I'd melt that sucker down for the bronze.

This is some Biblical prophesy bullshiat going on right here. Don't these people know their Bible?

suffra: I used to walk past the bull every morning on my way to work, and on my way back.
No matter how early i came in, or how late i headed home, someone was rubbing that bulls balls, or rubbing the shaft, or sitting doggy style underneath and screaming like it was fully invaded by a metal bull dong.

If that's what moses saw, i can see why he might have gotten annoyed.

Now that you put it that way, perhaps a strong police presence is a good thing.

"I know they're mostly gone from the park, but I saw 10 of them here today," said a cop guarding the beast yesterday. "Our thinking is that they might come back and try something. We don't want anything to happen to the bull."

Funny how he failed to mention how much overtime pay those cops get for standing around 24x7.

Benchmark note to NYC:

When the Chinese start to complain through the UN, you've gone too far.

misanthropologist: And isn't it funny that this statue, whose meaning is entirely open to interpretation - is it a Golden Calf-style monument to prosperity, wealth, and accumulation, or is it a satirical statement about the role of Wall Street in contemporary capitalism?

They should have two animals: A bull and a bear. And they should swap them intermittently.

They bring out the bull when it's a boom economy, and they bring out the bear during a recession.

Right now, the bear should be out there, hanging from a noose.

Can tourists still pet the testicles of the golden bull farting broccoli statue?

Hot Rod Zoidberg: On the 17th, I was tagging along with a crowd of ~30-40 OWSers walking around downtown Manhattan, trying to find a new place to occupy. They managed to find one place and circled up to talk about it. Within 15 minutes, two police vans, three cruisers, and a mobile command vehicle had arrived. (~25-30 cops) It was real cold and everyone, but the cops, was dancing to stay warm.

I wandered back to the PATH station through downtown Manhattan, passed a couple NYPD golf carts, a pack of mounted horses (with mountains of shiat in the street), nearly every intersection was blockaded with a cruiser on standby. Since I don't appear very counter-culture (when covered in winter clothes) I was able to walk right in front of the stock exchange and pass any barriers I wanted. I saw some protesters and gave them directions that bypassed all the barriers to save them some hassle. I walked by Zuccotti Park/Liberty Plaza, which was completely barricaded with checkpoints staffed by private security, a handful of cops milling around trying to stay warm.

This isn't really a CSB, but I wanted to illustrate what overkill it's all become.

It's an example.

If "We the people" step out of line, that is the result. They will move a small army into your town/city and evict and peaceful protest by force. They will harass the "undesirables" and not care one whit about decency. They are there to make you and I afraid. They are very effective at it, aren't they?

This is what a Corporatocracy looks like. The elites cannot see the downside, as to them, things are finally picking back up... they are making profit again! The economy is getting rolling and their back accounts are fattening, so where is the harm?! Some useless, scumbag idiot hippies who don't know how good they have it get a little roughed up... who cares? Those unproductive people who were "living on the dole" now have to just suffer through it... survival of the fittest, right?

The elites aren't made to obey the laws of the rest of us. They are not held to ANY moral standard, nor do they care about our lives, save if they can make more profit from them. What we live in IS a Corporatocracy. To argue against that, at this point, is out and out foolish. There is no effort made to hide it, and examples like this will start to be used more and more. This is just the beginning of the application of the shift in policy, a shift that has been occurring for longer than most of us have been alive. This shift has so much momentum and money behind it that we aren't likely to ever stop it... the BEST we can hope for is to retreat into communities of like minded people and attempt to weather the storm as best we are able to do. The best way to fight against this monster is to starve it as best we are able to do so.

This will not be accomplished via voting, but through changes to how we live and interact with the system. Every step towards independence from corporations (usually via localization) is a good step. Coal corporations can argue against solar technology all they want, but if everyone quit waiting for the tech to "get better" and just put up some solar panels (with all the loans and tax breaks, they pay for themselves in about 4 years) we'd drive those greedy, poluting bastards back into their proper place in the matter of a decade.

A lot of things could be accomplished via these simple steps, but we choose not to. We CHOOSE to give over our independence for convince.We would rather be less free and more comfortable, even if that means that our comfort could be ripped away at a moments notice, and we couldn't do a damn thing about it.... that's not a good place to be, nationally.