What is Occupy Wallstreet?

[kandrathe]

The Tea Party defines false consciousness to the extreme, because their agenda is based on turning this country into a right-wing christian, moral playground, and it's not going to happen.

Which is your narrow view of what they are about, rather than a coalition of various local "chapters" with their variety of stated goals. But, a summary of common interest would be encapsulated in the Texas groups contract;

• Identify constitutionality of every new law
  
• Reject emissions trading
  
• Demand a balanced federal budget
  
• Simplify the tax system
  
• Audit federal government agencies for waste and constitutionality
  
• Limit annual growth in federal spending
  
• Repeal the healthcare legislation passed on March 23, 2010
  
• Pass an 'All-of-the-Above' Energy Policy
  
• Reduce Earmarks
  
• Reduce Taxes

So it's not really the moralist "Christian" nightmare you propose. It could be more described by a preference for a smaller, more accountable government.

They want lower taxes? A joke. We already have the lowest taxes in the world among any other western industrialized nation.

Where do you find your facts? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_around_the_world

Corporate taxes = highest in the world. Personal taxes = low middle. Most revenue collected = US. Many places, like the Bahamas, have 0% income tax. So, however you look at it... No, not even close to true.

Race? We have a black man as the president, and it is killing them inside.

Who are the top two Republican front runners currently? A black man executive rag to riches story, @ 24%, and a Mormon former governor of one of the most liberal states @ 22%. So much for your Evangelical religious right theories. Then, there were the ~10% of registered Republicans who crossed over and voted for Obama...

Women are more prominent than ever in the political arena and will continue to be more so as we progress.

Women represent 27% of the Afghanistan National Assembly: 68 out of 249 seats in the Wolesi Jirga and 23 out of 102 seats in the Mesherano Jirga in 2007.

In the US(111th Congress), women represented 17% (17/100) in the Senate, and 17.4% in the House.

The 112th Congress has one fewer woman, than the 111th. What party elected the first woman to the House, to the Senate? First party to cast an electoral vote for a black man (in 1888). But, in general, I'd agree and in the Tea Party, women have been extremely prominent.

Anyone who is working class and votes Republican is voting against their own interest.

Who do you define as the "working class"? I think you are clinging to an anachronistic view of class.

"Further, if the hypothesis that culture primarily produces class were true, such a non-dialectical, causal relationship pertains more validly in some low-social mobility societies. Scandinavian countries by contrast have discovered that removing structural barriers (and to some extent broadly valorizing working class culture) is effective in increasing social mobility, if not in eradicating social class under capitalism." -- Gilbert, Dennis (1998). The American Class Structure.

The rest of the world laughs at us, because we are still fussing and bickering over these trivial social issues, and not focusing on what really matters: Economics and class. We don't like to talk about class here in America, but it matters, and ultimately, people here are divided by class more than anything else.

Does the world really laugh at the US? I think there are probably a plethora of emotions, and humor is just one of them. Some may be angry, or apoplectic even... Some may be happy, or appreciative. Some may be fearful. Maybe you ingratiate yourself to your fellow self-hating leftist friends with such claims.

A 2011 BBC poll found recently, "Of the countries surveyed, 18 hold predominantly positive views of the US, seven hold negative views and two are divided. On average , 49 per cent of people have positive views of US influence in the world--up four points from 2010--and 31 per cent hold negative views. The poll, conducted by GlobeScan/PIPA, asked a total of 28,619 people to rate the influence in the world of 16 major nations, plus the European Union. "

Also, not nearly enough people participate in political affairs, especially young people. We are not in particular, a politically astute nation, and that is a bad thing.

Participation, yes, I too think it should higher. Astuteness? How do you measure this?

"It is an outrage to attribute the failures of American democracy to the ignorance and stupidity of the masses. The most disastrous shortcomings of the system have been those of the intellectuals whose concepts of democracy have been amazingly rigid and uninventive. (The Semisoveriegn People: A Realist's View of Democracy in America, 1960: p. 135-136)" -- E.E. Schattschneider

I blame much of that on the anti-intellectual agenda of the Republican party.

Of course you do. Because I find you are more emotional, clinging to your prejudices, than objective and rational on this issue. I blame it on the failure of secondary school education, the breakdown of family and community and the pablum spooning media, but to each their own. Republicans are not anti-intellectual, but are anti-paternalistic. They don't oppose having smart, educated people in government, but they do oppose smart, educated people who think they know what's best for people creating a big brother government that robs us of our personal choices in the name of do-gooding. But, Republicans have their shortcomings on do-gooding as well. There is the whole Patriot Act thing, and their support for TSA, and an equal portion of the "War on Drugs".

Tribalism was essentially a primitive form of communism.

So we've devolved away from the ideal form, only to return to it later once we've cast aside the frivolous notion of private property. I can envision that world, and when I gather around a primitive fire with my hunting party, we'll debate the merits of collectivism.

Also I notice you keep mentioning how Communism is total state control. False, a true communist society is one with NO state control. The people, not a heavy handed state, own and share the means to production and distribution of resources. If the state is involved, you are still in socialism

I see Connor McCloud as the one true Scotsman. "You only have one life! If you value it, go home! "

I can only comment on the Communism I've seen, not that envisioned in a Marxist fairy tale.