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Wall Street Protest Plans Global Rally Ahead of G20
(Reuters) - An anti-capitalist group which sparked the Occupy Wall Street movement has called for global protests on Saturday to demand G20 leaders impose a "Robin Hood" tax on financial transactions and currency trades.
Adbusters
Canada-based Adbusters wants the Occupy Wall Street protest movement against economic inequality to take to the streets to call for a 1 percent tax on such deals ahead of a Nov. 3-4 summit of the Group of 20 leading economies in France.
"Let's send them a clear message: We want you to slow down some of that $1.3 trillion easy money that's sloshing around the global casino each day -- enough cash to fund every social program and environmental initiative in the world," the activist group said on its website, www.adbusters.org.
Adbusters put out the initial call for Occupy Wall Street and since protesters set up camp in a park in New York City's financial district on Sept. 17, they have inspired solidarity demonstrations and so-called occupations around the world.
Thousands turned out for a global day of protests on Oct. 15, which were mostly peaceful apart from in Rome, where there were riots.
Occupy Arrests, a Twitter feed compiling arrests related to Occupy Wall Street, said that since the movement began five weeks ago nearly 2,400 people have been arrested around the world, including in New York City.
Occupy Wall Street prides itself on not having any leaders and doing everything by consensus at daily general assemblies. Adbusters has asked protesters to approve its plan for a "Robin Hood" tax and global protests at their general assemblies.
The proposal by Adbusters comes as some people question whether the movement can sustain momentum and and ask what will happen next. Critics accuse the group of not having a clear message.
"As the movement matures, let's consider a response to our critics. Let's occupy the core of our global system. Let's dethrone the greed that defines this new century," Adbusters said on its website.
The protesters say they are upset that the billions of dollars in bank bailouts doled out during the recession allowed banks to resume earning huge profits while average Americans have had no relief from high unemployment and job insecurity.
They also believe the richest 1 percent of Americans do not pay their fair share in taxes.
Occupy Wall Street is urging protesters to close their bank accounts and transfer their money to credit unions, a move that is due to culminate with a bank transfer day on Nov. 5.
(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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27 Comments so far
Show AllThe 99% TAX PLAN. No tax on less than $88,000. A Progressive tax from $88,000 to $1,000,000. A 99% tax on all income above $1,000,000. All income, earned and that from investment.
No loopholes - No deductions....
SIMPLE AND FAIR
"Tax the rich 'till the aint no more rich"
Yes!! Robin Hood said it before us: Rob from the rich and give to the poor!
"Tax the rich 'till the aint no more rich"
Yes!! Robin Hood said it before us: Rob from the rich and give to the poor!
so, Adbusters creates Occupy Wall Street...
folks Occupy Wall Street, and other places, eating their free pizza and taking pride in their no-stance, or their any-stance...whatever...
now, Adbusters suggests the Occupiers take a stance against Wall Street...
a stance that can only be enacted by Congress...
we're back to the corrupt Congress...are we just really slow?
Yes Dubet, you're a little fuzzy on what you're trying to get across. Maybe sleep on it and get back tomorrow.
While your tude is scornful, your argument is anything but scathing.
IMO, if you want to influence OWS, go to an occupation, or go to Wall Street. Unfriendly criticism of #Occupy from the couch section is aiding and abetting the 1%.
If you can't get to an occupation, show some support, 86 the hostility.
A Tobin tax is a good step, but meaningless if it all just gets recycled back through the Big Banksters to the MIC.
End the Oil Wars! Dismantle the Military Industrial Complex!
I don't like the Robin Hood connotation because it implies that we are stealing something that didn't belong to us in the first place. When we demand from the 1% we are demanding what is rightfully ours in the first place. The 1% are the thieves who have what they have because they have taken and taken and taken. They must make restitution and we shouldn't have to steal anything to reclaim what is ours. Tax them because it is just an fair.
"don't like the Robin Hood connotation ..."
Well said! But the concept of fairness might be clarified more.(ie: a tythe for everyone the goal, even if approached incrementaly) Even if the concept of fairness is lost or misinterpreted by some, it must remain a consensus of the majority.
It actually makes me FURIOUS to see the term "Robin Hood tax" thrown around so loosely for what could just as well be called a "Tobin tax", since the original proposal was made by Nobel Laureate economist James Tobin in 1972!
It makes me FURIOUS because this tax would do NOTHING to bring about an actual redistribution of ill-gotten wealth to the rest of society (like a progressive tax system would) and therefore calling this particular proposal a "Robin Hood tax" is STUPID and somewhat SUSPICIOUS.
It is MORONIC, because it would affect only the traders and that too only by way of reducing their profit margin just that little bit. It might also discourage some trading altogether, which is a good thing, but it will NOT have a Robin Hood effect by any means. Adbusters is WRONG on this, big time! Somebody should tell them to NOT use the name of Robin Hood for this tax.
As Robin would say, "take from them bloody rich and give to the bloody poor." Because you bloody rich couldn't be rich without taking it out of someone's pocket. Do you think you became rich all on your own? Without ideas and inheritances coming from those who came before you? And this idea that you can just dump your waste into the commons, our water and air, and no one's supposed to notice or scream for you to pay. I say 1 lousy percent of your megaprofits is letting you off easy.
Let us take down the Evil Empire and its corporate masters!
The military establishment is simply the most overtly violent arm of the corporate state, after the intelligence agencies, the law enforcement agencies, and the incarceration archipelago.
Violence, death, greed, addictive behaviors of all sorts, hustling, corruption, racketeering, manipulating the consumers (for the corporate state, there are no more citizens, only consumers), screwing your neighbor, climbing to the top by any means, ruthless exploitation of the planet's finite resources, destruction of life forms, pollution of the entire ecosphere -- those are the practices of the corporate state.
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As for Dubet, I recommend a little therapy and some remedial courses in elementary logic, English grammar, and basic -- very basic -- critical thinking.
"Let's dethrone the greed that defines this new century,":Yes, lets, but it is going to mean a lot more than keeping the same system but imposing a financial tax on it. It is the SYSTEM that has been the problem from the start. It is the SYSTEM that originating in genocide and slavery and now enslaving everyone that is the problem. Get the connection, examine our values and get to work DISMANTLING the SYSTEM.
Taking our money out of big banks and putting it in smaller credit unions sounds like a statement to me. I think we need to take responsibility as consumers. We the 99% are making the 1% rich with our consumer choices. We need to change that.
Kathy Moi, this is important, and the easiest thing we must do.
I say we gain broader support and advance the movement at this point by appealing to universal human rights and values.
We need to make common cause with the (gold?) miners in Africa and other workers around the world who slave under the worst possible conditions. Here in the US, we should make common cause with the coal miners who continue to work in such dangerously unsafe conditions. Solidarity is all important.
But we might begin by "occupying" Wisconsin -- i.e., helping to gather signatures in the recall effort against Gov. Scott Walker. (Over 500,000 are needed; 700,000 are planned.) In the name of the universal human right to form and join unions and to have a say in our working conditions, we could summon the movement to Occupy Wisconsin. The recall effort gets under way in days.
"The economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power."
-- F.D.R.
The critics require NO response. The action in a decentralized system takes place at each of the hundreds of OCW's across this Nation. Each one is different, runs on creativity, and births unique actions. Keep it up, you're doing just fine.
Using the name Robin Hood is essentially sabotaging the resistance to Wall Street by making it seem like we're asking for something that is not rightfully ours. As noted by others, the main point of the Occupy movement is to resist the powers that have become the largest force of destruction on the planet. There are lots of ways to do this. But the key is to just do it.
Posted by Oikos
Oct 24 2011 - 6:29pm
..."As for Dubet, I recommend a little therapy and some remedial courses in elementary logic, English grammar, and basic -- very basic -- critical thinking."
Again, it's greed - the 1% simply refused to pay enough for intelligent, literate, people to mess up comments here (recognize another retard talking about home remedies?). Pathetic, these hirelings, but that's what happens when society allows the nation to be usurped by the Wall Street types.
The only real power and value we the working people have left IS our daily work. And the collective action we need to reclaim it in full is utterly simple. Please check out this proposal for world-wide direct action to pull the pins right out from under capitalism, which can never be a basis for justice----WOOP: We the Workers of the World Walk Out On Profit, at: jackdempseywriter.wordpress.com
Visual things work. May I suggest an additional way to occupy?
A decent symbol for the 99% is the bare base of the PYRAMID from the Great Seal on the back of the dollar bill. No cap/eye, just the base.
Find square cardboard boxes, cut and tape them into that shape and let them sprout up all over the country... it's OUR pyramid with the plutocracy whooshed off the top. Public property. Might help give the movement a little focus, too.
Robin Hood never stole anything. He just redistributed wealth in a more fair way. Just because the wealthy 'possess' money does not make it morally theirs. Wealth is often unjustly gained off the blood, sweat, and labor of others.
I'm glad that I no longer think like a Capitalist.
If you really want to piss off a sociopath, suggest they help someone. Seriously, try it with a Republican some time. The worst thing they can imagine is a few cents of their money going to someone in need. They would rather beat the person up who is in need(and yeah they're the biggest group on Welfare). All this suggestion is going to do is make the blue ceo's go, yeah, cool, and the red ones and their hate syndicate on television, foam at the mouth like mistreated pitbulls, and go after the needy.
I'm not moving my money on the 5th or any other day because I already did that long ago when I saw how big and dirty the big banks had become. Credit Unions and true Community Banks are the answer. They can only play with our money if we give it to them and it's time now to empty the sandbox. No clear message? No clear message? I'm a little deaf and I'm hearing it loud and clear. End the 1%, take back our homes, take back our jobs, stop the raping and pillaging of the earth and it's peoples for simple ugly greed. In short, we the people are the government and we elect people to fulfill our views. We need to take back that government and insist they represent us...not the corporate pigs who feel they are more equal than the rest of us. No corporate personhood and no corporate political contributions. We are the real people. You can't kill a corporation because it is already dead. Acknowledge that corporations are dead already. That's the message. Read the signs! It's loud and clear. End corporate greed. Don't give up. There are cracks in the dikes and eventually they won't have enough thumbs.