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Our Message is Simple: Only Main Street Can Save America
MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota -- As I sit awake this Thursday night, preparing to protest on the steps of the Hennepin County Government Center, I ponder what this protest truly stands for.
Throughout the mainstream media there have been some dubious assertions as to what the message of this protest truly is. This night, before the protest in downtown Minneapolis begins, I wish to shed some light on the subject.
In the past several years, it has become painfully clear that the interests of the American people are not held in high esteem in either lower Manhattan or Washington, D.C.
We've seen several bank bailouts since the early 1980s, only to find ourselves at the doorstep of financial ruin once again. Those of differing persuasions think we should "get a job" or "stop whining."
But jobs are scarce, and a true protest is beyond a simple matter of whining.
The politicians have failed us. Wall Street has failed us. Now, only Main Street America can save us. That is our message.
Though it seems as though this movement has no singular message, the real truth is about fairness and equality. Our economy is not one of equal opportunity, as protesters will shout about racial inequality or ever-increasing poverty rates.
These issues are one and the same, because unemployed college grads and stigmatized blacks and Latinos share this ailment.
Those fighting for gay marriage and environmental reform are a part of the same equation; protection of our public places and universal rights fall under the same umbrella that we call equality.
All Americans deserve the same opportunity and the same right to enjoy our public spaces.
As the working single mother and those protesting war will tell you, ours is a movement of peace and protection. These principles can only exist together. Indeed, we should all be treated fairly and equally under the law, but this principle has been lost.
We find it fascinating that some on the ideological right wish to limit our personal freedoms but balk at the idea of regulating business.
This protest is not a denial of the merits of capitalism, but a rebuke to those who would use greed and deception to undercut the honest working American. We recognize that our banking and corporate systems do not honor merit, only the bottom line and short-term gains.
Their thinking is foolish. Our future and the future of our children is being threatened by those not held accountable. We see bankers and corporate masters walking away from financial disaster with tens and hundreds of millions of dollars while working Americans struggle to keep their homes.
The common notion of capitalism is that merit and hard work bring rewards to those with the fortitude and determination to succeed. What we see in America today is quite the opposite.
In response to Tea Party activists we ask: "Why don't you join us?" The bankers and corporations that we decry are no friends of yours.
These organizations have no patriotism, no loyalty to the United States, and they are no friends of small business.
They have no fealty to you or me, for their course is to simply drive up the bottom line no matter the cost and no matter the method.
In the end our true goal is to save capitalism through accountability and honesty.
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Show All=In the end our true goal is to save capitalism through accountability and honesty.=
That's the way I feel about Psychopathy. I walk in circles holding my sign that reads: MORE ACCOUNTABLE & HONEST PSYCHOPATHS.
I remember the years 1968-96 when TV comedian Pat Paulsen ran for President. From the beginning his campaign theme was: I'VE UPPED MY STANDARDS. UP YOURS.
Trylon
Capitalism functions in favor of the majority only when it is under control the way it was from the advent of FDR's New Deal in 1934 until Ronny Raygun and his 4 successors destroyed in during the past 30 years.
Step one to saving "Main Street" is to restore all the New Deal regulations. The second step is to add new regulations that address all the new financial "products" that have been introduced during the past 30 years. Step one can be accomplished overnight since the regulations are already written and were tested for 75 years.
“Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.”
John Maynard Keynes
Capitalism is not worth saving.
We had Capitalism with socialism and it worked fairly well because we took care of the people that capitalism inherently excludes. We don't do that anymore in any meaningful way. Capitalism is on its last legs, that is why it is destroying its self. The question now is what will replace it, something worst or something better.
Not that I would live to see it but my money is that, whatever it is, after a certain period of time, humanity will find itself right here again where it is today. That's the way it always happens for as long as man has walked the planet. We cannot seem to escape the inexorable Human Condition that so affects us. We're just wired wrong.
Well done.
"These organizations have no patriotism, no loyalty to the United States, and they are no friends of small business."
In a nut shell.
Frankly I'm very fond of Pat's slogan. "I've upped my standards, up yours"
Remember his slogan when Reagan was running against Carter? "Nobody For President." How could you loose? I proudly displayed that bumper sticker on my van. We bought some of his Wine Snob Red, and rank his health.
Unless these people move from wall street to the congress their protest will have little real impact. It is the politicians of both parties who are screwing them and they are letting them off the hook.
I have no objection to demonstrating at congress, but the politicians are screwing us at the behest of the bankers and other industrialists who pay with "contributions" for politicians' campaign commercials.
Personally, I hate the two party system but it would be difficult for a third party to get traction enough to get some people elected without a large pot of uncorporatized money and some media savvy commercial producers to use it. Don't know where that money would come from.
Campaign finance reform could help a lot but that couldn't get passed by the current accomplice congress.
I just read this in the Star Tribune. The comments were filling up with a great many 'get a job' comments and 'go back to your room in your parent's basement,' etc. The polarity is striking.
I have noticed that 99% of the comments in on-line versions of mainstream media publications are right wingers who haven't got a clue. Do the publishers cull progressive comments?
Not at the Star Tribune, I am quite sure. The comments there are generally highly polarized and mostly with a rough 50/50 split on right and left. Most on the far right think of the moderate Star Tribune as a leftist rag.
Capitalism never functions for 'the majority' unless 'the majority' are owners of Capital who receive a majority of their wealth from owning the means of production rather than having to sell their labor to capitalists. Period. There was a short period of time in the U.S. when some U.S.workers got a better deal, but that is over.
Three sentences from this article and my take on them.
"Only Main Street Can Save America":
that seems true to me.
"These organizations [banks and corporations] have no patriotism, no loyalty to the United States, and they are no friends of small business":
agreed.
"In the end our true goal is to save capitalism through accountability and honesty":
that, I find incomprehensible in view of the history of capitalism over the course of the last century and the first decade of the new one: two world wars, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, numerous legitimate governments overthrown by the CIA (starting with the democratically elected president of Iran in 1953), numerous invasions of small countries (e.g. Grenada), billions of dollars in aid to dictatorial regimes, the arms race, the destruction of the environment by corporations, et cetera.
Some may reply that capitalism needs to be regulated. That's only true to a degree. Regulations did not prevent most of the ills I just listed. Furthermore, regulations did not prevent their (the regulations') own dismissal by the fanatical right and other corporate interests.
Finally, and this is the death knell of capitalism, as an economy of constant growth, capitalism (and any industrial society that is based on constant growth) is incompatible with the finite resources of Earth and its living ecosystems.
If the goal of the Minneapolis protest or, for that matter, of Occupy USA is to save capitalism, then they are utterly pointless exercises in self-deception. That must not and cannot be their goal.
**********
Later addition.
Note how the article begins with this sentence in the title: "Only Main Street Can Save America." A sentiment, I would suspect, we can all identify with.
But see how it ends: "In the end our true goal is to save capitalism through accountability and honesty."
The author goes from saving America to saving capitalism, as if the two were coextensive. How d'ya like them apples?
The BIG Media seems to think this protest movement is muddled and unfocused because 1) they are too dumb to understand it and can only understand a simple message such as "Overthrow " and 2) they are probably told from above to convey this "muddled" message. Even yesterday David Brooks on NPR and PBS was saying that this movement won;t amount to much. David will be eating his words soon.
People are angry about lots of things. Collectively the Government/Wall Street/Media complex ignores this and plays their sorry fiddle while the Rome of a failed economy and failing environment and general collapse happens outside.
Yeah, that line struck me as a little weird.You'd have to look real hard at any of these demos to find anyone who thought they were there to save capitalism.However, if OWS turned into a movement big enough to partially level the playing field, then capitalism might be saved.That's pretty much what happened in the thirties during the New Deal.The playing field got leveled. It's was nice while it lasted.
Some of you should realize that only a VERY small minority of Americans want an end to capitalism. Most Americans view those who espouse this as crazy socialists or worse. Capitalism will slowly be tamed into something better than at present, but advocating an end now is merely playing into the hands of the far right. Moderates will be turned away from the left if too many voices talk of ending capitalism. McCarthyism will return in spades. Something very good could be destroyed for a generation or more.
del
In the absence of biographical information, I assume the writer is relatively young.
His message is heartfelt and well-intended, but it's at best naïve or short-sighted.
Or else it's deliberately and disingenuously innocuous-- bending over backwards with almost swooning pious respect for capitalism in hopes of disarming skittish or reactionary readers, and to persuade moderate centrists and conservatives to join the protest.
I respectfully hope that he's wrong to believe, or hope, that "this protest truly stands for" the misguided belief that capitalism and its methods and processes can be reformed into a humane, just, and enlightened system.
That's the gist of his message: "real" or uncorrupted capitalism is laudably all about nurturing rugged individualism, merit, and self-sufficiency, provided it's conducted on a clean, level playing field where honest rules are fairly applied, and opportunity and prospects for economic security are paramount.
It's a nice idea, or ideal. But the essential righteousness and benign efficacy of capitalism is one of its most entrenched and pervasive myths-- or, in contemporary terms, marketing strategies.
A very similar homily could be written about the present-day political process-- i.e., advocating protest for the sake of saving or redeeming a sound and virtuous electoral system that has been hijacked and corrupted to nullify its intended function of guaranteeing true democracy, freedom, liberty, and social justice.
If this studiously non-threatening message of moderate, implicitly incremental, reform indeed reassures and attracts support from defensive, complacent citizens, so be it.
But in the long run, capitalism can no more be tamed or reformed than a scorpion-- any more than the corrupt and pretextual political duopoly can be tweaked and fixed to actually serve the interests of ordinary unprivileged citizens instead of the overclass.
Occupy Wall Street and its companion events are radical in nature. The nascent radical dimension will have to reach a critical mass to achieve real social and political transformation.
If timid or short-sighted influences succeed in quashing the radical spirit in favor of "sensible", "practical", authoritarian-following approaches, the movement will collapse like a shocked soufflé.
If capitalism isn't working, what can be put in it's place? Is there a better economic system?
So far, there has been no other system that worked. Claims to the contrary are wishful thinking not based in reality.
Wow! Somebody that actually gets it! One out of 300,000,000 - not bad at all.
I couldn't agree more, Obedient Servant, Oct 8 2011 - 12:44pm.
Main Street can save America only when the culture in Main Street supports democracy and basic human rights. You'll know Main Street has changed when the folks on Main Street support these changes:
What We Want: http://www.gpln.com/whatwewant.htm
Capitalism, socialism and other centralized systems of representative government end in dictatorship:
Direct democracy
Every ism ends in dictatorship when ordinary citizens do not accept their citizenship responsibilities. http://www.gpln.com/citizen.htm
http://www.gpln.com/udhr.htm
We The People have been propagandized since birth to believe that free enterprise is equivalent to capitalism. In fact, our present form of capitalism which allows a private central banking cartel to lend money into existence, charge interest on it, and rack up a gigantic national deficit, is antithetical to free enterprise and Main Street values.
Banking and stock markets are legitimate functions in a system where money is created by a democratically elected government spending it into existence, interest-free. There would be no national deficit in such a system. Banks would be much less powerful, and only as successful as the Main Street businesses who choose to bank with them.
Until we educate ourselves and achieve clarity on this point we will have difficulty in overcoming the false dichotomy of the left-right, liberal-conservative divisions perpetrated by the propaganda machine. Corporate media have managed to marginalize a lot of good work done recently by monetary theorists; I recommend Michael Hudson, Thomas Greco Jr. and Stephen Zarlenga for starters. Zarlenga’s book The Lost Science of Money will peel the blinders from your eyes.
This is a great comment. Thank you, JeanG.
I am a socialist. I both understand and despise capitalism. For at least half a century, I have wanted it thrown in the trashbin of history. The solution is socialism or some form of it.
However, it will NEVER come to pass in this country without taking the first step of the Main Street movement. This is true for many reasons, not the least of them being the control of the message and police by the capitalist elite.
Although there are a vast many of us who understand the irrationality and immorality of capitalism, we must develop a perspective of where we are in history and regain some patience.
Some of the steps we could actually win are not baby ones. Here are just two of them. The anti-Federal Reserve sentiment is one shared across the left-right spectrum. The idea of a state bank, such as North Dakota has, is appealing to more and more people.
I would second JeanG's suggestion on authors and add Ellen Hodgson Brown.
"In the end our true goal is to save capitalism through accountability and honesty."
Not so oh errant one.
"Only Main Street can Save America"
*rolls eyes*
I would personally like to be "saved" from reality-disconnected speech like this!
I mean, what about Elm Street or First Avenue or Martin Luther King Boulevard?
What are those roadways going to save?
Obviously Europe (non-native Elms), Asia ("first" in size and pop.) and Africa (is this joke racist?) right? ;)
I suppose Australia and Antarctica are on their own?
But it IS nice to know that BOTH Americas can be saved by just one humble street.
And "America" is a mispronunciation of an Italian men's name.
I'm guessing its The United States OF America (the continents) that we are talking about here.
Sorry, but with a headline this stupid my confidence that the article won't be is very low. ;)
oops
If the author would read these comments, he might learn a thing or two. Capitalism ALWAYS exploits the labor of others. It is essentially a system for leeches.
I was saved by Elm Street for a while.Columbus Ave. was pretty good too.
"In the end our true goal is to save capitalism through accountability and honesty."
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Bullshit (to get right to the point)
Manysummits
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"In the end our true goal is to save capitalism through accountability and honesty."
What a load of bullshit! So, essentially, the objective is to go back to where we can all buy big screen teeves & shop till we drop while we wave flags and allow the Empire to invade, massacre, rape, pillage and plunder the rest of the world so that we may continue our life of decadence as if nothing had ever happened. For as long as I am ok, who gives a rat's ass about the rest of the world, right?