Pierogi - I went down to the occupy Melbourne site and there were a heap of anti-capitalist banners on display. I would agree that it's not the main message of wallstreeters but that appears to be the message here.
I agree with you that corporations should be at arms length and think that donations to political parties should be banned completely. However, to say it happens here to the same degree as in America would be wrong imo. I'm not sure lobbying has led to poor decision making here in Australia, this government has made a living out of making poor decisions and doesn't need the help of lobby groups. Although now that I think about it the Greens are essentially a lobby group so perhaps you're onto something.
If our government had wizzed away taxpayer money bailing out feral, lying, theiving banks I would be first one in line to protest but that didn't happen here.
The "democracy is broken" type message they are putting out there is interesting, to some degree I agree with them. However, if you went and spoke to these people they would ALL be FOR the carbon tax and that is basically the biggest example of the "broken democracy" they speak about. So broken democracy that supports their views = "this is democracy" and "broken democracy" that doesn't support their left leaning views = "broken democracy".
I still see them essentially protesting against nothing, with no clear demands and no ideas for a better way.
