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On November 15 2011 06:45 mechavoc wrote:Show nested quote +On November 15 2011 06:19 mmp wrote:On November 15 2011 05:52 mechavoc wrote:On November 15 2011 05:26 Nothingtosay wrote:
As the old saying goes capitalism is the worst system of distribution, with the exception of all others.
OWS isn't anticapitalism.
Then what are they? No need for back and forth. ..... That said, the meat and potatoes of the movement is people that are just fed up with corruption in government and want justice, the restoration of the rule of law. If you listen to people and read up on government, policy, and history, you'll learn that there are real grievances being expressed by the movement that are ignored by conventional power. People complain about capitalism because it is the prevalence of greed and wealthy influence in power that blocks democratic voices, and those that defend the system argue a moral imperative of markets to be free and for money to have free speech. The OWS movement's message is legitimate when democratically-supported price floors, anti-trust regulations, assertion of the public's right to public goods & services (things that we payed for but have been taken out of our control), the right to collectively bargain... all of these things are taken away from citizens while business people & politicians argue that it's infringing on the free speech of moneyed interests. You don't have to hate capitalism to love democracy. I really like the back and forth and you are making good points. My point is why is it Banks and Wall Street and the scapegoat 1% that are the targets ? They do what they should do maximize profit, it is politics that have become corrupted, having tax payers protect bad companies. Why isn't this Occupy DC ? The Democrats and Republicans are the ones who warped capitalism. As a Any Rand loving capitalist who would love nothing more than to be the 1% of the 1% I get all of the anger at the politicians but not at the companies. It is insane to me that our government set up the system for companies to reap all of the benefits of the capitalist system in the boom times, and the only check and balance that the capitalist system has (bad companies going out of business ) in bad time.
Saying companies naturally seek greater profit and that that is good, is like saying government naturally seeks greater power and that is good.
If a company works to pass a law that allows it to profit while being unproductive, then that comany's officers and structure is just as much to blame as the politicians that pass it and the structures of the government.
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On November 15 2011 06:45 mechavoc wrote:Show nested quote +On November 15 2011 06:19 mmp wrote:On November 15 2011 05:52 mechavoc wrote:On November 15 2011 05:26 Nothingtosay wrote:
As the old saying goes capitalism is the worst system of distribution, with the exception of all others.
OWS isn't anticapitalism.
Then what are they? No need for back and forth. ..... That said, the meat and potatoes of the movement is people that are just fed up with corruption in government and want justice, the restoration of the rule of law. If you listen to people and read up on government, policy, and history, you'll learn that there are real grievances being expressed by the movement that are ignored by conventional power. People complain about capitalism because it is the prevalence of greed and wealthy influence in power that blocks democratic voices, and those that defend the system argue a moral imperative of markets to be free and for money to have free speech. The OWS movement's message is legitimate when democratically-supported price floors, anti-trust regulations, assertion of the public's right to public goods & services (things that we payed for but have been taken out of our control), the right to collectively bargain... all of these things are taken away from citizens while business people & politicians argue that it's infringing on the free speech of moneyed interests. You don't have to hate capitalism to love democracy. I really like the back and forth and you are making good points. My point is why is it Banks and Wall Street and the scapegoat 1% that are the targets ? They do what they should do maximize profit, it is politics that have become corrupted, having tax payers protect bad companies. Why isn't this Occupy DC ? The Democrats and Republicans are the ones who warped capitalism. As a Any Rand loving capitalist who would love nothing more than to be the 1% of the 1% I get all of the anger at the politicians but not at the companies. It is insane to me that our government set up the system for companies to reap all of the benefits of the capitalist system in the boom times, and the only check and balance that the capitalist system has (bad companies going out of business ) in bad time.
As I said, if you look into the movements you'll find that there is a richer set of complaints beneath the surface. You'll also learn how the electoral process has been gamed by business interests to shut out electoral reform, campaign finance reform, healthcare reform, consumer protection, environmental protection, and dutiful prosecution of known white-collar crimes. Wall Street is symbolic of this corruption because downtown New York controls the lives and livelihoods of millions of people around the world, and has in recent years had a visibly damnable influence in government.
Folks who pay attention know that there is a revolving door between professionals and policymakers. There are multiple occupations in DC. A contingent of OWS is marching to DC at this moment. People who get it get it, those who don't ask naive questions in this forum. Go educate yourself with facts.
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On November 15 2011 05:50 mechavoc wrote:Show nested quote +On November 15 2011 05:29 Grumbels wrote:
Why should OWS come up with an alternative? The solutions are out there. On virtually any issue in the world there's a vast amount of academic literature as to what would be a sensible course of action, from environmental to economic policies. Coming up with the solutions is not OWS' task, it's simply a demonstration of not agreeing with the political culture of the USA and possibly its culture in general. I read some description that said: "It's the closest thing to going on strike at your culture we have." Why should they come up with an alternative? Because coming up with an alternative is adding some value. Sitting there and pointing fingers at what is bad without doing something to fix it is a giant waste of energy and resources. Key word there is academic. I'm more interested in real world solutions. Your view of what is an ideal economic system are bound to be a bit warped by how awesome Norway is. Norway is an shining example of how things could be and what we should all strive for. Great education, great social services, low unemployment, a balanced national budget. However Norway has significant advantages that not many other countries have. #1 Vast oil income relative to the size of the small population #2 Very small population (4.8 Million in the US New York alone is almost double that) #3 Small % of GDP spent on defense #4 Low rate of immigration. Being Norway is not cheap and the US can not afford it.
You forgot another point most people don't realize:
A lot higher taxes for everyone, somehow it looks like people think taxing the rich will give it all but in reality everyone will have to pay high taxes for such a system to excist.
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On November 15 2011 07:03 mmp wrote:
People who get it get it, those who don't ask naive questions in this forum. Go educate yourself with facts.
MMP you are kind of an angry guy.
All of the other responses have made their points known without the need to resort to the kind of personal attacks that you have.
Perhaps instead of resorting to calling me ignorant and naive, this was a great opportunity for you to provide a service and educate me on the depth and breadth of the OWS movement demands and to provide a concise list of their issues and more importantly their proposed solutions. Since you are obviously a person who "gets it" and I would suspect make up the top 1% intellectually.
Perhaps with your guidance I can make it out of the bottom 50% and someday “get “ a small fragment of what you intuitively grasp.
Or you could have maintained moral superiority and avoided insults by just not posting at all and leaving me to wallow in my own ignorance.
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i'm all for being against corporations/rich people that take part in illegal activities in order to make money etc, but i don't agree with the idea of no one is able to be rich, which is what many people believe. you don't deserve to go to occupy wallstreet protests if you believe in that, and what's sad is many of these supporters are either people who went to college on a loan and got a liberal arts (or something of that nature) degree and are now in debt. i'm sorry but people need to handle their own lives.
my father was a high school dropout and worked hard all of his life and never did any gov handouts etc. i'm not saying no one is in true poverty (many actually are because of disabilities etc) but some just use the system (my brothers wife does for example).
if you're someone who got in debt from going to college to pursue a liberal arts degree, then that is your problem; that is what i'm kinda saying.
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On November 15 2011 08:38 Silidons wrote:
i'm all for being against corporations/rich people that take part in illegal activities in order to make money etc, but i don't agree with the idea of no one is able to be rich, which is what many people believe. you don't deserve to go to occupy wallstreet protests if you believe in that, and what's sad is many of these supporters are either people who went to college on a loan and got a liberal arts (or something of that nature) degree and are now in debt. i'm sorry but people need to handle their own lives.
my father was a high school dropout and worked hard all of his life and never did any gov handouts etc. i'm not saying no one is in true poverty (many actually are because of disabilities etc) but some just use the system (my brothers wife does for example).
if you're someone who got in debt from going to college to pursue a liberal arts degree, then that is your problem; that is what i'm kinda saying.
See, the problem with this attitude is that it is scientifically demonstrable that your father was lucky. Sure, he worked very hard. But he also had to be lucky, because the world is filled with people who work hard and die penniless anyway.
There are whole sections of sociology and economics devoted to studying the kinds of claims that you are making here. First, the ease of moving up the income ladder (i.e. if you are born poor, how likely are you to become rich, statistically speaking?) is far far lower in the United States than in much of Europe. This socioeconomic mobility has also been decreasing for some time now- that is to say, if you are born poor, your chances of becoming rich are lower than ever. If you are born rich, your chances of remaining rich are higher than ever.
Second, while it may seem that pursuing a liberal arts degree is an irresponsible and foolish course of action, to call it such is sort of missing the point. The unemployment rate among young people in the U.S.A is 17%. That is very, very high. And this unemployment is persistently high even for young people who pursued more convention degrees: law, business, the social sciences.
There is also significant evidence that spells of unemployment are becoming both longer and more damaging. This is an interesting fact- being unemployed while you are young is correlated with strongly reduced lifetime earnings. In other words, miss out on a job at this critical point in your life, and your whole career might be shot.
So now we have a large group of young people in debt, who can't find work, and who want to do something. This is the unifying feature among the people I've talked to. These men and women want to work for a better world, and the current state of affairs does not allow them to do so. Shouldn't we be tapping this energy, instead of looking down on them?
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Canada11583 Posts
On November 15 2011 08:38 Silidons wrote:
i'm all for being against corporations/rich people that take part in illegal activities in order to make money etc, but i don't agree with the idea of no one is able to be rich, which is what many people believe. you don't deserve to go to occupy wallstreet protests if you believe in that, and what's sad is many of these supporters are either people who went to college on a loan and got a liberal arts (or something of that nature) degree and are now in debt. i'm sorry but people need to handle their own lives.
my father was a high school dropout and worked hard all of his life and never did any gov handouts etc. i'm not saying no one is in true poverty (many actually are because of disabilities etc) but some just use the system (my brothers wife does for example).
if you're someone who got in debt from going to college to pursue a liberal arts degree, then that is your problem; that is what i'm kinda saying.
Except for radical socialists, I don't think anyone is against people getting rich. I would hazard a guess most at these protests are not against people getting rich, but are against the abuses and exploitation within the capitalist system.
I also dislike the claim that uni people on loan got some useless degree and that's all there it is to it. I don't know how it is in the US, but in Canada I worked the exact same summer job as my dad and got paid the same wage as he did 30 years ago. Whereas tuition costs have quadrupled in the last 20 years. Plus everything else has gone up in price. (Last 10 years rent has gone up 30%.)
I'm not necessarily saying tuition should be dropped in cost (the money will follow the Baby Boomers anyways, which will be healthcare), but I think it's rather unfair to blame students for debt over some false notion of their supposed irresponsibility. (Especially that the whole lot of them are just taking useless courses.) A lot are being very responsible, working multiple jobs, starting in community colleges and transferring, or spreading their education out even longer to afford it. However, they still got in debt because wages have remained pretty stagnant over the last so many years.
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On November 15 2011 08:48 Expurgate wrote:Show nested quote +On November 15 2011 08:38 Silidons wrote:
i'm all for being against corporations/rich people that take part in illegal activities in order to make money etc, but i don't agree with the idea of no one is able to be rich, which is what many people believe. you don't deserve to go to occupy wallstreet protests if you believe in that, and what's sad is many of these supporters are either people who went to college on a loan and got a liberal arts (or something of that nature) degree and are now in debt. i'm sorry but people need to handle their own lives.
my father was a high school dropout and worked hard all of his life and never did any gov handouts etc. i'm not saying no one is in true poverty (many actually are because of disabilities etc) but some just use the system (my brothers wife does for example).
if you're someone who got in debt from going to college to pursue a liberal arts degree, then that is your problem; that is what i'm kinda saying. See, the problem with this attitude is that it is scientifically demonstrable that your father was lucky. Sure, he worked very hard. But he also had to be lucky, because the world is filled with people who work hard and die penniless anyway. There are whole sections of sociology and economics devoted to studying the kinds of claims that you are making here. First, the ease of moving up the income ladder (i.e. if you are born poor, how likely are you to become rich, statistically speaking?) is far far lower in the United States than in much of Europe. This socioeconomic mobility has also been decreasing for some time now- that is to say, if you are born poor, your chances of becoming rich are lower than ever. If you are born rich, your chances of remaining rich are higher than ever. Second, while it may seem that pursuing a liberal arts degree is an irresponsible and foolish course of action, to call it such is sort of missing the point. The unemployment rate among young people in the U.S.A is 17%. That is very, very high. And this unemployment is persistently high even for young people who pursued more convention degrees: law, business, the social sciences. There is also significant evidence that spells of unemployment are becoming both longer and more damaging. This is an interesting fact- being unemployed while you are young is correlated with strongly reduced lifetime earnings. In other words, miss out on a job at this critical point in your life, and your whole career might be shot. So now we have a large group of young people in debt, who can't find work, and who want to do something. This is the unifying feature among the people I've talked to. These men and women want to work for a better world, and the current state of affairs does not allow them to do so. Shouldn't we be tapping this energy, instead of looking down on them?
Wait, did you actually say that luck was scientifically demonstrable ?
I also disagree with your unemployment numbers. I've heard the unemployment rate among college graduates is about 5%.
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I'd just like to say that we all had ourr warnings years ago in the Shinra run world of Final Fantasy 7! Who would've thought right?
Anyways I like what you guys are saying on thread the whole going back and forth the companies and politicians fighting for power and profit while regular people struggle in between. However eventually do you think it might turn out like FF7 not to make our world a game reference but I mean a similar outcome where one company rules the world?
I know what I have said may have made this somewhat humorous but keep it serious please.
Ps. You need a chocobo to pass the Midgar Zolom
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On November 15 2011 09:01 Kaitlin wrote:Show nested quote +On November 15 2011 08:48 Expurgate wrote:On November 15 2011 08:38 Silidons wrote:
i'm all for being against corporations/rich people that take part in illegal activities in order to make money etc, but i don't agree with the idea of no one is able to be rich, which is what many people believe. you don't deserve to go to occupy wallstreet protests if you believe in that, and what's sad is many of these supporters are either people who went to college on a loan and got a liberal arts (or something of that nature) degree and are now in debt. i'm sorry but people need to handle their own lives.
my father was a high school dropout and worked hard all of his life and never did any gov handouts etc. i'm not saying no one is in true poverty (many actually are because of disabilities etc) but some just use the system (my brothers wife does for example).
if you're someone who got in debt from going to college to pursue a liberal arts degree, then that is your problem; that is what i'm kinda saying. See, the problem with this attitude is that it is scientifically demonstrable that your father was lucky. Sure, he worked very hard. But he also had to be lucky, because the world is filled with people who work hard and die penniless anyway. There are whole sections of sociology and economics devoted to studying the kinds of claims that you are making here. First, the ease of moving up the income ladder (i.e. if you are born poor, how likely are you to become rich, statistically speaking?) is far far lower in the United States than in much of Europe. This socioeconomic mobility has also been decreasing for some time now- that is to say, if you are born poor, your chances of becoming rich are lower than ever. If you are born rich, your chances of remaining rich are higher than ever. Second, while it may seem that pursuing a liberal arts degree is an irresponsible and foolish course of action, to call it such is sort of missing the point. The unemployment rate among young people in the U.S.A is 17%. That is very, very high. And this unemployment is persistently high even for young people who pursued more convention degrees: law, business, the social sciences. There is also significant evidence that spells of unemployment are becoming both longer and more damaging. This is an interesting fact- being unemployed while you are young is correlated with strongly reduced lifetime earnings. In other words, miss out on a job at this critical point in your life, and your whole career might be shot. So now we have a large group of young people in debt, who can't find work, and who want to do something. This is the unifying feature among the people I've talked to. These men and women want to work for a better world, and the current state of affairs does not allow them to do so. Shouldn't we be tapping this energy, instead of looking down on them? Wait, did you actually say that luck was scientifically demonstrable ? I also disagree with your unemployment numbers. I've heard the unemployment rate among college graduates is about 5%.
Yes, I did. Because it is.
According to the BLS report from August of this year: The number of unemployed youth in July 2011 was 4.1 million, down from 4.4 million a year ago. The youth unemployment rate declined by 1.0 percentage point over the year to 18.1 percent in July 2011, after hitting a record high for July in 2010. Among major demographic groups, unemployment rates were lower than a year earlier for young men (18.3 percent) and Asians (15.3 percent), while jobless rates were little changed for young women (17.8 percent), whites (15.9 percent), blacks (31.0 percent), and Hispanics (20.1 percent). (See table 2.)
Emphasis mine.
EDIT: I see you were speaking specifically about unemployment among college graduates. The latest BLS statistics put that at about 8.5%, seasonally adjusted, which is considered to be a good bit above the natural rate of unemployment (somewhat below 6% for the US). When those with further degrees are considered, the unemployment rate does drop to around 4.5%, seasonally adjusted.
These numbers don't include changes in the participation rate. Generally speaking, the participation rate among all socioeconomic groups has been falling over the last several years, meaning more and more people have stopped looking for work.
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On November 15 2011 07:01 screamingpalm wrote:Show nested quote +
Why isn't this Occupy DC ? The Democrats and Republicans are the ones who warped capitalism.
I suppose in a sense it is going directly to the belly of the beast (do you call out the puppet or the one pulling its strings?). Politicians are little more than paid puppets to create legislation that benefits and enables the fraud being commited. Although, it's not only Wall Street playing this game... PhRMA writing Obamacare, for example. I think if you "follow the money" it should be clear however.
I'm really glad to see the protests spreading all over the US, debate being initiated, and dogmas being questioned. In the end we are not so different one from another.
Cheers from Spain
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On November 15 2011 09:01 Kaitlin wrote:Show nested quote +On November 15 2011 08:48 Expurgate wrote:On November 15 2011 08:38 Silidons wrote:
i'm all for being against corporations/rich people that take part in illegal activities in order to make money etc, but i don't agree with the idea of no one is able to be rich, which is what many people believe. you don't deserve to go to occupy wallstreet protests if you believe in that, and what's sad is many of these supporters are either people who went to college on a loan and got a liberal arts (or something of that nature) degree and are now in debt. i'm sorry but people need to handle their own lives.
my father was a high school dropout and worked hard all of his life and never did any gov handouts etc. i'm not saying no one is in true poverty (many actually are because of disabilities etc) but some just use the system (my brothers wife does for example).
if you're someone who got in debt from going to college to pursue a liberal arts degree, then that is your problem; that is what i'm kinda saying. See, the problem with this attitude is that it is scientifically demonstrable that your father was lucky. Sure, he worked very hard. But he also had to be lucky, because the world is filled with people who work hard and die penniless anyway. There are whole sections of sociology and economics devoted to studying the kinds of claims that you are making here. First, the ease of moving up the income ladder (i.e. if you are born poor, how likely are you to become rich, statistically speaking?) is far far lower in the United States than in much of Europe. This socioeconomic mobility has also been decreasing for some time now- that is to say, if you are born poor, your chances of becoming rich are lower than ever. If you are born rich, your chances of remaining rich are higher than ever. Second, while it may seem that pursuing a liberal arts degree is an irresponsible and foolish course of action, to call it such is sort of missing the point. The unemployment rate among young people in the U.S.A is 17%. That is very, very high. And this unemployment is persistently high even for young people who pursued more convention degrees: law, business, the social sciences. There is also significant evidence that spells of unemployment are becoming both longer and more damaging. This is an interesting fact- being unemployed while you are young is correlated with strongly reduced lifetime earnings. In other words, miss out on a job at this critical point in your life, and your whole career might be shot. So now we have a large group of young people in debt, who can't find work, and who want to do something. This is the unifying feature among the people I've talked to. These men and women want to work for a better world, and the current state of affairs does not allow them to do so. Shouldn't we be tapping this energy, instead of looking down on them? Wait, did you actually say that luck was scientifically demonstrable ? I also disagree with your unemployment numbers. I've heard the unemployment rate among college graduates is about 5%.
No, its not 5%. You might be checking adjusted numbers, and they are probably subject to the BLS "new adjustment system" that they decided to start using since the new recession hit. Go to bls.gov and check out the monthly labor situation , it gives you a complete breakdown, and its very very complicated, which allows people to spew out convoluted, innaccurate stats about unemployment in my opinion.
What expurgate said is actually very very true, the probability of going up from the middle class %s up to a "1%er" has never been lower in our country. The propensity to go up just isn't there, and its not due to hard work, its due to investment ceilings.
The real issue here is our tax code. People who take risk and make huge investment capital are respected here, but what we all don't realize is how they slip outside our horribly outdated tax code. During the George W. Bush era we all heard about tax cuts for the wealthy, and what we also have now are people getting HUGE deductions. The problem is that the additive nature of deductions favors the wealthy, and their amount of taxes paid per year vs their total wealth is laughable. Maybe some of you guys have like 5 grand put away for a rainy day, right? You pay almost half of your salary at your middle class job a year in income tax, which is going to be around say, 30 grand. Well guess what, your total worth is the rest of your salary, your meager 5grand savings, and the rest of the shit you own. Meanwhile donald trump is out there getting LOADS of deductions, doing high risk untaxed investments, and making exponentially more money than you without even having to worry about taxes and the like. Anyone who is rich in this country will tell you that they made smart investments, they didn't live off of a salary unless they are a brain surgeon, high level actuary, etc. Basically: if you aren't highly skilled at something, don't worry, because just mediocre investing is more worthwhile than working for your money in America!
Income tax and rising property taxes, gas costs, etc. are driving our middle class nuts right now. That combined with the unemployment rate is making it almost impossible to retain a middle class. This isn't because of the inherent nature of capitalism, it is completely the fault of our government's policies, tax code, and deficit spending. Did I also mention that they are married to our banks and pharmaceuticals? 35-45% of all fortune 500 companies are banks/pharmaceuticals.
For some reason the income tax is still implemented here even though it was only supposed to be for wartime, so the federal government will continue to get larger and larger, and keep deficit spending until who knows. They don't spend Donald Trump's money when they buy that new missile, they are spending the money that you worked hard for today. I think that just a new tax code could probably save us from this recession, and anything on top of that would just be plain awesome. BUT IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN
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NYC Camp is being raided.
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NYT confirms NYPD is going to try and evict protesters from Zuccotti Park reports of 1000 riot cops, NYFD, Park is surrounded.
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NYPD has actually sent a Counter Terrorism Unit in:
Press are being blocked, those inside the park are being arrested. Police have ordered Street Carts are being told to shut down.
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http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57324763/riot-police-surround-occupy-wall-street-camp/
(CBS News) Police in riot gear surrounded New York City's Zuccotti Park late Tuesday evening, and distributed fliers to the Occupy Wall Street protesters camped out there for weeks ordering them to evacuate the grounds while maintenance is carried out.
CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston reports the police fliers informed the anti-Wall Street demonstrators that they would be allowed to return to the park after the maintenance was conducted.
The nature of the work, and how long it might take, were unclear.
Live video from the WCBS news helicopter showed police surrounding the park, but there was no confrontation between police or protesters immediately visible.
Police and protesters were seen moving calmly around the park, and there appeared to be no effort underway to remove anybody or any tents by force.
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Shit is about to go down...
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On November 15 2011 16:06 Shiragaku wrote:
Shit is about to go down...
Aye seems like something may occur.
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Any sign of violence/aggression going on by the protesters?
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EPT![[image loading]](http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitpic/photos/full/447453822.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJF3XCCKACR3QDMOA&Expires=1321340732&Signature=8dfQpylN%2FzjczNi7ayCxMNDLRAY%3D)
