involved.
Reliable? No. Virtually uncontrollable? Yes. One of the most repressive regimes in the world, China, has tried and failed to control the internet.
I agree with much of the sentiment in that video but, as with almost all such diatribes, he goes too far. You can have businesses, without having major multinationals.

i'd rather argue for supporting the poor and working poor in our society than accept the continued dominance of corporate interests to the detriment of all.

in your analogy, if we didn't have money for rent, we don't go out for pizza. yet somehow in the real world, we then take money we don't have and hand it over to the financial sector and pay for their mistakes.

and then we hand over $1+ billion dollars to give the police the materiel and resources to ensure that we can't exercise our freedom of speech rights. . .again, money we don't have.

if you really think that the established political parties of canada can be reformed from within, especially to enact change that would fundamentally challenge the hegemony of the special interests that control them, methinks that is rather naive.

 

[Rob MacLennan]

Whether or not the Occupy concept is valid, it was tainted by the financial support of public sector unions. That implies ulterior motives, beyond the scope of the (many and varied) stated goals. A co-opting, if you will, of the protest.

 

[D23]

Whether or not the Occupy concept is valid, it was tainted by the financial support of public sector unions. That implies ulterior motives, beyond the scope of the (many and varied) stated goals. A co-opting, if you will, of the protest.

Or, tainted by the fact that a girl died of an overdose and nobody did anything to save her because they were all high.....

Yes, you are all worthless POS junkies that need to find work instead of handouts.

 

[mxs]

the financial difficulties of the eurozone are only partially the result of overly generous 'handouts', much of it was due to outright criminality, and yes, corporate welfare. . .

I would disagree with you as far as "partially" ... The problems Greece, Italy and Spain are having is mainly because the countries live beyond the level they can really afford (social welfare, government jobs for life, high pensions etc.). Nothing to do with criminality and corporate greed .... like seen mainly in US or on much smaller scale in Canada. The two zones are not really comparable hence "Occupy events" have nothing to do with solving government crisis in some Euro countries.

 

[Chaos]

I would disagree with you as far as "partially" ... The problems Greece, Italy and Spain are having is mainly because the countries live beyond the level they can really afford (social welfare, government jobs for life, high pensions etc.). Nothing to do with criminality and corporate greed .... like seen mainly in US or on much smaller scale in Canada. The two zones are not really comparable hence "Occupy events" have nothing to do with solving government crisis in some Euro countries.

I can't speak about Greece and Spain, but there is an element of criminality that has affected Italy's economy. Perhaps not directly (i.e. they siphon tax revenue, although that has happened in the past), but there are decisions made with what the criminal consequences may be.

 

[Rob MacLennan]

i'd rather argue for supporting the poor and working poor in our society than accept the continued dominance of corporate interests to the detriment of all.

in your analogy, if we didn't have money for rent, we don't go out for pizza. yet somehow in the real world, we then take money we don't have and hand it over to the financial sector and pay for their mistakes.

and then we hand over $1+ billion dollars to give the police the materiel and resources to ensure that we can't exercise our freedom of speech rights. . .again, money we don't have.

if you really think that the established political parties of canada can be reformed from within, especially to enact change that would fundamentally challenge the hegemony of the special interests that control them, methinks that is rather naive.

In Canada we didn't really do that. Instead we gave them access to liquid assets, which were covered by hard assets they already possessed.

It's easy for people to say that any idea is naive, when they've never tried it.

 

[afong56]

In Canada we didn't really do that. Instead we gave them access to liquid assets, which were covered by hard assets they already possessed.

It's easy for people to say that any idea is naive, when they've never tried it.

where exactly did these 'liquid assets' come from?

as a former card-carrying member of one of the political parties (long since learned from this mistake), and having family who are card-carrying members of different parties, i can tell you that fundamental change has been tried, and mostly has not been successful. the system of party nominations, conventions, and constitutional dogma is very programmatic. it is primarily lip service paid, and the vast majority play the game.

 

[afong56]

I would disagree with you as far as "partially" ... The problems Greece, Italy and Spain are having is mainly because the countries live beyond the level they can really afford (social welfare, government jobs for life, high pensions etc.). Nothing to do with criminality and corporate greed .... like seen mainly in US or on much smaller scale in Canada. The two zones are not really comparable hence "Occupy events" have nothing to do with solving government crisis in some Euro countries.

did you read the post i was responding to? this comparison was not initially drawn by me. furthermore, i am not suggesting that eurozone and nafta are identical. but what they both have are systemic issues that exacerbate economic problems for its 'lesser' members.

we are a client economy for the u.s., where we provide the resources and raw materials at the rate and volume of their choosing, and we buy back finished consumer goods in return, while our manufacturing sector rots from the inside out.

and no, the occupy events here are not focused on the eurozone problems, nor should they be; meanwhile, the occupy events in europe are very much concerned with the government crises in european countries, with a particular corporate/banking slant.

 

[Brian P]

does the definition of 'handouts' extend to massive corporate bailouts? overly generous tax breaks or flat out funding giveaways to corporations in the form of taxpayers' money to incentivize companies to stay in canada?

YES. One of the things that needs to go away, are direct and indirect subsidies to companies that extract natural resources (i.e. oil).

Keep in mind, though, that municipalities and provinces are in competition with each other. It's not uncommon, particularly in the USA, for a municipality to extend a tax break to a large corporation in the interest of having that corporation set up a factory in that municipality, which brings jobs. Bringing jobs reduces the burden on the municipality because they're not paying welfare etc for the people that took those jobs. And the income to the municipality indirectly brings tax revenue. So if a given municipality stops giving such tax breaks ... they lose out!

It's not unheard of in Canada, either. US Steel was given incentives to take over Stelco in Hamilton ... and it's now in court because US Steel reneged on their promises.

i'd rather argue for supporting the poor and working poor in our society than accept the continued dominance of corporate interests to the detriment of all.

Here's the big question: How do you "support the poor and working poor" while not providing DISincentives to work? It's not uncommon for such people to turn down opportunities for work because they're currently getting paid more on UI! Or turn down opportunities for part-time work because any income they earn by working gets clawed back from what they're getting paid on welfare. This is a BIG problem.

I can't speak about Greece and Spain, but there is an element of criminality that has affected Italy's economy. Perhaps not directly (i.e. they siphon tax revenue, although that has happened in the past), but there are decisions made with what the criminal consequences may be.

Greece and Italy have large underground economies, and it places the government in a tricky situation. They desperately need to raise more tax revenue, but if they do so by raising tax rates, it increases the incentive for people to work for cash under the table, resulting in LESS income for the government, and often those people are simultaneously on the dole, which makes matters even worse. If they raise corporate tax rates, it increases the incentive for companies that have a choice in the matter, to locate elsewhere, and this is the opposite of what they need; i.e. more companies locating there to provide private-sector jobs. For many years, these governments have been financing their shortfalls by selling government bonds, but it is now appearing that anyone (mostly European banks) holding those bonds is going to get a haircut, with the result that nobody wants to buy those bonds, and that resulted in this past weeks failed bond auction by Germany (!).

 

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[Rob MacLennan]

where exactly did these 'liquid assets' come from?

as a former card-carrying member of one of the political parties (long since learned from this mistake), and having family who are card-carrying members of different parties, i can tell you that fundamental change has been tried, and mostly has not been successful. the system of party nominations, conventions, and constitutional dogma is very programmatic. it is primarily lip service paid, and the vast majority play the game.

From the government which means from us, of course. There is, however, a difference between a bail-out and a secured loan. A rather significant difference, as nothing was risked.

Try again, but first get support. The worse things get the easier that support becomes to obtain, as it becomes harder for those who manipulate the populace to hide reality.