Members of the Temple University College Republicans gathered today at 4:30 p.m. in front of Sen. Pat Toomey’s district office in Center City, to rally against Occupy Philadelphia.
“We’re just out here to show that everyone does not support this movement,” junior political science major Erik Jacobs, president of the group, said. “There is a counter-discourse out there that needs to be represented.”
Occupy Philadelphia, a movement of protests taking place across the country, targets and fights against economic injustice in the corporate system, among other causes.
Among the messages on the group’s signs were: “I love capitalism” and “Cut taxes and cut spending.”
“I’m here to defend capitalism,” sophomore economics major Eric Cedor said. “The rally of Occupy Philly has turned into a pro-Communism type of fight and Communism has failed everywhere it’s been tried, it does not work. Capitalism is the best allocation of resources. If you want a job and you want a future, you need capitalism.”
The students arrived before the Occupy Philadelphia participants, who had planned to demonstrate in front of Toomey’s office, and were soon joined by police on bicycles. Preparing for conflict, the officers formed a protective bicycle blockade around the students.
Occupy Philadelphia protestors arrived and began making speeches outside the senator’s office. They directly addressed the Republican students, calling for a civil discourse. Soon after, the demonstrators returned to City Hall, where they have been camping out for a week.
Jacobs characterized the experience as intense, but said he still views it as positive.
“We got attention and it was peaceful so everything was accomplished that we wanted to have accomplished,” Jacobs said.
Members of the group said they would continue making their views known and defending the country’s current economic system.
“Occupy Wall Street started out as ‘We don’t like immorality in the financial system,’” freshman pre-law major Cory Haberkern said. “I bemoan that too, I don’t like it whatsoever. Then it turned into, ‘We hate capitalism,’ and that’s not good. That is what made this country great, that is what made this country prosperous and gave everybody in this country a higher standard of living than everybody else in the world. So the fact that they want to attack it is wrong.”
Kate Kelly can be reached at katekelly@temple.edu.
For an expanded version of this story, pick up The Temple News on Tuesday, Oct. 18.
This would be great if the Occupy Philadelphia movement was actually against capitalism. It isn’t though, so the counter-protest was kind of irrelevant.
I suppose you could explain why all I heard there today was anti-capitalist jargon? Why people asked us why we support capitalism making us serfs.
What is it about then?
We live in a country no longer represented by the people but by the interests of major corporations and the money they use through lobbying to pay off our elected officials. These politicians no longer voice the opinion of the voters who put them in office but instead speak for the special interests which pay them more and more money to turn a blind eye to the destruction of our environment and the extinction of the middle class. How long will the occupations have to last before a SINGLE government official asks what WE the PEOPLE want changed? Visit my artist’s blog at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2011/09/occupywallstreet.html to see my art for the movement and also see videos of the protests and police brutality as well as get other sources for coverage of the movement.
Cory, it is about only one thing. Removing corporate influence from politics, as we have seen the people peddling bad debts to states and ruining the economy, then making huge donations because their fiduciary responsibility trumps their responsibility to the people. The people are suffering. The Wall Street robber barons are not. That sets us up for an unsustainable system. Plus, I’ve been down there and helped organize this thing. I can guarantee you it’s not anti-capitalist, because I wish it was.
Both sides are right and wrong. The overall theme of fighting inequality and corporate influence and greed is good and there are some really great people who are working hard to get the message out. BUT there are tons and tons of crazies, hippies, and ignorant college students who don’t know anything about economics or business who are seriously detracting from the legitimate message and seem to be doing everything in their power to not be taken seriously (costumes, stupid signs, absurd demands, people with dreadlocks having a drum circle, etc).
Great to see people of different backgrounds gathered together for the betterment of ourselves. Americans are suffering, for what? So the rich can continue to get richer while the poor stay where they are. This country has always been run by big money. I’m sorry to say that our President is nothing but a puppet. Read “Shadows of Power” by James Pearl. Regardless of how highly one is educated seems pretty moot when the message is clear. I bet Joe can enlighten us on the statistics at to those who have and those who don’t, can tell us every corporation that Americans bailed out and what we gained from them and what amount their CEO’s took home on their way out. He could probably even tell us how many of these companies and all of those in this country that have taken jobs away from Americans to send them overseas to pay less of a salary, etc. I’m all for sharing the wealth, but when the wealth is not to be found in our home country, why aren’t the companies that were bailed out restricted from such actions? Are there companies being given special treatment for the creation of jobs in this country? I grew up thinking that America was the richest company in the world. Greed, from the top on down, at the expense of fellow Americans, who either work for frugal wages, or who are trying desperately to find jobs that aren’t there. Oh, that’s right. Greed doesn’t breed a conscious.
Liz, you crucify the corporations that make your life easy. Greed is not bad – if Steve Jobs or Bill Gates weren’t greedy, we wouldn’t have their computers. Greed – the way you put it – is different from “profit motive”. With a profit motive, the rich get richer *but so do the poor*.
You should look into “comparative advantage” and see why we don’t make as many cars or shirts or whatever you want created over here. China and many other countries have a comparative advantage in making certain goods.
Actually, I’m sure there’d be a way to bring back industrial manufacturing jobs – dismantle the unions. I would love for crony capitalism to end as much as you do, but don’t forget that the unions that are bankrolling OWS are the same unions who stop free trade and hurt our economy. Unions lobby as hard as corporations to get the government to favor them. Despite 17% of our workforce being Union, the Union jobs tend to be the jobs like car manufacturers. The Rust Belt has tons of unions that stop their workers from actually having jobs.
You want to bring back industrial manufacturing jobs? Take away minimum wage so that there is a natural economic equilibrium between the supply and demand of wages. I’m sure companies would love to bring jobs back home if it were economically feasible – but it is not. Now, I know that the mere fact that I said “take away minimum wage” will make everyone go up in arms, but you wanted jobs, right? Or do you just want money? Because abolishing minimum wage will make jobs.
Also, to go back to what Joe said – I doubt there are any English or Art majors that want the manufacturing jobs. Joe is right – there are ignorant college students and others out there who don’t understand business or economics. They’d rather just institute socialism to make even more jobs in America disappear.
You forget that manufacturing jobs are not middle class jobs. You will not make 40, 50 or even 60 thousand dollars a year as an assembly worker. The only way to get ahead in America is to be specialized. We are not an industrial nation anymore. True, we have some manufacturing jobs, but all the English and Film and Media majors in Occupy Philadelphia don’t want those jobs – they just want the money that the CEOs have because they feel that their “work” in school (or whatever “work” they do) is equal to the amount of work a CEO does (right, because I’m sure that all the work I’ve done in my life is even close to the amount of work that Steve Jobs did).
Politicians don’t ask what “We the People” want because you aren’t the “99%”. You do me a great dishonor to include me in your ranks of liberal zombies.
When OWS gets its act together and comes out with a concise message that says “We want crony capitalism to end” and that’s it, I will stop protesting and put my weight behind it. But as long as they sit there and say “tax the corporations” and tell me that capitalism doesn’t work because the *financial* system was deregulated by crony capitalists I will protest it until it stops.
Until then, all I see is anti-capitalism and pro-socialism or at the very least bad capitalist policy.
None of us are calling for an end to corporations (ok, some of you are). We’re instead rallying around the idea that corporations interests should not be put ahead of the people, which they routinely are. A vast array of politicians campaigns and future livelihoods are bankrolled by these corporations who are definitively putting their business before the welfare of the communities around them. Deregulation of green standards, decreased workers rights and increased padding of top tier corporate finances means we, the 99%, are left with a dilapidated world. The middle class is becoming eradicated.
Corporations may survive with America, and in fact, benefit the world through globalization, but it cannot be at the expense of the people. The simplest solution for us all to co-exist is to end private sponsorship of political campaigns. So long as the bus tours and videos are created through our tax dollars at a reasonable inflexible amount, our leaders will be beholden to us only. END THE CORPORATE DICTATORSHIP OF AMERICA. Set us free.
You really have no idea about how corporations help the communities around them. For instance, I come from Harleysville, PA and in Lansdale, Merck (a big pharmaceutical company) has created an extremely prosperous area. Through jobs and property taxes alone, they made North Penn School District a huge and good school as well as making Souderton Area School District one of the wealthiest communities in Montgomery County.
How can you say that corporations are disregarding their communities? Give me 5 examples of how communities are disregarding their communities. I can give you more than that in how they *help* their communities. Unfortunately, they don’t go around advertising that so you can see how good corporations truly are.
If you ever recycle plastic bags at Giant (a grocery store) we don’t actually recycle them into new bags – we make them into park benches and donate them to schools and parks in the communities around us. Oh, and don’t forget – Giant gives many people in my community a good job with decent pay. I suppose you don’t think wealth creation is a benefit to communities though.
Joe, get your head out of your butt because it obviously isn’t anywhere else. First, I don’t own any Apple products. I am glad that Apple and Microsoft exist and I don’t doubt for a minute that Jobs and Gates had/have great ambition, foresight, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, treated their workers well, ALL OF THEIR WORKERS. RIP STEVE JOBS. Greed, please open up a dictionary, will you? Do you think a company being bailed out should legitimately send their CEO off with a $40 million payment? The only CEO’s who deserve significant pay are those who distribute the wealth, not hoard it for a rainy day, or just keep bleeding a company dry, at the expense of its workers, as they pilfer as much as they can. Hello Enron. Hello AIG. Do I really need to go on? How many others came after them? How many American jobs have been lost and sent overseas and the practice continues. And listen carefully, Cory, your whole diatribe about manufacturing jobs – who the heck mentioned those? Seriously, man, take care of your head. And sure, let’s just pay our American workers the same as overseas where their cost of living is greatly different from ours. Heck, I’ll go back to making the $2.90/hour I started out with. Yeah, sure, that’ll pay my mortgage. Cory, I’m not including you anywhere because you speak nonsense while people could actually follow what I’m saying. And to those of you ignorant college students, according to Cory, for not majoring in business, finance, economics – ECONOMICS = SUPPLY VS. DEMAND and when you delve into it further, you study rates of flow in the nonexistent economy we have right now. How large is that unemployment number? When did we comes out of a recession and when did we start showing signs of being in another? Yes, capitalism has served this country well, to the point, where it doesn’t exist when we Americans are bailing out those same companies who knew exactly what they were doing as they were faltering, and I ask again, what benefit has been seen from that. Cody, seriously, man, don’t reply. You talk too much nonsense.
ha ha – first line was directed at Cory, not Joe – oops – admitted to making a mistake – how many corporations have done that?
Let me get this straight – you don’t consider the products that corporations provide for consumers in conjunction with the wealth creation of employees is a benefit to the community?
I can see that you are one of those “equality of labor” sorts that equates what a CEO does with what a button-pushing assembly worker does. (Also, I mention manufacturing jobs going overseas because that’s where many of them go. And since you think Economics is only supply and demand, I won’t bother with why those jobs go overseas with “comparative advantage”. We don’t have an advantage making things here in America anymore – you need to be more specialized to have any kind of advantage).
You’re also an idiot to think that abolishing a minimum wage will mean you work at $2.90 an hour. Quite honestly, abolishing minimum wage might raise prices due to workers *DEMANDING* higher pay and the point of wage equilibrium will be higher. Oh, and if you can’t pay your mortgage on a minimum wage job, you shouldn’t have one 🙂 That’s called fiscal responsibility and living within your means.
Again, profit motive is synonymous with greed. You can’t use Merriam Webster to define the economic term of greed. Again, I will support OWS when it gets its act together and says “We want Glass-Stegal put back in place and want the financial sector CEOs who crashed the economy to be investigated”. I will not, however, stand idly by and watch the “99%” crucify corporations as a whole just because you think it’s unfair that you don’t make as much money as a CEO.
Corporations must be greedy – driven by profit – to create the best product for the CONSUMERS and so they can create more JOBS and create WEALTH. Apparently, you don’t like that. Apparently you think that CEOs should just hire more people (which doesn’t equate to an increase in productivity which means it does not necessarily make sense for a business to just hire lots and lots of people) and cut their salaries despite being the leaders of innovation and job/wealth creation. Yes, because the CEOs are the “greedy” (I’m using the Merriam-Webster definition here, not profit-motive) ones when you covet their money.
Cory – you are wise beyond your years! Exceptional responses. Thank you.
Oh, poor Cory who grew up in Harleysville, never knowing what it is like to start at bottom or even knows yet what living within one’s means actually means. Seriously, are you even 18 yrs old because your arguments are so immature without merit, that they are really funny to read. Cory, you know that wonderful company you mentioned in an earlier post – Merck. You are aware they are cutting their workforce by 13%, right? And they are asking people to volunteer for early retirement or a permanent layoff. Geez, if you are old enough to work there, I hope you don’t lose your job, or rather your Mom or Dad. If we didn’t have laws stating what minimum wage is, we could get more – ha ha ha ha. Good one.
http://keystoneprogress.pnstate.org/site/Calendar?view=Detail&id=100902&AddInterest=2661
Enough said.
Oh, Cory, you have to select the text / copy and paste it into a browser (Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, or Firefox) / may have to hit enter / oh, and Active X filtering shouldn’t be on or checked
I realize Merck is indeed cutting back on their workforce. It is bad, but it is the result of the economy. Can’t you understand that layoffs and unemployment happen? The current CEO of the company – who is leaving – was a crappy CEO. Should all businesses be crucified because one sector of the economy forced the rest of the economy’s hand?
My mother works for Merck and my stepdad is an unskilled worker. Both are blessed to have jobs, but I have to work to pay off student loans. I lived in Harleysville but I don’t know prosperity. I know a middle class lifestyle and I know the lifestyles my mother and stepdad had to live in to succeed.
Merck has still provided for our community and has still provided for the world. The economy has set it back – that and the continued assault by the far left (and now far right with Michelle Bachmann) on companies that make medicine has not helped. Blame them, not the company, for low revenue.
Now, maybe you don’t understand the point of equilibrium in a supply and demand curve. You wanted more jobs right? Well, getting rid of the minimum wage would mean that we’d have more jobs. More jobs is good, right?
Also, here’s a quick explanation of the minimum wage abolishment theory thing:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/43/wagesandd.png/
I even drew you a graph 😀
If you are willing to work for less than minimum wage, while supporting yourself – not under Mommy and Daddy’s wings – you can go for it. I see Cory has taken a number of names on this site, not that I needed to even say that since it is so obvious. Cory, man, forget pre-law, forget any kind of finance major. I really don’t know what major where you will do any good but since having a college degree means nothing without common sense which is learned from one’s environment and/or upbringing, I’m sorry to conclude it just won’t matter with you, dude. Good luck in life. Stay close to Mommy/Daddy.
All of these Occupy movements have cost tax payers money and will continue to cost tax payers money. You Occupy people want to protest, figure out an actual movement and a purpose then find another way instead of wasting the taxpayers money .. the WORKING CLASS is NOT just the one percent and “We” can no longer continue to afford your occupy “movements” in EVERYWAY that “we” do.
Occupy … where are you unemployment and welfare checks being mailed to?
I think what the Temple students did was great. I have become appalled by this Occupy ‘protest’ after it went WAY too far last night.
I am one of the 99% – leaving work yesterday, trying to get home, and you dumb protestors had the audacity to try to block 30th street at rush hour? Are you insane? You’re not stopping anyone from going to work. We have already worked and now we are tired, and we want to go home.
You showed a serious lack of thought with that action, unless you’re all just horribly selfish – I don’t know what you think you prove trying to stop the 99%ers who actually HAVE jobs from going home after working them, but you just blew the last shred of tolerence I had for you, and that many others had as well. I don’t care where you go or what you do, but stop causing so many problems for the rest of us.
I have an idea – why don’t you go protest in Old City? That’s where the real execs live – they can afford to not have to commute. You’re doing this all wrong. Go there and please stop causing such trouble for the working class.