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My Advice to the Occupy Wall Street Protesters: Hit Bankers Where It Hurts
I've been down to "Occupy Wall Street" twice now, and I love it. The protests building at Liberty Square and spreading over Lower Manhattan are a great thing, the logical answer to the Tea Party and a long-overdue middle finger to the financial elite. The protesters picked the right target and, through their refusal to disband after just one day, the right tactic, showing the public at large that the movement against Wall Street has stamina, resolve and growing popular appeal.
Protesters with the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement demonstrate in New York.
(Spencer Platt/Getty Images) But... there's a but. And for me this is a deeply personal thing, because this issue of how to combat Wall Street corruption has consumed my life for years now, and it's hard for me not to see where Occupy Wall Street could be better and more dangerous. I'm guessing, for instance, that the banks were secretly thrilled in the early going of the protests, sure they'd won round one of the messaging war.
Why? Because after a decade of unparalleled thievery and corruption, with tens of millions entering the ranks of the hungry thanks to artificially inflated commodity prices, and millions more displaced from their homes by corruption in the mortgage markets, the headline from the first week of protests against the financial-services sector was an old cop macing a quartet of college girls.
That, to me, speaks volumes about the primary challenge of opposing the 50-headed hydra of Wall Street corruption, which is that it's extremely difficult to explain the crimes of the modern financial elite in a simple visual. The essence of this particular sort of oligarchic power is its complexity and day-to-day invisibility: Its worst crimes, from bribery and insider trading and market manipulation, to backroom dominance of government and the usurping of the regulatory structure from within, simply can't be seen by the public or put on TV. There just isn't going to be an iconic "Running Girl" photo with Goldman Sachs, Citigroup or Bank of America – just 62 million Americans with zero or negative net worth, scratching their heads and wondering where the hell all their money went and why their votes seem to count less and less each and every year.
No matter what, I'll be supporting Occupy Wall Street. And I think the movement's basic strategy – to build numbers and stay in the fight, rather than tying itself to any particular set of principles – makes a lot of sense early on. But the time is rapidly approaching when the movement is going to have to offer concrete solutions to the problems posed by Wall Street. To do that, it will need a short but powerful list of demands. There are thousands one could make, but I'd suggest focusing on five:
1. Break up the monopolies. The so-called "Too Big to Fail" financial companies – now sometimes called by the more accurate term "Systemically Dangerous Institutions" – are a direct threat to national security. They are above the law and above market consequence, making them more dangerous and unaccountable than a thousand mafias combined. There are about 20 such firms in America, and they need to be dismantled; a good start would be to repeal the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and mandate the separation of insurance companies, investment banks and commercial banks.
2. Pay for your own bailouts. A tax of 0.1 percent on all trades of stocks and bonds and a 0.01 percent tax on all trades of derivatives would generate enough revenue to pay us back for the bailouts, and still have plenty left over to fight the deficits the banks claim to be so worried about. It would also deter the endless chase for instant profits through computerized insider-trading schemes like High Frequency Trading, and force Wall Street to go back to the job it's supposed to be doing, i.e., making sober investments in job-creating businesses and watching them grow.
3. No public money for private lobbying. A company that receives a public bailout should not be allowed to use the taxpayer's own money to lobby against him. You can either suck on the public teat or influence the next presidential race, but you can't do both. Butt out for once and let the people choose the next president and Congress.
4. Tax hedge-fund gamblers. For starters, we need an immediate repeal of the preposterous and indefensible carried-interest tax break, which allows hedge-fund titans like Stevie Cohen and John Paulson to pay taxes of only 15 percent on their billions in gambling income, while ordinary Americans pay twice that for teaching kids and putting out fires. I defy any politician to stand up and defend that loophole during an election year.
5. Change the way bankers get paid. We need new laws preventing Wall Street executives from getting bonuses upfront for deals that might blow up in all of our faces later. It should be: You make a deal today, you get company stock you can redeem two or three years from now. That forces everyone to be invested in his own company's long-term health – no more Joe Cassanos pocketing multimillion-dollar bonuses for destroying the AIGs of the world.
To quote the immortal political philosopher Matt Damon from Rounders, "The key to No Limit poker is to put a man to a decision for all his chips." The only reason the Lloyd Blankfeins and Jamie Dimons of the world survive is that they're never forced, by the media or anyone else, to put all their cards on the table. If Occupy Wall Street can do that – if it can speak to the millions of people the banks have driven into foreclosure and joblessness – it has a chance to build a massive grassroots movement. All it has to do is light a match in the right place, and the overwhelming public support for real reform – not later, but right now – will be there in an instant.
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Show AllI totally agree. I would add that the "fix" to correct the debauchery of the Supreme Court, is the process of an Amendment to our Constitution. The amendment process is really the only public referendum avenue left to the American people. It should be reserved for the most egregious transgressions to the Constitution. I believe firmly that the Citizens United decision falls into that category.
Sadly, Taibbi reminds me of Obama. Both mouth brave solutions which have no chance of being implemented by a Congress bought and sold by an international group of evil bastards who induce mere governments to use nationalism as a smokescreen. Is Taibbi a liar too, or just a liberal?
He's usually better than this. Oh well, it's times like these which separate the wheat from the chaff.
Taibbi is to be commended for excellent reporting on the banksters these past several years and good for Rolling Stone for keeping him on board.
The Occupy Wall Street Movement will continue to increase in numbers as you can see more and more aware citizens across America camping out and or doing what they can at the protest movements.
In spite of what some liberal/progressive writers and radio and television talk show hosts say about "signing petitions, writing or calling your congressperson, and going to your local Democratic Party meeting and venting your rage," we have done it all and it didn't work!
The "bipartisan Congress just passed the newest "free trade" bill with South Korea, Panama, and Colombia, (the most deadliest place in the world for trade-unionists), in spite of our individul protests and protests by the AFL-CIO and Change To Win union "leadership".
It's good to see people withdrawing their money from the big banks and opening accounts in credit unions. The "re-localization" movement is growing and more people are beginning to see the light about the bogus term, "the global economy" and the disasterous effect it has had around the world, environmentally and in people's lives.
Stop shopping at WalMart and Whole Foods as well, as many "progressives" still do. Support your local farmers's markets and purchase products and services at worker-owned cooperatives and start them in your own communities. A good guideline is an organization in the San Francisco Bay Area with well-though out by-laws and all, and it is pronounced as, "no boss." Go to www.nobawc.org and check it out.
Finally, start supporting and voting for third party candidates in local, state, and federal elections. It should be obvious to all by now, that the Democratic Party is in cahoots with the same paymasters as the Republicans.
Good stuff Peaceman.
re: "The "bipartisan Congress just passed the newest "free trade" bill with South Korea, Panama, and Colombia, (the most deadliest place in the world for trade-unionists)
Yes, one more necessary action if you want to stick it to the 1%:
DROP THE DUOPOLY in 2012! Both sides are just tools for the oligarchs and banksters.
Thanks, Salusa.
Yep, "DROP THE DUOPOLY in 2012! Both sides are just tools for the oligarchs and banksters." "Bipartisanship" is a code word for the collaboration of the Republican/Democratic one party system to benefit the oligarchs and banksters.
They made a pact several decades ago not to let alternative parties in their national debates. And they have the nerve to talk about freedom and democracy?
Will the American people ever wake up to this reality and have the guts to "buck the corrupt system?"
We'll see. Just one caveat: Let's not get our hopes up too high. The high-definition idiot square still has a powerful hold over the average Amerkan consumo-laborer™. Only about 20% understand that they are among the 99%.
Peace, Peaceman
Salusa: LOL!
It's up to you, me, Lottie, Dottie, and everybody in the movement for peace, justice, and an egalitarian society to expand that 20% margin to 90%.
Why make it so complicated with all the advice. here's a simple one:
The government should stop interfering with private business. If a bank (take your pick), insurance company (AIG) or auto manufacturer (GM, Chrysler) is about to fail, stop bailing them out. For each one there's 10 more out there who will be happy to fill the void, this time with lessons learned.
This is all well and good, but we can truly narrow it down to just three items on our collective to-do list:
1) Corporations can no longer spend any funds to influence politics: no lobbyists, no political campaign contributions, no media that is not product-related.
2) End debt as the way we create money, and return to a monetary system that properly rewards care-giving and teaching and farming as the three most valuable occupations in the world. Stop requiring foreclosures and/or infinite growth in order to continue the Ponzi scheme that is the American dollar.
3) Each and every one of us can look deep inside and touch into whatever Higher Power we "know", and strive to act upon the principles we claim to believe that emanate from this source of all love, energy, and wisdom. We deepen our role modeling of our beliefs, not just pay lip service to them. We worry not about what the other guy is doing to us, but rather we focus on what we can do for others, each and every moment, each and every encounter, each and every relationship.
Wonderful points by Matt and CD commentators: and others have made the crucial point: The Wall Street--Congressional Muppet Show--MIC are not going to surrender. Our "We must..." fantasy is going to have to deal with how to tip over their cart by means which WE control. WE have no say in Congress, no say on Wall Street, no say in the Executive, judicial or Pentagon juntas. Our only power will be in what WE can do ourselves--move our money out of the banks, turn off TV, educate others, boycott, stay in the streets, cease to cooperate. Negotiating with Corporate Rulers is futile. "Occupy" means we must be our own saviors.
I say Nationalize the Fed - now that would Hit them Where it Hurts......
No more Easy $
No More hidden bailouts whenever one of the member banks need it.
All other battles will be much easier to fight once we turn off the Money Spigot that they can use against us.
What ever happened to the anti-war movement? Is is just about us and our money?
Ending the wars should be high on the list. This movement should not be focused solely on criminal banks and bankers, but about the military/industrial/Congressional complex that drains our economy and causes great suffering in the world.
Change the economic system, and put an end to the reign of the oligarchs. Do that, and the wars will end. They are the same issue.
I really appreciate this and your other posts here Sal.
But can we afford to wait so long to stop climate catastrophe? As shown in Egypt, the black mold of power and money spreads into every little dark and dank crack and is very hard to clean out. You can hope for banksters who will be rigid and stupid but some will use Jujitsu, seeming to bend, surrender, or join, but will then destroy change from within and without after most people go back to their couches.
Making and maintaining the radical change needed now is a long term project. We have to do all parts of it at once, but while war, education, health care, real legal reform and many other issues are crucial to long term success, climate change and the larger ecological crisis is the one problem that will actually destroy civilization while this generation is alive.
I think of the problems, and the solutions, as the 3 Cs: Climate Change and the larger ecological crisis, the power Corporations have over our lives and government, and the failure of the Constitution and the rule of law. All 3 are interlinked and can't be solved separately. They are all caused by our psychological dysfunctions caused in turn by collective trauma, loss of Nature and the cumulative impact of individual child-rearing 'mistakes'. While we have to solve the 3Cs together, and must work on the psychological issues now and long-term, only climate change will destroy us in our lifetimes. We can't let any other project seem more important than that, and all others, including dismantling the corrupt system of power and finance, must be in service of saving Gaia.
Once the profit motive is balanced/offset by a health motive — and we are beginning to see how they are intimately intertwined within our finite world — the people's priorities will adjust to more holistic modes of living in order to preserve our biosphere's ability to sustain human existence. While Obama tries to invent an existential threat in Iran, the true existential threat already looms like a shadow over the horizon. We either adjust and stop the uncompensated exploitation of Earth's resources, or we all begin to die on an unprecedented scale.
In any case, the wars, the despoliation, climate change, the corruption, the negligence and exploitation... they're all related to and intertwined in the need to feed the furnace of Western greed. Again, bring the banksters and oligarchs to heel, and We the People can figure out the rest — and we aren't so debased that we can't lead ourselves. We will be/must be the ones to police the police!
I really like the direction youre going with your post J4zonian, but I think the focus for now is in the right place... and that's just getting this thing to stick, and to expand, and not fizzle out.
Have no doubt that ecological justice is at the heart of the OWS uprising, and the people themselves want to do the right thing by Earth. It's the laws, rules, and precedents set by those driven by greed which threaten our biosphere more than anything else. Once their influence is placed where it belongs, the world will begin making the right, and healthy choices we know we must if we are to survive beyond the next few generations.
Cheers and Namaste! Long live the harmonious human occupation of this Sacred Earth!
Well that sounds good in theory, but it evades the question: How do we balance the profit motive with a health motive?
The profit motive actually comes out of fear-based addiction; freeing deeply entrenched people from that is the work of decades, at least—more likely generations.
Meanwhile, expanding the Occupy movement will likely depend on creative, meaningful and assertive action provoking a violent response from the police, even the military. It will depend on growth not in numbers but in sophistication of symbols, interaction with the larger public, and diversity-within-stong-unity. Maybe it can encompass many vaguely articulated goals, or several major ones, but I think it needs a unifying theme other than the most difficult task of all—bringing down a powerful, brilliant, deeply-resourced international network of the people who run the planet. I think the answer to many problems is to stop the use of fossil fuels first.
I think state banks could be a real answer. I know Wall Street would absolutely freak and dissolve if the country started demanding charters for State banks. Have you read about No Dakota's state bank? OWS would begin showing their POWER in a real in a translated way.
State Banks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0rJWnRFUJA
North Dakota has a state bank . ND is not in debt. Its people are protected from foreclosure. Its private farms are protected from Big Ag. They have jobs and no real unemployment. The experienced a 700 million dollar surplus of funds for N. Dakota schools, fire, infrastructure etc.in 2011 REally. see links below
Why because the money made on borrowing goes all to the state bank and the people of No Dakota. It keeps growing and is owned by the people for the THEIR needs.
This is a clear answer and it is THE ANSWER to address a huge chunk of our demands with an existing model. No one can say its not practical or doable. It is a proven superior plan that has made No. Dakota immune to what the rest of the country is suffering. I like it because it is a central idea that the 99ers could get behind. Asking the bankers to change who they are and how they do things is a gigantic waste of time, we know they will never change and if they do concede some little something they will take it back as soon as people relax for five minutes.
State banks would end their enormous power forever. It would shift the power of policy and money back into the hands of the people and would be a start that would change the banker and submissive people paradigm forever. A simple message that would be real change. We the 99% chose to run our own banks. BofA and the rest are welcome to have their for profit businesses run the way they see fit. They don't have a right to stop us either but they will claim they will which will just prove again that these same people are denying us a Democracy and the right to serve ourselves. The will demand that we are to be totally dependent on them and that will be their end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad0gant1zeo
http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/112420/why-north-dakota-may-be-best-state-in-country-to-live-in
North Dakota Expecting 700 Million Dollar Budget Surplus 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pxsrjrw55_I&NR=1
Now if every state had the population of ND and the oil income they get from the Bakken field, maybe everyone would be just like ND.
A typical response from a corporate troll.
State banks would drive parasitic banks out of business.
Thanks Matt, but what about the illegal wars? There is at least a trillion dollars of sunk cost from the past ten years and probably double that amount to be saved over the next decade.
Pay off the national debt with the small surcharge on the financial transactions and taxes on the banks comparable to those of us who earn the old fashioned way, by working. Of course, you are right in pointing out that we have wasted our future. The installed puppet, Mr. GWB & Co. saw to that, and laid the track that this runaway train is running on. There will be no peace or security in this country until some justice is done in many areas. Accountability is necessary for wounds to heal and we in this country are grievously wounded. Running up the national debt has been a tactic of the right since the Reagan Administration, so that the left would have no resources to apply to good governance. By now both political parties are so corrupt that they obviously are not the way out. This leaves only the option of seeing some
other come to power. How? I wish I knew. dh
MARK the BANKS to MARKET! Most banks have their supposed "assessts" in total secret and they state that their value is WAY above what they are really worth in the real world.
SO......REQUIRE any banks that are asking for public tax dollars to 1. reveal what their assessts are and 2. value their assessts to the current market (reality) and not their inflated/imagined value (illusion).
Here's an excellent article on the subject from TheAutomaticEarth: http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2011/10/october-6-2011-occupy-this-mark-banks.html
BANK TRANSFER DAY 11/5/11!!! Transfer any money you have in large commercial banks to your local bank or credit union by November 5. See http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/10/10-9
I agree. We should use the slogan "When it comes to money, the more local, the better."
If OWS adopts a silly little list of band-aid reforms such as Taibi suggests, you can a stick a fork in it.
I totally agree. Taibbi's pathetic reforms still amount to playing footsie with pirhuanas. Just do the reporting Matt.
Make banks public utilities -- regionalize them and socialize them.
Ban speculation on key commodities like food, ban speculation on futures and come up with a better way to hedge so-called risk in the market.
No private lobbying period.
No corporate personhood or any other way they will try to re-establish that.
Expand the House of Representatives to become a League of Representatives, and get rid of the Senate.
I agree.
I'm surprised at Taibbi, whose reporting has been excellent throughout this growing crisis. Almost alone among mainstream US publications, Taibbi and the Rolling Stone, of all publications, have continued to reveal the corruption to the core (The New Yorker has also been pretty consistently good). But these demands ARE pathetic.
Because local institutions can't stand up to the power of multinational corporations we need to nationalize the financial institutions, insurance corporations, and all non-renewable energy corporations (oil, coal, gas, nuclear) then turn them over to bioregional governments to be phased out asap as soon as community-controlled, non-profit renewables and cooperatives can be created to replace them to prepare for Peak Oil/Peak Everything and the eco-eco collapse that's started already.
Great article. I like the demands. But will politicians go for it when it means going against the source of their major campaign funds?
Direct democracy
Matt Tabbibi is one of out best journalists, BUT (there is a but Matt:)) he doesn't seem to understand what occupy has become which is a grass roots citizens movement best modeled by the councils themselves to return economic and political power to the 99% in a grassroots and decentralized fashion. This isn't about a static list of reformist demands, this about EVERYONE in the 99% having a change to speak up about what they want to see after bank funded empire falls.
Think bigger Matt Tabbibi!
and just how are these things supposed to be implemented? Just because a bunch of folks demonstrate on the street they're just going to change the way they operate? The corporations and firms are going to just break themselves up because we say so? There has to be more to this than just demonstrating in the streets. Someone explain this to me.
When the outrage of the conscientious among us spreads into the mainstream, and takes hold of the popular imagination... Then there will be -nothing- that can stand in the way of We The People.
So I think the 'how' right now is not the issue. The issue is IF and WHEN. I am hoping the People are finally waking up, and if they do, that's when change will come.
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. "
—Margaret Mead
These are all great points that could make a huge difference to the average working class family but it's all fantasy. None of these things will come to pass as long as we have this non-representative government in place. So while it's great fun to intellectualize about changing the laws to benefit a wider swath of the citizenry it's a waste of energy and talent. The job before us is to tear down this corrupt system that is beyond repair and replace it with a system that hasn't been gamed for the last couple of hundred years. How do we do that? There are only two ways. Through pacifism or through violence. Working within the system has obviously not worked and never works. It corrupts all who enter. And those that are uncorruptable are destroyed one way or another. So we can talk about all these laws we should pass but who in the hell is going to pass them for us? If wishes were horses I'd ride like the wind!
Matt Taibbi's proposals are all good but to win people over we need to simplify and use effective tactics. We the People have shown we can be united if the Occupy movement is any indication but we want to achieve more than just a protest. We want to see change. Proposal 1. Announce that Citizen's United be repealed immediately. If nothing is done by December 1st, (2011) We the People will cease to pay our credit card bills. The banks are already in a precarious situation and this could cause them hardship (which is what we need to do). The beauty of this is that we can continue going to our jobs (if we have one) and continue to receive our incomes but have a bit more in our pockets while the banks have less. You may well be asking, "but what have the banks got to do with Citizen's United" and the answer is "nothing". However, it's payback time for the help they received from Congress in 2008. Let them and their cohorts figure out how to reverse Citizen's United while we enjoy a payment holiday! Proposal 2. The existing campaign finance rules have to be completey overhauled. We need a public campaign financing system to incent average Americans to run for office and representatives to work for us once in office. Imagine, no more paid lobbyists running the country! The method to achieve this can be found at Lawrence Lessig's page www.conconcon.org. If we cannot change a corrupt system from within then that system might as well be scrapped; it would prove itself useless. But unless we test it, we cannot know. This should be the first resort. We have to work with the most fundamental pillars of our system; the ones that will have the greatest affect but keep it simple so that everyone can understand what is happening. We now know that there is a huge proportion of the population who feel aggrieved. Should actions such as these proposals not work, then the next step would justifiably be revolt.
If you haven't already, please join (or start) an organization to repeal the Citizens United decision. MovetoAmmend.org is the national organization with links across the nation.
You don't get it, this is not about static list of demand politics that has failed the left for 50 years now, this is about systemic change and citizen based direct democracy WAY beyond the static reformist demands of any one divided lefty group. Comprehension fail on your part in my strong opinion.
While I happen to agree citizens united should be repealed we should let that arise organically from the process rather limiting than the movement itself around that one demand. Have confidence that people DO get it, what is wrong and don't ossify a movement which IMO is capable of writing a new Constitution for local self rule with static demands that would not fit in that Constitution. Rather something like repealing CU would happen by a vote of the people in the new citizen councils after the empire falls.
Taibbi is beating a dead horse. Lists of demands are passe. All they do is give elites fodder for more lying propaganda. Or they are simply ignored.
You see, this movement is different. You don't try to convince this movement that it needs a list of demands. Because it doesn't. Because it knows a list of demands is meaningless, and only obscures what's really important:
The people need universal equity/justice, and that cannot be framed in ekonomic/political jargon. We will build it, and look at it, sculpt it, defend it, and enjoy it. And we are building it, already. So from the elites all we need to demand is for them to get out of our way. And when they ignore us, we stomp on them, like this movement is doing today. Keep it up, people.
Agree 100%.
Yes, points are well-made!
For an environmental educator one way of teaching is the classic nature walk. People typically want to know the names of things on the trail, but I learned in school not to name things we saw too quickly, because the response to an immediate name was usually to consider that thing “done” and move on to ask the name of something else. By the end, all the names had been forgotten and not much else was learned either since it became all about the names. Instead, I’d put off the question and talk about or show the plant or animal in context—its uses, relationships, color, texture, the Latin name if it related to similar English words… then both name and importance were more often remembered as well as general concepts like “an ecosystem is a complex web of relationships.” But this is not the same as saying names don’t matter. They do, very much.
So I see why it’s good not to make demands too soon; their formulation needs to be a process, including education, both internal and outreach—about consensus, for example. But if demands are meaningless, and obscure what’s important, then what does have meaning and what is important? .
I guess I don't understand how a movement accomplishes its goals if it doesn't have goals or doesn’t know what they are. In their most basic form, the goals are the demands. The demands might be .
1. so radical they cannot be fudged, co-opted, obscured or otherwise manipulated; for example, nationalization of banking, health care, water resources and energy corporations and resources and the rapid (10 year) switch of all fossil fuel use to renewables. or.
2. portioned out to different groups. The success of non-violent movements often depends partly on the presence of real or feared violent revolution. The radical demands of the violent are split from the moderate or minimal demands of the peaceful to allow psychological adjustment by the oppressors, negotiation and bargaining chips. (This is not to say minimal demands are bad; Gandhian strategy depends on considering the humanity and needs of the opponent by reducing demands to what is really needed rather than overstating them and using losses as bargaining chips.). Similarly, relative insider groups can use the Occupy movement to focus attention on general principles while formulating bills and demanding specific changes related to those principles. The movement can also generate symbols, as the conservatives have (welfare queens, Barack Hussein Obama…) which other groups use to push through the left’s equivalent to the right’s welfare deform and anti-immigrant and pro-militarism bills in Congress.
Getting the big money out of politics:
Publicly-funded federal elections
Shorter campaign seasons
Federal term limits
Debates that include more candidates
Easier ballot access
Abolish electoral college
Limited Federal government
Promote State and local business and economy
How bout "Give Drug Tests to the Administration and CEOS of all banks that received bailout funds"
They want that for folk on welfare and food stamps not so?
What we need next is a several million person demonstration in Washington DC, peaceful, lawful, near silent,, marching on the sidwalkds with signs and protesting and drivers in the streets, lawfully circling the capitol.
(Organize) with some high profile leaders,, collect names of at least 700 million + of those who could be there for a day or even two or more days and when they could be availabe and set up a schedule and have a phone bank and to remind of their schedule. at least a 100,000 a day
We perhaps should demand the following for starters.. A dramatcic change of our election process and laws, paper and pencil ballots only, limited campaign funds and term limits for all of our 536 DC elected, not just the president.
Outlaw lobbying entirely, with no more under the talble envelopes filled with $100 dollar billls and paid for parties and yacht trips.
No TV ads allowed for candidates, only telvised debates allowed on TV... Let us "We The People" the 99% take our government back to a democracy of we the pople instead of (big business rules) and destroy the now Fascist form of government.
It could be done if some of the independent registered in every metro area, in every state began to set it up... 700 million isn''t even 99%... It could be started here at Common Dreams... Maybe all of us talking to our neighbors, relatives and friends... Maybe not?
I'd be there for at least a full month. One day on,, one day off... Only protests in daytime, weekends off,.. Mon thru Fri, 7am to 7pm. And lot's of drivers circling the streets,,, nice safe slow pokes.
We marched across the nation by the millions, and it didn't prevent the Bush/Cheney Republican Crime Family and their collaborators in the Democratic Party to invade and occupy Afghanistan and Iraq, unleashing death and destruction, or as it is called, "crimes against humanity." What makes you think another "march" in Washington, Deceit will be any different in trying to reverse this perilous course to the bottom--at least for 90% of the people?
They have to be hit in the pocketbook. It's all about money and power.
We marched across the nation by the millions? What day was that done? I missed it.
Evidently you don't believe millions protesting in DC is worth the effort or even the thought... Okay, we'll keep what we have.
real reform – not later, but right now
I just wanted to repeat that.
Good read.
thnx
Almost, Matt.
The corporation floats the wrong people to the top of the power structure for the wrong reasons.
Only the revoking of personhood, and forcing full environmental, societal and financial accountability on the corporation will result in the kind of commercial institutions we need to survive, long-term, on this planet.
And you have a blind spot...the only ones who can presently change the status quo are the ones heavily vested in maintaining it.
See you in the street. Catch a copy of Starfish and Spider.
That is right...BOYCOTT the big banks and even more important: cut up credit cards and use cash only. Credit card was one of the worst (premeditated?) inventions.
Liked the points about the headline and the 'Running Girl' image.
I have mixed feelings about the Occupy phenomena. After devoting the last five years of my life developing and implementing ways for people to reconnect with and reclaim their power and potential, I should be celebrating this development. But I'm not. The reasons why not take some explaining, which space here doesn't permit. It can be read at http://wp.me/p1buck-ej.
It's crucially important that we think very carefully about this, and be prepared to adjust our thinking and action, maybe several times during this phase. Too few people are considering fundamentals either of the protest itself or of the solutions they're suggesting.
Peace
Well said. Could not agree more. Lets do all we can to support the protesters. Demand that each political party has 3 days to clearly state where they stand on each of these 5 points. (on radio, TV, the Press and on internet)