by Jack Lee
Do you remember when the Tea Party folks camped out on the steps of the capitol, fornicating in dark corners, pooping on police cars, using drugs and being drunk in public? Remember those rats scurrying across the mounds of trash, urine and human waste they left behind? No? So now that we have seen what they are really all about, please quit comparing the Occupy Wall Street to the Tea Party movement. It’s nothing like the Tea Party! The issues that have finally surfaced are vastly different from the economic issues of the Tea Party and their OWS style of demonstrating are complete polar opposites from the Tea Party’s.
In the very beginning of the OWS protest we could find a few economic issues that almost all American’s could related too, but as this movement has evolved all those things we suspected came to pass: This is basically a hardcore far left protest that embraces the nutty rhetoric left over from the cold war.
The new rat problem at the OWS camp site in Oakland is seen by many as the last straw and locals are calling to remove the encampment. So far the city fathers have been tolerating the illegal camping, but charges of sexual harassment, bullying of reporters, defecating in public, drugs and drunkenness may soon bring protest camping in Oakland to a close.
Latest polling: In ongoing polling from ABC, MSNBC, FOX and others, conclude that about 87% of the protestors are against capitalism. 98% say they would support civil disobedience to achieve their goals, and nearly one-third (31%) would support violence to advance their agenda.
“Latest polling: In ongoing polling from ABC, MSNBC, FOX and others, conclude that about 87% of the protestors are against capitalism. 98% say they would support civil disobedience to achieve their goals, and nearly one-third (31%) would support violence to advance their agenda.”
Jack, can you please provide a link to these polls? I have searched and I can’t find them.
I have, however, found many polls that show the majority of Americans support the goals of Occupy Wall Street–and that this support dwarfs their support for the Tea Party.
Of course, some of that could be attributed to the novelty factor. A large number of Americans supported the Tea Party at first, but that number has dwindled over the past year or so. We’ll see if OWS can sustain this kind of popular appeal; most groups and politicians do not.
Remember when Barney Frank’s paid prostitute turned gay lover Steve Gobi ran a bisexual prostitution service out of Franks Washington DC apartment and the House Ethics Committee recommended Frank be reprimanded because he “reflected discredit upon the House of Representatives.
Remember when Barney Frank repeatedly insisted that there was nothing wrong with Fannie and Freddie and that they were in good financial shape?
Remember when Barney Frank’s long-term gay lover, Herb Moses, was an executive at Fannie Mae from 1991 to 1998?
Now Barney Frank is, believe it or not, courting the OWS mob and throwing in his support!
Evidently Mr. Frank believes that some fools will swallow anything. He obviously believes he can get away with anything, and why shouldn’t he? He will never be held accountable for his actions, in-actions, and inept bungling which helped to bring about the subprime crisis and the current economic situation we find ourselves in as the result of that crisis.
Frank is in good company with the OWS mob, he has been defecating on the country for decades.
Ann Coulter’s term for the OWS mob, the flea party, appears to be starting to stick. I keep running into acronyms for FLEA, but a lot of them are crude and foul. At least as crude and foul as the disparaging term used for TEA Party members that refers to an obscure gay sex practice.
The following acronym is pretty popular —
FLEA Party: Free Loading Enemies of America.
My favorite acronym is similar, Free Loading Emos of America, but few people know what an Emo is.
Shall we start referring to FLEA Party members as Fleabaggers? (Or in Colganese-ersatz-hip-pseudo-rap-speak, Fleabaggerz?) Given the situation on the streets at many OWS protests I would say the fleabag fits.
Here is one of my favorite Fleabaggers at Occupy Chico. Can you say, “tragically hip”? (How about “excruciatingly hip”?) He’s got the tats, the goatee, the glasses, the camo shorts, and the black imitation Converse tennis shoes from WalMart. All that is missing is a Che Guevara t-shirt (and someone lurking nearby handling a Boston cream pie).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS9GZ0DYMtM
I found the following articles that support Jacks basic position:
The opinion of Doug Schoen, a long time Democrat supporter who did polling for Bill Clinton. He thinks it’s a mistake for democrats to embrace and support this group.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204479504576637082965745362.html
this one reflects the opinions of likely voters:
http://thehill.com/polls/187837-the-hill-poll-voters-say-dc-worse-than-wall-street
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/65839.html
Chris: “…and that this support dwarfs their support for the Tea Party.”
And this surprises you? Democrats are great at two things: 1. Smearing anyone or anything that is a threat to their agenda (accusing the Tea Party of racist without cause) and propaganda (OWS more popular than TP…polls conducted to produce just this this result).
The irony is that even with all of the negative goings on (fornication, drug use, trash, vulgarity, bigotry, property damage) and all of the dubious associations (communists, anarchist, nazi’s, socialists, radical greens, anti-Semites), these protesters are being portrayed as thoughtful average Americans.
Hard working, tax paying, patriotic Americans (TPers) who are civil, law abiding, cleanly and concerned about government excess while protesting, are smeared, vilified and maligned in the media and by the same political characters.
Chris, surely you are not proud of this?
“Jack, can you please provide a link to these polls? I have searched and I can’t find them. I have, however, found many polls that show the majority of Americans support the goals of Occupy Wall Street-” Nah, I don’t believe you have looked Chris. I’m not going to do your homework and you’re not going to make me jump through hoops to point out what is so obvious to anyone who cares to look. Go use your browser or use Google and do your own due diligence. All the information is out there.
Very good Pie, you really have been on fire this week!
OK, Jack, I think I found the poll you were referring to, although I can’t find any record of it showing up on ABC or MSNBC. It was mentioned by FOX News–but there, the poll was actually critiqued. I’ll get to that in a moment.
The poll was done by Douglas Schoen, who wrote an article based on his findings in the Wall Street Journal.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204479504576637082965745362.html
Though Schoen makes a lot of sweeping conclusions about the movement in his article, he acknowledges that the poll surveyed only about 200 people in one location.
That is hardly a reliable sampling pool, and as a professional pollster, Schoen should know better than to draw any kinds of conclusions from that kind of data.
Not only was his poll flawed from the outset, he also flat-out lied in the article about his findings. You can see the full poll here, which contradicts many of his claims:
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/99818396/Occupy-Wall-Street-Poll
In his WSJ article, Schoen claims that the movement is bound together by “opposition to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth.”
But as you can see from the polling data, when asked “What would you like the Occupy Wall Street movement to achieve?” only 4% of the participants responded “Radical redistribution of wealth.” That was tied for last place with a few other responses, and the phrase “redistribution of wealth” does not come up again in the poll.
Schoen was confronted with this disparity by, of all people, FOX News’ Megyn Kelly.
KELLY: About this radical redistribution of wealth. Your data says only 4% said that they favor that. So how do you say, how do you apply that label to the entire group. You only surveyed 200. So what, 8 people support that and we are supposed to tar the whole movement with it.
Schoen then conceded that radical redistribution “may not be their highest goal.”
And contrary to his claim that the OWS movement is against capitalism, only 3% responded that “Our democratic/capitalist system” was the cause of most of their frustration with the political process in the United States.
In fact, both of those numbers are smaller than the 5% number of people who said they supported a flat tax, which is usually seen as a more conservative idea.
Schoen also wrote that [s]ixty-five percent say that government has a moral responsibility to guarantee all citizens access to affordable health care, a college education, and a secure retirementno matter the cost.
But neither the question of the poll nor any of the answers make any mention of costs. Here, he is clearly putting words into the mouths of his respondents.
It’s true that 98% of the protesters he surveyed said they would support the use of civil disobedience, which is not surprising given that many of the protests have already used this tactic. It is also true, unfortunately, that 31% said they would support violence, although 69% said they would not. Leaving aside the fact that this was not a large enough pool of respondents to make a valid survey, I wonder how Tea Partiers would answer a similar poll. Many members of the Tea Party, including elected officials such as Sharon Angle, have argued that a point may come where violence is acceptable to achieve their goals. I do not believe either the OWS or the Tea Party have the right to use violence in their efforts, and I condemn those on both sides who have said they would approve of such means. But again, this was clearly not a properly conducted poll, so I have no way of knowing if this is representative of a trend in the OWS movement.
Schoen also claimed that the OWS movement is “dangerously out of touch with the broad mass of the American people.” But some of the answers to the poll contradict this conclusion. 77% of the respondents said that they favored tax increases on the wealthy, which is very close to a recent Gallop poll that finds 76% of Americans also support tax increases on the wealthy. Most other polls have also shown a majority of Americans favor this policy, and many of them are compiled here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/01/990476/-The-polls-are-in:-Americans-do-support-higher-taxes
Jack, you claimed above that “87% of the protestors are against capitalism.” But neither the poll nor Schoen’s article says this. In fact, the number 87% does not occur anywhere in the poll or the article. So I am curious about where you obtained this fake statistic.
Pie: “At least as crude and foul as the disparaging term used for TEA Party members that refers to an obscure gay sex practice.”
I know this is off-topic, but I have seen so many people say this and it…makes me wonder. Are you all under the impression that tea-bagging is something only gay people do? When I first heard the term, it was usually accompanied by a clip from “Sex in the City” as something that a straight couple engaged in.
So…there’s that information for you. 😉
“My favorite acronym is similar, Free Loading Emos of America, but few people know what an Emo is.”
I have to admit, that’s pretty funny.
Jack, I think it’s pretty lazy for you to cite poll numbers and then make your readers do the work of tracking them down. I was eventually able to find the source of most of them (except the 87% statistic, which as I pointed out is totally made up), and the FOX News piece which criticized the poll. Wasn’t able to find any reference to the poll on MSNBC or ABC, but that’s not all that important. Still, you’re the blogger and you should cite all the information you provide to your readers. I’m just a commentator and I still cite all my sources.
Tina, the Politico poll shows much less support than most of the other polls I have looked at. Instead of linking to them all, I’ll just show you the Google results I got, which mostly provided links to polls showing widespread support.
http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&source=hp&q=occupy+wall+street+poll&pbx=1&oq=occupy+wall+street+poll&aq=f&aqi=g1&aql=1&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=1210l4661l0l5239l23l12l0l7l7l1l469l3794l0.1.5.3.3l15l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=dc20b2672385f007&biw=1024&bih=593
A local fleabag speaks! Of course he just had to get in a crude, rude, and socially unacceptable sexual connotation. Don Q is always such a class act.
He didn’t have much to say about the ugly and foul street scene at OWS protests, nor Barney Frank (who probably has personal experience with “teabagging”) throwing in his support.
Of course the TEA Party started out as, and still largely remains, a grass roots movement. The Koch brothers thing that Don Q likes to dwell on is just so much koch-and-bull from the man of koch-and-bull.
While perusing Occupy Chico videos I ran into Don Q giving his little talk about how, back-in-the-day (when he was a young) corporations were run by engineers! The folks standing around in silence looked sort of dumbfounded. It was like they were thinking “Wow, is that really true?”, or “Is this nut-case for real?” I just knew Don Q lived in a parallel universe and that little story is proof positive. The Don Q, the elder.
Which got me wondering, are there any more Don Q vids on YouTube? So I did a little search. Yep, and as always Don Q is a class act!
DANGER, WILL ROBINSON, DANGER! The video linked to below is contains crass, foul mouthed, sexual content. I bet Don Q and his friends down at Occupy Chico really yuck it up over this one. It is Quentin Colgan’s take on Sarah Palin.
Whats the Deal with Sara Palin, Quentin?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xl5g8h2k1LU
Re Tina’s: “The irony is that even with all of the negative goings on (fornication, drug use, trash, vulgarity, bigotry, property damage) and all of the dubious associations (communists, anarchist, nazi’s, socialists, radical greens, anti-Semites), these protesters are being portrayed as thoughtful average Americans.
Hard working, tax paying, patriotic Americans (TPers) who are civil, law abiding, cleanly and concerned about government excess while protesting, are smeared, vilified and maligned in the media and by the same political characters.”
Hear hear, Tina! Well said. Dang well said.
Jack, I know I said this wasn’t a big deal earlier, but now it’s bugging me. You said in the article that the poll results you listed came “from ABC, MSNBC, FOX…”
But this wasn’t true. Two out of the three poll results you cited were from Doug Schoen, an independent pollster who doesn’t work for any of these networks (and whose poll was unbelievably flawed, as described in great detail above). Even if his poll was mentioned by these networks, it wasn’t “from” any of them. That would imply that the networks themselves set up and conducted the poll, which would add a level of legitimacy to the poll that it does not deserve. And like I said earlier, the “87% are against capitalism” statistic isn’t even from this poll, but seems to be completely made up.
I don’t think you intentionally lied about any of these things, since I have never seen you as the type to just make things up. I just think you read this information somewhere else and believed it without looking further into the matter. That’s why I think it’s important that you cite your sources, so that we know where you are getting your information from.
Remember, it was you who said last week that the more information one has, the smarter one will vote. By saying that you implicitly took on a certain level of responsibility to make sure you give your readers accurate information.
But then you decided to post that “87% of the protesters are against capitalism,” which doesn’t seem to have any basis in anything at all. The other poll results you listed do at least exist, but they are from a terribly conducted poll that was set up by a guy who later lied about said poll. And you added an extra layer of legitimacy to this poll by claiming it was from major news networks, when it wasn’t. You also didn’t cite your source for any of this information, and when I asked you to, you refused and acted like I was the lazy one.
This is the exact opposite of informing your readers. Whether you meant to or not, you relayed false information on this blog and you need to correct the matter as soon as possible.
NYC residents are fed up with drums in the middle of the night and OWS protesters defecating on their door steps.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_WALL_STREET_PROTESTS_COMMUNITY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-10-21-16-38-34
Jack, please correct the false information you posted in the final paragraph of this article.
The poll you cited did not come from any of the news networks you listed. The 87% statistic does not seem to be from any poll in existence. And the poll that the other two results came from was not a valid one.
FOLLOW THE MONEY!
Occupiers want a slice of the occu-pie —
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/they_want_lice_of_the_occu_pie_9xKCxcI4aectFYkafMb8UJ
From what OWS people on the street say, their banners pronounce, and the narrow ideological segment of the population that participates, it appears that Jack is incorrect.
My bet is that 100% of OWS protesters are anti-capitalist, but invite any evidence to the contrary. Real evidence. Not the usual so-called evidence of “you must be insane to believe that” or “you have the mind of an eight year” which is the usual fare from lefties who frequent this form
Here are some enlightening results from the Wall Street Journal’s pollster Douglas Schoen.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204479504576637082965745362.html
“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.”
I have no idea how public excretion, public fornication, public drunkenness, public drug abuse, thievery, scoffing law, jamming traffic and bridges, mounds of trash, and the spreading of all manner of filth on the street, public parks and public places (for others to clean up and for taxpayers to foot the bill) is connected to anti-capitalism, but there certainly is a connection.
Pie Guevara,
Have you bothered to read ANY of this thread so far?
The WSJ article you linked to was already linked to by Tina three days ago.
I also linked to it the same day, although I wrote my comment before Tina’s had been posted.
In my comment, I showed how Mr. Schoen makes conclusions in his article that are not at all supported by the poll he conducted, and in some cases, are in direct opposition to it.
I also showed how Mr. Schoen’s poll, with only a sample size of 200 people in one location, is completely useless in determining what the majority of the protesters as a whole believe and want.
I also showed that one of Jack’s statistics–“87% hate capitalism”–cannot be found in either the poll or the article, and seems to be completely made up. I also showed that the polling numbers he cited do not come from any of the networks which he erroneously claimed they were from.
No one has responded to any of these points yet. Would you like to be the first?
This video of Quentin is disgusting! The foul language and sexual reference about two women puts him slithering on the ground looking up at the belly of a snake in the grass.
I don’t care what political party you align with, this type of behavior should be condemned by every decent human being.
Re Peggy’s: “This video of Quentin is disgusting! The foul language and sexual reference about two women puts him slithering on the ground looking up at the belly of a snake in the grass.
I don’t care what political party you align with, this type of behavior should be condemned by every decent human being.”
Precisely. I could not have said it better. Thank you.
Unfortunately, it appears there may be a dearth of decent human beings these days, as Quentin Colgan’s video attests to. I am saddened to present his video here, but I thought people should know EXACTLY who Quentin Colgan is. Personally, I think it deserves its own blog entry if he ever happens to run for office again. I have saved a copy.
Post Scripts yanked my post (in another thread) on his felony record and the revocation of his teaching credentials by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. I guess that post violated the rules. Maybe it got that phony hypocrite Ryan Olson in a huff.
I thought at this juncture Douglas Schoen’s poll and his observations deserved re-posting. You know, to kind of refocus. I should have credited Tina. Sorry about that Tina.
Chris, with regard to your posts, I pretty much ignore them. Yeah, I may skim a few lines now and then, but basically I ignore your incessant, tedious, overreaching, harping drivel.
As such I completely missed anything you had to say about Schoen’s poll. Obviously I didn’t miss much. No regrets there.
So, no I didn’t read a damn thing about what you had to say about Mr. Schoen’s poll. Why should I? I have forgotten more about the mathematics of statistics than a wet eared puppy like you will ever know.
It really just boils down to this: You never really have anything of substance to offer. You just like to play sophomoric left-wing rhetorical games which you actually think pass for intellectual debate. Sorry kid, but I have lost interest. Nevertheless I am perfectly happy to let you play in the sandbox you have built for yourself. I keep reminding you of this, but it always falls on a deaf ear.
Pollsters often use samplings of 1000 along the East Coast and from a preponderance of liberals and Democrats to estimate national trends. Big deal. Even those samplings are often accurate when it comes to elections. I suggest you take a course on Probability and Statistics before you go shooting off your big fat yap, puppy.
Sample size and breadth versus accuracy have certain mathematical relations. A sample size of 200 in a certain location is not completely useless and I don’t need to read any lame-brain, sophomoric, undergraduate book report from you to “prove” otherwise. One can reasonably assume (given the locations are similar and there is no reason to assume they would not be) that a sample of 200 from one location will not significantly differ from a sample of 200 (or twice that) in another location. Of course, it would be a more accurate and complete to sample several locations and use larger sample sizes, even if it is likely they not yield any significant deviation from a subset sample. This is how statistics works.
So even though I have not wasted my time reading a single word of your supposed proof, I really haven’t had to, have I? You have no “proof” and that can be derived trivially without even having me to waste my time reading it. You don’t even know what constitutes a proof. Certainly not a mathematical one.
In light of other evidence Mr. Schoen’s poll is most likely reasonably accurate, and no, I don’t need to read your sophomoric drivel contesting its relative accuracy. Besides, I don’t take his poll as gospel, only as one of many indicators.
So blow it out your patoot, Chris. Again you fail. How are your grades? Have you ever had a teacher as tough as me or are they all left-wing pansies who will pass any suck-up, take-n-bake fool who enters their class room?
Pie, even if you believe the poll was well conducted, make sure you look at the actual poll results and don’t just rely on the claims Schoen made in his article. Many have pointed out how Schoen misled about the results of his poll in the Wall Street Journal article you (and Tina, and myself) linked to, including Megyn Kelly of FOX News (who seems to be trying really hard lately to make me like her.)
I posted the link to the actual poll earlier, but here it is again:
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/99818396/Occupy-Wall-Street-Poll
As you can see, there is little evidence in the poll numbers that the OWS movement opposes free market capitalism and supports radical redistribution of wealth.
I also pointed out that Jack’s 87% statistic cannot be found in Schoen’s poll or in his article, or anywhere else for that matter, and that none of the statistics he cited come from any of the news networks he listed. Jack, I am still waiting for you to address and/or correct this error.
Pie: “I have no idea how public excretion, ….”
Ah, but Pie, you’re not an urban boy. Downtown Oakland has been a festival of such excresences for many, many years. These people are homeless, remember, and have been for quite some time. When I was a little girl in San Francisco people did not live on the street. They lived in dwellings, in the county jail, or in mental hospitals. It was Reagan, and it was, who consigned the impoverished, mentally ill to the streets, where they have been recently joined by the simply impoverished.
The Oakland PD cleared off the Plaza this very early morning to assess the damage to public property.
But you wanna know what? Facilities will be scrounged, and the encampment will be re-established … bacause … what else is there to do?
We are very nearly Greek.
Here’s a little tidbit showing Obama and the Dems’ super hypocrisy. Really need to check out the chart (that wouldn’t copy over) to see the Wall Street donation totals given to these individuals.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/dem-leaders-backing-occupy-wall-street-receive-more-wall-st-contributions-than-republicans/
“It might not come as a surprise that key Democratic leaders supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement have in fact all raised substantial funds from Wall Street. Heritage reportes that President Obama, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Congressman Barney Frank have all raised significant funds from Wall Street.
OpenSecrets.org even reveals that the president has raised nearly $12 million in Wall Street donations for the Democratic National Committee. Heritage notes that the amount is more than all the Republican Presidential candidates combined have received from Wall Street.
Yet Obama supports the Occupy Wall Street movement, stating that their protests are a reflection of a broad-based frustration about how our financial system works. He has also adopted the term 99% when talking about raising taxes.”
Re Libby’s: “Ah, but Pie, you’re not an urban boy” and the rest of her drivel.
How would you know?
I do know excrement when I see it, smell it, step in it, or read it, Libby.
Re Chris: “Pie, even if you believe the poll was well conducted, make sure you look at the actual poll results and don’t just rely on the claims Schoen made in his article blah, blah, blah.
I didn’t say a thing about how well or well not the poll was conducted. You claimed that the poll is completely useless and, incredibly, HAD PROVED AS MUCH! (Tell you what kid, submit your proof in a formal mathematics class on statistics and get back to me on how well you do.)
I simply stated (among other things) “A sample size of 200 in a certain location is not completely useless and I don’t need to read any lame-brain, sophomoric, undergraduate book report from you to “prove” otherwise.
I also wrote, “In light of other evidence Mr. Schoen’s poll is most likely reasonably accurate, and no, I don’t need to read your sophomoric drivel contesting its relative accuracy. Besides, I don’t take his poll as gospel, only as one of many indicators.”
(Maybe that should have read “sophomoric and fallacious drivel contesting its relative accuracy.”)
So Chris, take your pretentious advice that I make sure to “look at the actual poll results and don’t just rely on the claims Schoen made in his article blah, blah, blah” and … well … you know what to do with it.
Chris, you really are a hoot. And what are these “actual poll” results? Does that sentence actually make any sense at all outside of being some sort of stupid and pompous admonition?
Chris, you need to take a break. You are starting to sound a lot like Libby. You sure have been full of yourself lately. (See comment to Libby above.)
Pie, it was just a recommendation. Calm down. Why do you always overreact in this way? Can you try to post one response to me at some point which doesn’t include personal attacks and insults?
By “actual poll” I meant the actual poll I linked to, not just the WSJ article. My point was that Schoen made certain conclusions in his article, such as saying that the majority of OWS hate capitalism and want radical redistribution of wealth, that are not supported and even directly contradicted by the actual poll results. That was Schoen putting words into their mouths, which is very unprofessional for a pollster. Also, I never said that I “proved” the poll was useless, so that is you putting words into my mouth.
“Can you try to post one response to me at some point which doesn’t include personal attacks and insults?”
Ah, haven’t we both made an effort? There is no reasoning with the unreasonable.
Not to worry, though. A guy whose rhetorical superlative manifests as “blah, blah, blah” is not persuasive … only soothing to the other mental defectives, and, as I said, there really isn’t anything to be done with such.
Post because it amuses you. Post for practice. But don’t hope for anything more, you’ll keep your happy disposition some while longer.