Hey VS, now that we have a sarcasm tag, I think it's time for a passive-aggressive tag. Food for thought. With that said:

Not that I wanna give Moveon.org any tips or anything, but why the hell are they branding their videos in cases like this? His assertions are totally correct in this video, but tying that to Moveon.org only pisses off or improperly inflates the opposite ends of the spectrum who don't bother with facts.

It's almost weird that a polarizing organization like that would throw their weight behind a legitimate facts-based movement. Kinda like they want us to fight amongst ourselves or something....

You are a silly silly SILLY man. I was in the middle of writing exactly why you are a silly silly SILLY man and unfortunately lost the whole thing.

I don't have the energy to start over. But I do want to repeat the main argument -- I know that it is a waste of time to show you exactly how you are a silly silly SILLY man, uninformed, misguided, and trapped by some weird anti-tax obsession that beggars all logic of what it means to live in a wealthy society that provides services and protection for its people.

Silly silly SILLY man. That is my main point.

PS: I do taxes for a living. I have done more than one tax return for "middle class" folks who had up to $70,000 in taxable income who paid ZERO TAX. I am perfectly fine with those folks paying more taxes. Doesn't bother me a bit.



>> ^marbles:

Let me get this straight. MoveOn.org, a lobby group for the Wall Street financed Obama administration, that is funded by Wall Street billionaire and financial criminal George Soros, has a problem with political spending? That's rich, Ha.
Oh and the "tax the rich" plan MoveOn and other groups are trying to push are widely supported by Wall Street oligarchs. Why is that? Hmmm....
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903918104576504650
932556900.html
"Roughly 90% of the tax filers who would pay more under Mr. Obama’s plan aren’t millionaires, and 99.99% aren’t billionaires."
It is the middle class – not Warren Buffett or Wall Street corporations – who will be most hurt by the very policies the "tax the rich" crowd are calling for.

Let me get this straight. MoveOn.org, a lobby group for the Wall Street financed Obama administration that is funded by Wall Street billionaire and financial criminal George Soros, has a problem with political spending? That's rich, Ha.

Oh and the "tax the rich" plan MoveOn and other groups are trying to push are widely supported by Wall Street oligarchs. Why is that? Hmmm....

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903918104576504650932556900.html
"Roughly 90% of the tax filers who would pay more under Mr. Obama’s plan aren’t millionaires, and 99.99% aren’t billionaires."
It is the middle class – not Warren Buffett or Wall Street corporations – who will be most hurt by the very policies the "tax the rich" crowd are calling for.

>> ^ghark:

I would just point out one thing for @NetRunner - the OWS movement is not the anti-tea party per se, over 70% of them identify as politically independent.
http://occupywallst.org/article/70-percent-ows-supporters-independent/


That doesn't surprise me in the least. Ultimately to me that's the big X-factor about OWS.

My optimist side says this is just the right kind of brew from which a strong, left-leaning 3rd party could arise. Or maybe just an authentic, left-wing version of the Tea Party -- people who don't swear fealty to the Democratic party, but who will force the politicians of both parties to cater to them via the threat of outside challenges in primaries and general elections. At a minimum, maybe it'll just help keep the media talking about the real problems (unemployment, wealth inequality, corporate misdeeds), and not the fake problems (debt, inflation, regulatory "uncertainty").

My cynical side tells me that its heavy resistance to making alliances with either party (including even established liberal groups like MoveOn), as well as its assiduously non-partisan messaging, is ultimately going to prevent it from being more than just a news fad. I'm worried that their somewhat rigid adherence to "independence" winds up meaning they get themselves political isolation, and not political revolution.

I'm hopeful about the potential for OWS to bring about a real reset of the political system, but each day that goes by without them making any attempt to translate the protest's energy into some sort of direct political action (i.e. voting, petitioning, primarying, general strikes, etc.), a bit of that hope fades. If all they ever plan to do is occupy public spaces and wave signs, they're just going to wind up being ignored.

I get the idea of some individuals or groups trying to co-opt this movement for their own political agendas, like they say happened to the Tea Party movement early on. The bit I didn't quite understand was Mr.Hedges referring to MoveOn.org as "reprehensible"? Too liberal? Anything too partisan is a bad idea?

Edit: I think I get it now after doing a bit of reading:
http://www.americablog.com/2011/10/chris-hedges-occupy-movement-will-not.html

I'd like to hear what he has to say about MoveOn.org.

Not that I'm defending the Democrats, since I think both parties suck. But. Has there ever been an instance where a Democrat pundit or a clearly left-leaning organization ever changed the terminology of a commonly accepted phrase or concept in order to manipulate public opinion?

Because the whole Estate Tax/Death Tax, Public Option/Government Option, Torture/Enhanced Interrogation Techniques phenomenon where common phrases get changed to make people change their opinion on things seems to clearly be a Republican thing.

It just reminds me of the video of the Rand Paul supporter curb stomping the MoveOn.org protester. Has there EVER been an instance where the opposite is true and you have a left-leaning supporter committing violence or even threatening violence to a right-leaning person?

The point is that this is quite arguably NOT 'unjustified' and also quite arguably NOT 'violence'. The other video I linked above has (of course) been ignored. Watch it. The Sift choice above is the aftermath. What brought it on is here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiLeud-sxrM&feature=player_embedded

Hmm - not quite the innocent little rose, is she?

1. "Unjustified". The video plainly and clearly shows Ms. Kooksalot jumping right up at Paul's car window. No one knows who she is. No one knows what the heck she's trying to do. No one knows what the object in her hands might be. A bomb? A gun? When unidenified persons with unidentified objects and unknown intentions jump at political figures they get tackled and held down by security. She's lucky she didn't get tazed or pepper-sprayed or something more serious. If Ms. MoveOn.Stupid runs at political figures like that then a gentle nudge with a foot should be the least of her concerns.

2. "Violence". I've seen several different shots and angles of this so far and I'll just come out and say it. I've gotten harder 'kicks' from infants. The guy puts his foot on her upper tricep area and kind of gave her a bit of a push. Considering what she did, she got off way easy. If it was me then she'd have been in a full nelson eating asphalt until she was identified.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

I can't believe there are people trying to justify stomping on a woman's head. Partisanship is one thing, but condoning violence against women is just sick.


I hate to nitpick, but is it any less sickening if a muscular guy had been stomped on? Unjustified violence is unjustified violence.

It shouldn't matter if it was a woman, or does being stomped on build character in men?

>> ^blankfist:

I don't see how these guys had any right to drag her to the ground at all. But then again there's something about the cut of her jaw and her horn-rimmed glasses that makes me not care that she was.


You're a bastard, Blankfist.

Honestly, there is no context here.
I don't know what led up to this.
I don't know what she did to gain their attention.
I don't know how she ended up on the ground.
I don't know what her motives were.

The push with his foot looked like the same push any one gives as a message to stay down, you've lost, stay down, stop fighting. I think to judge anything by this short clip is wrong (inconclusive). It looks to me his foot was on her shoulder and it slipped a bit - he wasn't aiming for her head.

To get a better motive of her agenda there, I checked out the moveon.org website. I couldn't find the document on how to attract media attention - it may have been pulled due to this attention.

What I did find was video from a different point of view.

Apparently, Lauren was on the side of the road with a crowd watching Rand Paul drive slowly by. In a disguise, with a blond wig on, she rushed the vehicle and tried to shove something inside the vehicle. Supporters and security pulled her back from the vehicle and to the ground. where they told her to stay down.

Read this article to see what really happened: http://www.redstate.com/rs_insider/2010/10/27/exclusive-video-lauren-valle-before-the-head-stomp-vid/

"This video was sent to RedState by an anonymous witness at the event. It shows what Valle was doing when the Paul supporters grabbed her. No one chased her around the car. She was never in front of the car. As you can see in the video, Valle reached in the candidate’s window with her “RepubliCorp” sign and shoved it in his face. Several supporters in Paul shirts have her surrounded at that point, and a man in a suit is the first person to actually intervene physically. It’s hard to tell from the video, but it could be that the man in the suit was with Paul’s security staff.

Toward the end of the video, you see several Paul supporters asking a police officer to come intervene. It was Paul supporters who told Profitt to back off. It was Paul supporters who brought the police. Contrary to the growing narrative on the left, this video clearly shows that Valle was not the victim of a conspiracy to “take her out.” "

>> ^blankfist:

Not nice to tell people to shut up.


I'm going to fucking Kill You!

I'm sorry you were saying something about being nice?

Ahahaha, that was funny and I don't even know why. The way you described it so thoroughly... ahhh made my day

In reply to this comment by direpickle:
I'm usually pretty eager to disagree with NetRunner, but the dude really does pretty obviously slam his foot down on the woman's head, though it's not a curb-stomp. What are you guys saying actually occurred here? There is a video of a woman with her head on the ground. Another guy places his foot over her. It moves down rapidly. Her body moves with the blow. What are you all seeing?

>> ^Truckchase:

hPOD you're right, he was trying to be nice by blessing her with the bottom of his foot. I do it to my mom all the time. Keep talking, you make alot of sense.


I do it to your mom too...

BOOYAH!

>> ^GDGD:

The stomper is believed to be a Tim Proffitt, and the guy who forced her down is believed to be Mike Pezzano.

Step 1: Stomp a helpless lady.

Step 2: ?
Step 3: Proffitt.

Sorry, I had to...