Yesterday, the unofficial Mayor of Houston joined Occupy Houston (an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street that started in NYC last month) at City Hall to show his support for the community.
I think it’s important that Bernard Freeman be here as a citizen of the world. And I think it’s important that Bun B be here as a person of influence who has a voice that can bring attention to a cause. It’s very important that someone from the hip-hop community is out here supporting Occupy Houston, simply because of the fact of how hip-hop is represented in the world. I think a lot of people look at us as being these flashy, fly types of people who are just concerned with spending money, but that’s not all of us. That’s not what hip-hop is here to do. We have individuals that represent that, and I represented that from time to time, but that doesn’t make me who I am. I understand how real this world is and how real things can get and that’s what Occupy Houston is about. It’s not about what we do on the clock — it’s about being off the clock and supporting people who can’t even get on the clock right now.
The effects of the Enron collapse in Houston are still felt today. Not everyone who had strong jobs in that sector were able to find replacements for those jobs. A lot of people had to take positions in companies to do things that they didn’t necessarily train for in order to support their families and that’s kinda what we’re standing for at Occupy Houston. The misconception about Occupy Houston is that it’s a bunch of jobless people who don’t wanna work and just want the rich to give them their money. Well, that’s not true. The majority of these people are educated — not just high school, but they’re college graduates, they have degrees, they’ve done what it takes to get into the workforce. Unfortunately, corporate America is not affording enough opportunities for people to go out get jobs and support their families. Instead of hiring more people, they’re firing more people just to keep the numbers up. A company that makes $3 billion a year, it’s still gonna function if they only make $2.8 billion a year in order to keep a couple people employed.
So that’s what we’re here fighting against, you know, corporate irresponsibility. The fact that we in Houston and America — even though we’re the people that vote, we’re the people that pay our taxes — we don’t have the voice that we should have in our local state and federal governments, and that’s another stance that we’re taking.
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The problem is folks like bun b, whom im a big fan of, and others who support obama and his approach to taxation and regulation fail to realize that doing so is counter productive to this cause. If they are aiming to hold corporations “responsibe” it isnt senseable to raise taxes and tighten regulations and still expect an increase in jobs in the private sector. Could corporations “survive” with less capital? Sure will they? No. People are dreaming if they think these protest will propell change. It is comendable that at least he, unlike most his apathetic peers, actually stands for something. However misguided that something is.
^^^^^^^^^ um not really buddy. Regulating corporations is what is keeping the few not outsourced jobs in the sector here. Also these Multinational corps being counted as people and allowing them to donate millions of dollars to stop progression hinders the ability for new areas of business such as green technology to thrive. Who do you think slowed down the electric car phase?
bun b ….might as well become a teacher he ain’t doing shit else..lol
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Apple Giving away iPad 2′s in Honor of Steve Jobs Death (founder of Apple) .. http://goo.gl/FfRx4 i just went ahead & got 2..lmao
Lol no “buddy”….enviormental regulations are often times the reason companies outsource in the first place, of course labor costs are the over riding reason, but to say regulations keep jobs here is ludacris… Stop progression? Evidence of this? emperical please. Progression is subjective so saying they “stop progression” isnt saying much unless its in some context.
Fuck the corporations! End the Fed! They’re the real problem.
Did Shake really need to do the parenthetical explanation of what Occupy Houston was? LOL.
2ndera, you appear to be the one who is misguided. Corporations have far more than enough capital to create jobs and keep jobs in the US. The true problem is that executives will sacrifice anyone in order to maintain their own wealth and power. Wealthy people are not afraid of losing capital (in the sense that capital is the $ used to operate business and pay workers). The do, however, refuse to lose one cent of personal income. (see : CEOs of companies that received bailouts still taking million $ bonuses). Furthermore, the truly wealthy do not depend upon workers to maintain their riches. Warren Buffet or Bill Gates, or the Waltons (Heirs to the Was Mart fortune, for those who don’t know) and people like them will earn more in interest in the next 24 hours than most of US will earn in our entire lives. Greed is the problem. Greedy fucks who believe they and their descendants actually deserve to have dynastic wealth and horde resources while 20,000 children die every single day from starvation, millions live in war zones, and billions live in abject poverty. So yes, these rich bastards shouldn’t mind paying a little more taxes just so the other 99% can have a chance. They see themselves as the kings/masters and us as the subjects/slaves. They have us all chasing the same fucking carrots to be like them.
When it comes to rappers, Bun’s about as real as it gets.. RIP Pimp C
It’s best to just ignore @2ndera, i dont think he really knows what he’s talking about.
Yo to keep it trill we all need to be out there and join the movement,…plus it needs more color haha #OccupyWallStreet #OccupyHouston #OccupySf #OccupyOakland #OccupyMiam #OccupyDC #OccupyLA #OccupySeattle #OccupyAtlanta
@Drew Ali I was about to respond but you said it all.