Occupy Wall Street Movement Is a Year Old: Did it Change Anything?

You are correct in assessing that Mr. Romney (for whom I did not vote BTW) has incredible wealth but it is a large stretch which betrays your own bias to presume that you know that he does not care about you if you do not have any money. That's specious and simply ad hominem. Mitt has given vast sums of money away to charities and has been molded by a religion that does value human beings but has also determined that it is not uncharitable to gain wealth through your own efforts. The old Progressive Republican legion more sought social justice through open opportunities for advancement and to have access to the corridors of wealth acquisition as it were. What one did to attain such or do after such was attained was more defining of character than the accumulation of it. My suspicion is that you are not wealthy or those whom you love are either not wealthy or have lost your wealth. If so, this experience biases your viewpoint. I hold you neither in esteem nor disdain for whatever your economic status is but merely point out that your opinions sound more biased based on the way that you express conclusions that you cannot know and are character assassination in their tone rather than state specific examples. Bias would lead you to completely discount Mr. Romney's contributions towards charity and focus on any behavior that reinforces your opinion and ignoring that which negates it. I admit I have a bias against opinions based on emotional predisposition and pre-estabilished categorization that engenders your opinion before any facts are in evidence. (e.g. All Democrats like to tax and spend; All Republicans are beholden to wealth ... etc.) You will find in interesting to take a tack opposite to your own and witness the conflagration of hate that comes your way by merely positing a position different from either the far Right or the far Left. I'm sure your bias would conclude that a governor that would oversee the relocation of millions of Japanese during WWII would be unfit for the Supreme Court. I might agree but we would both be very wrong. Given the tenor of your prior post, we would be equally wrong but you would be more absolutely certain of your conviction that would I since you are more quick to determine actions and attitudes by label than would I.

The 99% made a major mistake to not have some ideas that would emasculate the 1%. The wealth disparity has widened ridiculously in the past 30 or so years and that has been with the consent and aid of both parties. A Republican can't climb into bed with a rich bedpartner without a Democrat falling out of the other side of the bed!! What WILL help the 99% is improving the friggin' playing field. The best way to diminish the power of wealth is to limit its access to political power and one of the best ways to do that is campaign finance reform and term limitations. Power is cumulative ... gains like a snowball rolling down a mountainside. If we can stop it from rolling early, maybe we can stop an avalanche down hill. Voting with any individual that will agree to limit the accumulation of power (if such can be found .. though there are a few ... before the ethics get sucked out of them by Washington, D.C.) no matter the party. This might force Republicans to vote for Dems and vice versa ... i.e. the true INDEPENDENT voter, who will vote based on facts and character, not always in agreement with me but who can explain their vote such that I can understand it wasn't purchased. If you and I were to have a race dribbling a ball down a sidewalk and back, but I got first pick of the balls, and chose a basketball, leaving you with a football ... guess who'd win? It only seemed fair at first blush. The 99%'ers should have found a way to resonate with ALL of the 99%, not just the lower 20% that were demonstrating. It's the laws that allowed Romney to use legal means to acquire wealth. Change those. If he acquired wealth legally though with questionable moral fiber, it doesn't negate the fact that it was legal. Change the laws the tilt the table. That has better dynamics than outraged whining, which the larger population find tiresome and infantile.

Thank you. My prior post "in defense of Romney" was not a defense of Romney but more a cautionary note that we not make conclusions on another's character due to our own biases, that we all suffer from confirmation bias.

"Confirmation Bias
A cognitive bias is a tendency to think in one way and not another when faced with certain situations. Every brain in every body comes preloaded with cognitive biases and then adds some more as it navigates through life.

Like most people, you are biased to notice, remember, and seek out information that confirms your beliefs and opinions while ignoring, forgetting and outright avoiding information that disconfirms your pre-existing notions.

The things you place on your bookshelf, the sites you add to your web-browser’s bookmarks, and the sources you trust for daily news are all selected through the lens of your confirmation bias. When you head to the opinions pages or flip the channel to your favorite pundit, you don’t do so out of desire for information, but out of a need for confirmation of your beliefs and a desire for validation of your ideas."

Mitt's comment about the 47% was a strategic analysis -- though it showed shameless pandering to that audience of wealthy elitists. If we were to define him more on this event, it would say more about his groveling for support than how he would actually govern. His prior record showed him more of a centrist than a R wing elitist. What was worrisome is more his being a chameleon than what were perceived to be his true colors. Obama played the same game and did it better. His statisticians and strategists targeted the 6% between them and won convincingly.

Your comment that you do not need to work will engender some biases though it is not for me to have any inkling of what those comprise. One of the newer theories on reasoning is that our "reasoning" is meant to be argumentative and but not necessarily correct (though it can be) due to confirmation bias ... rather it is meant to enhance our own biases in a social milieu such that the mixture of differing arguments can ferret a better group agreement (if not consensus) for action. Experiments in Psychologic Sciences have determined that, for most, if left to make decisions purely on our "own reasoning," we tend to be erroneous. Interesting and explains a lot, esp in the blogosphere.