At least the Occupiers are talking about the issues. We do need campaign finance reform that gets big corporate & union money out of politics. We do need tax reform so that profits on non-productive stock market investing isn't taxed at 15% and so that we have other options for our retirement savings instead of sending all our capital to Wall Street in 401(k)'s/403(b)s. The stock/bond market should return to being a rich person's game (for people who can afford to lose their investment) and not become another institution that is too big to fail because so many of us have our retirement money invested there. Look at all the state pension funds that are now underwater. It's a big game! No one understands Wall Street! How did they bounce back so fast after total meltdown??? The banks/mortgage companies/stock bundlers got off scot free but no one helped the homeowners who lost their homes. We need big government to scale down, close the Dept. of Education and others, outlaw unionization of public employees, stop illegal immigration and its costs and give people back control over their own retirement funds to invest as they see fit. We send too much money to Washington; we need to keep it in our communities.

A "just political and economic system" might be tad too optimistic. The country as a whole, however, likes optimistic ideas and movements. American's wouldn't have a country if that wasn't true. The flip side is that American's don't do pessimism well and clearly we don't want people to show us the downside of our system of governance. Most Americans would agree that that we are having some birthing pains about what we want to be when we grow up. But grow up is what we're going to have to do to fix the systemic issues. Simply put, the answer is not deleting the government and putting the citizens into a Madd Maxx you're on your own movie script. It looks good on film (especially if your an angry sort) but in the real world of pain and suffering, it's an adolescent idea. My suggestion to the OWS folks: do exactly what the tea party folks did. The tea party had an ideology of what they wanted the country to look like. They worked from inside the system to change the current system of governance. Good for them for exercising their rights. Now it's up to you. No need to protest, get out, get organized and vote in people who represent what you want your government to look like or elect the party that is closest to those ideals. If you want to go hang out in your tree houses and throw marshmallows at people because your angry, do it on your own time. If you want to act like adults, then it's time to put away the childish ways and get to work. http://tinyurl.com/7khyhvf

anarchists and pigs, the DC taxpayers footed the bill for these bums. They should be required to work off the cost.

Instead of giving a lengthy explanation, I will just supply this as to why I do not support OWS.

http://www.owsexposed.com/documents/OWS-By-The-Numbers.pdf

The poll is too black and white. The protestors have a right to stay and the city has a responsibility to the residents to keep the area clean. The two groups are doing a good job of shooting for a balance. This is in contrast to the way other cites, like Oakland, did not do a good job of supporting the community and the protestors. The DC protest has actually been a very good example of who to protest and how to manage such protests by law enforcement.

I like Marc's comments.
In general, OWS people should be allowed to stay -- and I support OWS philosophically.
HOWEVER, they should figure out a way to keep the area c-l-e-a-n. I am certainly not a neatnik, but stuff should not get filthy. They want to "camp" in a city public park -- fine, but camp as you would in a state or national forest or other natural area.
What you pack in is what you pack out. "NO TRACE" camping is quite do-able, except for degradation of turf. They should try harder.

Some of these comments are really pathetic. These people are staying out in the cold day in and day out as a last recourse to save our republic from a Wall Street plutocracy. And these people are bemoaning messy parks? Really? JFK said, "people who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable." When wide scale violence breaks out to return this nation to a functioning democracy, be glad that you at least have a clean park to go to.

Who in the world could take 4 or 5 months off from work or life and live like pigs illegally in a park in DC, or anywhere else? Only rich kids or bums. Sympathy for these pigs, none here. Take a bath and get a job. But no, it is the people who do go to work every day, pay taxes to the DC government who have to foot the bill for human scum -- and that deprecates scum, for which I apologize.

Sorry Alva, claiming that sad gaggle of hypocritical miscreants in DC (or any city for that matter) are somehow involved in some great sacrifice, struggling to represent the "99%" is pathetic.

It has devolved into a group of people committed to supporting left-wing policies. While they protest the prostitutes on Wall Street, they do nothing to address the pimps in Washington who allowed them to get away with what has many people angered. The claim of wide scale violence breaking out would be the result of the same gaggle of face covered people who trash property at G20 protests. The only people who support their actions are fringe left-wing groups, and the last thing they support is a return of a functioning democracy.

What started as something I would have supported, as time passed, has devolved into the joke that it is today. It is all well documented.

Occupy Movement - Get A Job!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Kv22Vkx9bis#!

Occupy D.C. Protesters Lash Out at Police
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ul3OFY6KApk#!

Occupy DC Pushes Grandma Down Stairs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgcRlrt2ZL4&feature=related

#Occupy Protester Defecates In Public Street
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl1ObUGAoHE&feature=player_embedded

@Alva You did not differentiate what OWS once was, and what it has devolved into. All of those things you pointed out would make any reasonable person upset at banks and Washington. What it has devolved to is a movement where left-wing organizations are showing solidarity for, and trying to capitalize on. That is the difference that occurred over time.

I put my money where my mouth is by donating to and supporting organizations that have nothing to do with OWS.

five months living off the backs of DC taxpayers, trashing 2 beautiful parks, infesting them with rats, rapes, murders -- all sorts of wonderful things happened there. Looking for work? give me a break, the vast majority of this scum are left wing radicals and anarchists. If you know some who are employed, good for you, but I have my doubts. GROW UP, take a bath and get a job is the message they need to hear.

"Your childish and hateful rhetoric speaks volumes about the kind of person you are." Your ad hominem remarks at Dave Phelps and lack of specifics in what you state emphasize the weak stance and message of OWS. A movement in which you state certain things, but the reality of the countless youtube videos and pictures I see of defecating in the street, etc. far outweighs what you state OWS to be.

cute Alva, but the similarity of the pigs in NC and in OWS is apt. As I said, it seems to me that if these human waste -- pun intended -- wanted to accomplish something, living in tents for 5 months, defecating in public, assaulting an old lady, rape, etc would not be the way to do it. But then, they are left wing radicals and anarchists -- who apparently believe that toilets are a capitalist scheme to control the world too = made by profit seeking corporations. Gasp, the horrors!!!!!

My answer - one that you left off of the survey

Yes - They are breaking the law.

Alva, as stated, not by OWS. Money has always been in politics. Unions, Soros and the Hollywood liberal elite, on the left. some corporations on the right, some on the left too -- GE, Solindra, etc. Look at ancient Rome, when the top job, Consul, was often bought. Money and politics, always together. You think defecating in public, rape, rats and beating up old ladies is the solution? Communism was more corrupt than any system, anarchism is even worse, bombs and mayhem. Sorry, thems the facts. The solution? Elect the right people.

Dave, there is a difference between money having some influence on politics, and living in a nation where our republic has been overthrown with a plutocracy. Regardless of how you feel about it, when polled, 81% of the People (who are supposed to be running this little shindig) want to raise taxes on the wealthy. What happens? They get tax cuts. This is more than GE and Solindra. It's every sector of our politics. On the federal, state, and local levels. It's the declaration that "money is speech", meaning of course that unequal equality means unequal rights of speech. It means that a single billionaire can determine that Newt Gingrich is a candidate, instead of the voters. it's said that "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Elect the right people? You mean we should choose the right fox to guard the henhouse. This isn't a hard problem to solve. Bribery used to be a crime that was prosecuted. When our representatives have ceased to be representative, then something more than elections are required to fix the problem. Occupation is one proposed model to address this issue. If you've got a better one, I'm all ears.

Alva - it is obvious that you support these folks - and perhaps some percentage of them are law abiding tax payers but that does not get away from the fact that they are costing the City and the rest ALL tax payers a lot of extra money. If you think for one minute that they are making an impression on Wall Street or the banks you are dead wrong. They are hurting ME personally as a business owner. They are hurting the City, Park Police and residents of D.C. by cutting into the time they can spend solving crimes and reducing crime in the neighborhoods that most need it. They are hurting the small businesses around their encampments by scaring away tourists, local customers and businessmen/women in the area who won't go near there. They are throwing themselves in front of cars, hitting police in the face with bricks, beating up private citizens, defecating in the parks and urinating in mason jars. Their waste feeds into our local streams and tributaries. It is all a part of the Chesapeake Bay water shed and human waste contaminates the soil. Not to mention the ever growing rat population because rats feed of waste - human, dog, etc... they find it to be a delicacy. There are other ways to hit the banks and Wall Street. Grassroots approaches such as joining local credit unions or small banks, only shopping in mom & pop stores, etc... OWS has become a joke and they are not the respected and upstanding human beings you tout them as being.

Alva. So you support this treatment of small business owners as well? Kind of ironic, how OWS claims to be the champion of the 99%, but in we have these results…

SoCal Street Cart Vendors Hurting After ‘Occupy’ Group Splatters Blood, Urine
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2011/11/07/socal-street-cart-vendors-hurting-after-occupy-group-splatters-blood-urine

Occupiers terrorize us: eatery
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/occupiers_terrorize_us_eatery_o4dKzxi3n03WyJWAJu4AhO

Small-business owners tell Occupy Wall Street: You're hurting the 99 percent.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/1110/Small-business-owners-tell-Occupy-Wall-Street-You-re-hurting-the-99-percent

In actuality, here IS what OWS is doing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuFQuEwJ5xI&feature=player_embedded#!

And this is the result of these occupied parks and protests…

Stinking up Wall Street: Protesters accused of living in filth as shocking pictures show one demonstrator defecating on a POLICE CAR
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2046586/Occupy-Wall-Street-Shocking-photos-protester-defecating-POLICE-CAR.html

You can say all you want, but you cannot change the fact that these events have occurred. Period.

Drink the koolaid Alva. It is clearly a waste of time to try to reason with someone who is incapable of, well, reason. Bye.

No Alva, troll feeding gets boring.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28Internet%29

No. we are not the same person. But I have to say that I tire of trying to put some sense into such a koolaid laden person.

I suggest that you go and live with the animals on OWS and see how you like it. For the betterment of man. I only pray, and I do, that you are not one of those animals victims.
I have a job and need to get back to work. The more I do this, the longer I have to stay at the office.

I think OWS would make more of an impact if they polled America online, using Numbers USA or something. That said, I agree that Big-Bucks strutting Wall Street peacocks seem to be breaking the economy, thanks to careless deregulation and outright non-enforcement. The US Government does not exist to prop up companies that overcompensate their executives and operate with the EXPECTATION that the government will rescue them if the big-shot games of their egomaniacal top-director types happen to crash their businesses. Banks and investment houses are supposed to be anchors of financial strength, not bungling comedy theaters with revolving doors into and out of top governmental positions. And government is supposed to represent the People, not rob them blind.