What the Wall Street Occupiers Really Believe

Douglas Schoen’s polling firm interviewed nearly 200 protesters in New York’s Zuccotti Park.

Our research shows clearly that the movement doesn't represent unemployed America and is not ideologically diverse. Rather, it comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence. Half (52%) have participated in a political movement before, virtually all (98%) say they would support civil disobedience to achieve their goals, and nearly one-third (31%) would support violence to advance their agenda.

The vast majority of demonstrators are actually employed, and the proportion of protesters unemployed (15%) is within single digits of the national unemployment rate (9.1%).

What binds a large majority of the protesters together—regardless of age, socioeconomic status or education—is a deep commitment to left-wing policies: opposition to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth, intense regulation of the private sector, and protectionist policies to keep American jobs from going overseas.

Sixty-five percent say that government has a moral responsibility to guarantee all citizens access to affordable health care, a college education, and a secure retirement—no matter the cost. By a large margin (77%-22%), they support raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, but 58% oppose raising taxes for everybody, with only 36% in favor.

Thus Occupy Wall Street is a group of engaged progressives who are disillusioned with the capitalist system and have a distinct activist orientation. Among the general public, by contrast, 41% of Americans self-identify as conservative, 36% as moderate, and only 21% as liberal. That's why the Obama-Pelosi embrace of the movement could prove catastrophic for their party. 

Here’s FOX News Bill O’Reilly’s take about the occupiers.

 

Both Schoen and O’Reilly are spot on – these occupiers are just a rabble of radical leftists who want to burn the capitalist system down.

Capitalism isn’t perfect, but it’s the best system we have. Capitalism allows anyone the greatest opportunity to succeed on their own.

Update:

"Occupy Wall Street" Protests Cashing In on Capitalism?

 

 

 

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Comments

[Oldman]

1.

Some more cut n paste wanking material from Andy, he does seem to get off on this sort of stuff.

But I would say that, would I not being a commie socialist pinko al-Queda Somalian Shebab rebel big government anarchist Castro boot licking terrorist big government anarchist! (Take took my breath away).

Anyone care at an attempt to take that cut n paste hatchet job apart, the holes in it stare you in the face. Below is a link to the original so-called "poll" of 200 in one corner of Manhattan:

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/99818396/Occupy-Wall-Street-Poll

[andy semple]

2.

Be very carefull what you say next, "oldman"

[John A]

3.

Andy, I note that civil disobedience bit, but that expression may be a bit rubbery. It's the form of disobedience that is the key.

If I take a stand according to my conscience, then I have to face the possibility of civil disobedience, if my stand is contrary to the law as currently written or interpreted (as say in the Bolt Case).

But I must be prepared to accept the consequences of my disobedience, or else I am merely a self-opinionated anarchist (strictly antinomian, but 'anarchist' is more readily understood).

Ah, strewth! DocStac wants me to fork out $10 to get the poll (a bit capitalistic, isn't it - oh, the irony!).

If those surveyed (can't see the questions without paying money :( ) propose to disobey by the use of violence (the next comment you published) then that's out of bounds, in my view.

[Oldman]

4.

Are you going threatening ban me from the site for exposing your dishonesty and misrepresentations? Don't threaten, just do it, you are Da Man, I am just an old man that tries to live by the truth. It is not hard to win me over with solid argument but don't deliberately lie to me, after all, that's been one of your major gripes about Julia since the election.

The numbers in the poll speak for themselves, the conclusions are fraudulent; the poll results suggest one thing and your conclusions reflect another.

Where does it say in the poll results that a large majority of the protestors are bound together by support for a radical redistribution of wealth? The result of Q17 suggests otherwise:

17. What would you see the Occupy Wall Street movement achieve? {Open Ended}

35% Influence the Democratic Party the way the Tea Party has influence the GOP
4% Redical Distribution of Wealth.

How is 4% a majority?

And where do you get the crap that they opposed to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth?

The numbers in the polls actually suggest the opposite: Q16: "What frustrates you most about the Political system in the United States", only 3% (6 people out of the 200 polled)answered, “our democratic/capitalist system”. My deaf and Blind dog will tell you 3% is not a majority.

You math is deliberately misleading and others on this forum deserve an answer from you, I don't, I know you are full of it.

Do what you must...

[Pip]

5.

You know I've been following these "Movements for change" since Obama was elected viz MoveOn, GetUp and more recently the off shoot Civil Society outreach programs developed by the Chicago Industrial Areas Foundation, here, The Sydney Alliance and the UK one who's name escapes me right now but fully supported by David Cameron.

I've just seen this Glenn Beck video(below) and obviously, I think he's on to something, since I wrote much the same thing a couple of hours ago on the other thread, preceeding my viewing of Glenn Beck:

October 18, 2011
Occupy Chicago gives rousing Welcome to Communist Party USA

I've been researching it independently which is why I know Glenn Beck is not just a right wing nut job to use the parlance.

He is on to it.....as he says, this may not be it yet, but its coming. My gut feeling too.

Check out the video: ignore the title on it, put up by some left wing nut job, probably.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFYoAMqAhlg

[liberal elitist]

6.

Sixty-five percent say that government has a moral responsibility to guarantee all citizens access to affordable health care, a college education, and a secure retirement—no matter the cost.

I agree! Fortunately, thanks to Medicare, HECS-HELP and the superannuation and aged pension systems, we have had these things in Australia for decades now. I find it difficult to understand how conservative Americans can continue to oppose these socialist policies.

[kelly liddle]

7.

With question 21 in the survey it says that 66% of the people consider the conditions in the US simular to that on the eve of the Arab Spring.

This to me is strange, no matter what problems the US may be having it hardly compares to countries with dictators in power for 30 years or so. It also begs the question what exactly are they looking for, an overthrow of the US government?

[Andy Semple]

8.

You wouldn’t know the truth if it hit you in the face – you don’t even have the guts to use your real name – coward.
At least I have the ticker to put my name to what I write and my comments.
But it is your call to hide behind the shadow of anonymity you gutless wonder.
As for the threat, call it a promise, you cross the line again and you’re history for all my posts.

[Oldman]

9.

Nowhere in the poll does it say, "NO MATTER THE COST".

Q27 simply asks, "Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: government has a moral responsibility to guarantee healthcare, college education, and a secure retirement for all?

The "NO MATTER WHAT COST" is deliberately and dishonestly added to the conclusion to paint all OWS protesters, not just the 200 polled, as toxic.

[Oldman]

10.

Yeah right, classic symptoms of disillusion, blaming the messenger for your own intellectual failings.

[Oldman]

11.

Crossing the line is calling others, "ecotards", "commies", "pinkos", etc. when all they are, are folk with a different POV to you?

Like I said, you are Da Man, Da "Free Speech" Man, do what you feel you have to. You have been exposed for your deliberate dishonesty.

[Jack Richards]

12.

If I lived anywhere near a major city, I'd be in the "occupy" protest as well. I am not, in any way, a leftist or a socialist.

But having said that, it is fairly obvious that out-of-control greed is rampant across the western world, including Australia. It seems to me that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor.

Let's take a few examples. In the US, the public infrastructure, public health system and public education system is near collapse, but there's no money to fix it. Yet there are countless billions to bail out GM and Chrysler, banks and insurance companies. Not only that, but these companies who were "too big to allow failing" then give their CEOs massive multi-million dollar bonuses! While at the same time the average American worker hasn't had a pay increase, in real terms, since the early 1980s!

In Australia we have the example of Pacific Brands who shut down their manufacturing here, sacked the workers and dumped them on the dole queue, and then gave the CEO a huge bonus on top of her salary that was equal to about the combined wage of 50 of the sacked workers!

A few years back one of our big four banks sacked around 180 workers because they just couldn't "afford" them any longer. Then they gave the top small circle of executives bonuses worth more than those sacked workers collectively earned in a year!

How often do we see it, here, in the US, Britain and Europe where the paper-shufflers shut down industries and export the work to China or some other 3rd world sweat-shop, and then give themselves salaries and bonuses greater than the GDP of many a small nation!

So they throw the workers onto the public dole queues and create an even bigger burden for those who actually pay tax - because the rich don't and never did. As Warren Buffet pointed out, he pays less tax percentage-wise than his typist on minimum wage!

For the average shop assistant, farmer, bus-driver and clerk, there is no salary sacrifice, no negative gearing, no tax havens, no numbered Swiss bank accounts, no ability to hide income OS. They pay their full measure of income tax, GST and the endless duties, excises, and levies. And they sure as hell don't get any annual bonus counted in the millions! On top of that, there’s the nanny state taxing them out of having a beer, a smoke or a bet and making sure they can’t say anything some other namby-pamby is going to find “offensive”.

There is this ridiculous theory about the "trickle down" effect. Well nothing has ever trickled down to me or anyone I know - unless you slept on the bottom bunk and the person on the top was a bedwetter!

Why is it, in this age of rampant greed, that the rich always need the incentive of more money - but the poor need the incentive of hunger and poverty?

Why is it that there is endless talk about the "Australian economy", but never any mention of the "Australian Nation" or the "Australian Society"?

Why is it that a farmer gets 35c/kg for pumpkins at the farm gate but they’re sold for $3.39/kg at the retail duopoly’s supermarkets a few km down the road? Why is it that all the shops in the big shopping malls are all fingers of the same two hands?

If one was to believe the captains of industry and their hand-maidens, the Greens and Socialists, what this country needs is more refugees and immigrants to compete for the dwindling jobs at the middle and lower ends of the scale, more taxes on the average working stiff, and to export even more skilled and semi-skilled manufacturing jobs to China, India, Vietnam et al.

I am sure that the great corporations that run this country, along with the Greens and socialists, have a vision for Australia in the year 2100. Just imagine a country of 50 million people, 75% of whom are unemployed, living in ethnic enclaves endlessly fighting each other in turf wars, surrounded by wind-mills and solar panels that provide just enough electricity to boil a jug, all set amongst pristine bush and giant holes in the ground. And we'll all live in eco-friendly ware-house stacks crammed full of plastic junk manufactured in China.

By that time Australia will be completely "globalised" and have no identity what-so-ever. We'll be just like everywhere else once our living standards have been reduced to the level of Cambodia. We'll be fighting each other to get a part-time job assembling solar panels for a multi-national corporation.

This "occupy Wall Street" movement's aims may be a bit nebulous at the moment, but what I think the Americans, British, Italians, Australians et al want is a return to the days when there were "nation states" and when there was a "nationality" rather than just an "economy". They want a fair go, a new deal, a chance to compete freely, and an equitable distribution of the available wealth and the ability to create that wealth. Try opening a fruit and vege shop anywhere near one of the big chains and see how long you last. Or how about a clothing store, a liquor shop, a butchers, bakers, or petrol station. The little man/woman hasn’t got a chance, here or anywhere else in the western world. The future for most of us is wage slavery, indebtedness, and an endlessly reducing standard of living while we are stripped of our national and ethnic identity and pride and turned into disposable “units” of production for the great deathless corporations.

I'd join if I could. I too am sick to death of this giant Ponzi scam run by the global financiers and swindlers raping one nation after the next.

[Pip]

13.

Brilliantly put.

Here:

>Why is it that there is endless talk about the "Australian economy", but never any mention of the "Australian Nation" or the "Australian Society"?

and your second last paragraph.

Not to mention the rest.

I feel sure that most would agree with you but unfortunately your not cynical enough to see that OccupyWall Street has been set up by Obama apparatchiks.

If Obama had done something different than giving Wall Street such a generous bailout 3 years ago, we might all have been in a slightly different place now.

The Obama "secret agenda" of never officially identifying with his real aims and playing along with Wall Street is why this "spontaneous demonstration" is being met with such opposition by the right. Obama has just shifted the goal posts and the blame tothe Republican for his own indecisiveness and lack of authority, so he's going back to his old game of underground organising.

The motivations of a lot of the demonstrators are as pure as your own but the reality is a grubby political exercise.

Its sad but thats the way it works.

[vivienne]

14.

Hi Pip, thanks for the link Alex Jones has been saying this for some time.

[vivienne]

15.

Wow, Your comment should be on the front page of every newspaper. You have said it all , so well so to the point. Thank you Jack.

[vivienne]

16.

Dont blame Obama, he is just the puppet for the Globalists, which includes the UN,IMF,World Bank, Central Bankers etc,etc. Obama is a puppet the same as ALL the Governments of the Western Nations are. They are all International Socialists and they all go along with the New World Order One World Government. there is no left or right of politics, they are all the same, they are all traitors to their people baring a few individuals. We have all been asleep, while this lot have been working busily behind the scenes for decades, now it is all coming to a head.

'Occupy' is one of the strategies to cause chaos, totally set up by Move-on and the like who are supported by Soros.

[Jack Richards]

17.

I don't agree with you about Obama orchestrating the OWS movement. I'd say he is as surprised as anyone else - because he is as out of touch as anyone else. Obama is nothing but a glib and glossy Uncle Tom doing the bidding of the kleptocratic oligarchs.

The root cause of these movements in the US and elsewhere across the developed world (i.e the "West" plus Japan)is the culmination of 50 years of stripping away the hope of upward social mobility for the skilled working class and the "administrative/professional" middle class.

They have seen their careers and jobs mechanised and computerised out of existence and then eventually shipped off to China. They've seen their unions busted and all their work-place benefits abolished. They have seen the public infrastructure neglected and the schools dumbed down. They've had to move over constantly for the waves of migrants and refugees. They have seen their beliefs and pride in being "American" or "British" or "Australian" dragged through the mud and shat on by rampant political correctness and a whole suite of affirmative action and racial vilification laws. They have seen their culture denigrated and rubbished while bare-faced lies disparaging them and their ancestors have become unchallengeable "facts".

And presiding over all this has been a ruling class of thieves, liars and swindlers who have kept the lower orders in line by constantly importing competition for whatever lousy, lowly paid jobs are left and deliberately manufacturing ethnic and cultural tensions to distract the lumpen proletariat.

This OWS movement is unlikely to result in anything - this time. Like flies to a fresh turd, the usual suspects have turned up to hi-jack it: the communists, socialists, anarchists, fundamentalist Christians, Climate-change panickers, Greens, gay rights activists, pro and anti-abortionists, dope smokers and crystal channelers, homeopaths, psychics, perverts and exhibitionists. I haven't yet seen the Scientologists and Hare Krishnas, but they'll arrive in due course because they'll soon work out there are rich pickings to be had.

But the root cause will remain and get worse. Historically, there is no class as revolutionary as the skilled mechanics and the administrators/professionals. It is this class that is being constantly squeezed. It is they who see themselves sinking into hopelessness and life-long indebtedness while the clique of swindlers represented by Wall Street get bailed out for trillions and yet still have their snouts firmly in the trough.

There is nothing more infuriating than unfairness and injustice; which is the common situation across the developed world where 1-5% of the population owns and controls 85% of the wealth; where the rich receive huge government hand-outs and pay next-to-no taxes while typical Mr Average gets impoverished and dropped in the gutter.

It can't last. Maybe this OWS thing can been seen as an analogy to Russia in 1905. That spontaneous revolution failed, but 1917 didn't! The in-principle parallels are quite astonishing: ruinous wars, cartels, state bankruptcy, incompetent governance, all presided over by a clique of aristocratic thieves richer than Solomon who were determined not to give away one kopeck and to crush any challenge to their right to rule!

At some point in the not-to-distant future at one of these protest, sit-ins and demonstrations, someone is going to pull the trigger and that is going to set off a time of great tribulation and troubles across the world. If History was actually taught in schools these days many, like me, would remember 1776, 1789, 1848, 1870, 1917, 1923 and 1949. In every one of those revolutions it was the skilled workers and the middle classes who rose up; it was never the sans culottes. It was the Doctors, mechanics and shop-keepers who sat on the Revolutionary Tribunals and made sure the guillotine operators and firing squads had ample productive work to do. Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.

Make no mistake, the world is on the cusp of the greatest melt-down in history. Maybe it will take 10 years, maybe 30, but it will happen and the streets will be awash with blood.

[Pip]

18.

"We have all been asleep, while this lot have been working busily behind the scenes for decades, now it is all coming to a head."

We have not all been asleep.

I've known about this for 25 years and Jack Richards sounds as though he's known about it longer.

Since the first action of these people was to control the press and demonise anyone who expressed a different opinion ie the lunar right. One becomes persona non gratia very quickly if one discusses such things in polite society. One's lips are literally sealed.

Its only becoming slightly more acceptable to discuss what is happening now because there is a quickening of their efforts. After all, watch all the double speak on carbon dioxide emmissions. Anyone who suggests carbon dioxide emmissions are not the issue, gets slapped down very quickly.

This situation creates insiders and outsiders. It creates meta-languages on a variety of levels. It turns part of the community against other parts. One never knows who knows and who does not.

Regarding Obama orchestrating this movement or not. He and his organizer friends are at the forefront of making things happen. He is a fairly influential operative in the Chicago Industrial Areas Foundation who are facilitating the indoctrination world wide. He is culpable in my view as is Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. As for the Liberals, one can hardly tell if they know or not. Malcolm Turnbull is a question mark, he seems to be very willing to roll up his sleeves and get involved, after all he was Goldman Sach's representative in Australia and you know of course that Goldman Sachs prepared the fraudulent accounts to help Greeece get into the EUROZONE and was instrumental in the sub-prime mortgage debacle etc.

Vivienne, regarding blaming Obama. I have serious reservations about anyone who enthusiastically throws their hat in with this lot, all of them. Its a pact with the devil, viz Faust. They know that. Whether they do it because there is no other gig in town or because they do not have the foresight to predict the consequences who knows?

They are the most useful of idiots just look at Kevin Rudd, he revels in it.

Ignorance is not a let out clause.

[A Liberal]

19.

Haha, I was just thinking the right should stage a counter protest in support of Capitalism aka Freedom.

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery
-Winston Churchill

It would be a pitty if Australia became a victim of Socialism. Of course it's the left staging these protests right now. And above all, we don't want to live in 1000 years of darkness.

[andy semple]

20.

Good point & good Churchill quote.

[kraka]

21.

Oldman said "I am just an old man that tries to live by the truth".
Except when it comes to the AGW scam hey oldman-no amount of solid emperical data will win you over. Hypocrite!

[kraka]

22.

copy and pasted the wrong quote "It is not hard to win me over with solid argument ".except when it comes to AGW.

[Pip]

23.

This article, although from Prison Planet is good, whatever you think about that....ie if one is afraid to look at this stuff, it becomes the personal reason for being afraid, "to open your eyes." Obviously, its only the right who are going to expose what the left is doing.

“The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.”
- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Occupy Wall Street and “The American Autumn”: Is It a “Colored Revolution”?

Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research
October 14, 2011

http://www.prisonplanet.com/occupy-wall-street-and-the-american-autumn-is-it-a-colored-revolution.html

The video is certainly an eye opener, link towards the bottom.

I notice Menzies house has removed all the posts for the next article on OWS.

Why has this happened?

[Pip]

24.

So there seem to be a few different opinions on who the real organizers are for the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. The article above links it into the CIA, National Endowment for Democracy (NED), colour revolutions that have taken place throughout Eastern Europe, followed by Asia and now the Middle East. The influence of Gene Sharpe’s, From Dictatorship to Democracy is central to this. This approach seems to skew it as a neo-con project to dissipate dissent.

However this view is rejected outright by Republican’s like Glenn Beck who want to blame the Socialist Organizer’s around Barack Obama. Since Barack Obama is seeking re-election next year this does seem more likely than the Council for Foreign Relations and NED or OPTOR resistance training, now called CANVAS. This possibility sheets home the accusation that the banks and big business (i.e. Republican’s) are to blame for the parlous state of the American economy, taking the heat off Barack Obama’s weak management of the crisis.

All of this is simplistic black and white but political discourse is always framed this way.