Would a libertarian feel out-of-place at an Occupy Wall Street protest?

I support it for the most part. I see a lot of different people involved, with a lot of different views, and I reject the establishment's attempts to frame it as a "democratic" or "socialist" uprising. That seems like a divide and conquer tactic to me.

They want the Left to think the Tea Party is astroturf created by the GOP, Fox News and the Koch Brothers. They want the Right to think OWS is astroturf created by the Democrats, the Unions and George Soros. Both of these movements were grassroots at the very beginning and were later partially or fully co-opted by the establishment.

Their worst fear is that the two sides might actually get together and have a conversation. Am I allowed to support both? I think certain Wall St. financial companies should be protested.

As should Washington DC, and every Federal Reserve branch in the country. Perhaps not for the same reasons as some of the occupiers, but I think we still have a few common goals. My problem with Wall Street is not that these companies are "rich."

The "disparity between rich and poor" is not the issue (though it is certainly one symptom). The issue is criminal collusion between government and the financial industry. The issue is the entire monetary and banking system, which itself is fraudulent.

The problem is the Federal Reserve, private banks being able to issue their own currency, the SEC turning a blind eye to mass-scale fraud that ruins millions of lives, and our government telling us that WE THE PEOPLE are now responsible for repaying the losses that private banks sustained via toxic derivative assets that should have been illegal to begin with. Libertarians have been protesting Wall St. since long before it became hip. These issues are at the core of why the Tea Party was formed in 2007, and exploded after the 2008 bailouts.

Whenever someone protests the Fed, they are protesting Wall St. as well. Wall St. is the Fed, and vice versa. I want to see criminal investigations and indictments.

I want to see a full audit of the Federal Reserve and an END to private banking cartels, Keynesian fascism, and fractional reserve lending. I see the "occupy" movement as an opportunity to finally educate a broader range of people about these critical issues. They are finally "mad as hell" and they've turned off the television and taken to the streets.

So now, hopefully, they will be willing to expend the mental energy to learn about the system they've been living under, and why it is a massive deception. When it comes to the "occupiers," I do take issue when people tell me "capitalism is the problem." I agree that the current system is the problem.

But I'm not convinced that capitalism is the system we have today, and these people don't even try to make that case. They just accept "America is a capitalist county" as a foregone conclusion, and base the rest of their ideological demands around that false premise. Do they think these problems can be solved by dismantling capitalism?

If so, they've already won. They can go home. I don't hate these people, they're not "bad" just because they don't fully understand the nature of the system and why it is flawed.

At least they can intuitively see that it IS a flawed system, and they have the initiative to at least try to take action to change it. That's more than I can say for most people. Now they just need a little guidance from those of us who've been studying these issues for years prior to the birth of their movement.

One thing I've heard several times is a call for "economic democracy" in which the people have a say in what corporations do. Well, that's what capitalism is supposed to achieve. Unfortunately, it requires freedom, competition (diversity of choices), and informed consumers to function properly.

And we have none of those things. Wall St (Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan etc.) are among the shareholders of the private Federal Reserve bank. The Fed runs the current White House.

The government taxes and squeezes the people to pay off the private bankers. It's all part of the same system.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.