re: #6 Rightwingconspirator

“I’m so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I’m frightened to death,” said Frank Luntz, a Republican strategist and one of the nation’s foremost experts on crafting the perfect political message. “They’re having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism.”

You should be scared you pig. Occupy is going to help take capitalism back from greedy assholes just like you.

“Occupy” has no intention of “taking back” capitalism. Back? As if “Occupy Wall Street” once owned capitalism?

From time to time, the meanings of words shift. If one has in mind the original meaning, one must use the new word that carries the old meaning, for the new word has changed meaning. I cannot say that a bouquet of flowers is gay, any more.

And if I wish to talk about people whose yearly income is partly a pre-agreed minimum, and partly given out at the end of the year based on performance, then I cannot call the part that’s given out at the end of the year a bonus, because nowadays, bonus means unearned, unwarranted extra income. You know, the kind that Fannie Mae’s head James Johnson, and before him Franklin Raines, managed to notch up with the connivance of friends in Congress such as Barney Frank. [The performance targets were fiddled, and the numbers that were supposed to be met to reach the targets were also fiddled, and investigators were warned off by Congressional threats. Details in Gretchen Morgenson’s book on Fannie and Freddie.]

There was a lot of that going on, and there’s probably a lot of it still going on given that Fannie and Freddie have still not been reformed. Nor have Goldman Sachs or Bank of America. But why would we even hope for any reform? Look who’s in power, and look who’s contributing to them.