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We Are the 99%
Being part of the 99% isn't about dominance – it's about universality.
The struggling economy is impacting everyone. Well, almost everyone. Americans on the whole aren't getting ahead; they're falling further behind every year. Nearly every American is worried about paying his bills or keeping her job. The terrible economy of 2008 has become the still-horrible economy of 2011.
We've worked and waited for change, for the system to improve, for the reasons the economy got broken to be fixed.
America's done waiting for change. Frustrated, furious - people took to the streets.
Occupy Wall Street, Occupy DC, Occupy Oakland, Occupy Boise – they're done waiting for change. Now, they're demanding it.
Washington isn't making our economy better. Politicians aren't. Oil and gas companies aren't. Wall Street isn't. They aren't making the economy better because the economy doesn't impact them. The Senators who voted against the jobs bill aren't unemployed or struggling to pay their bills. The heads of ExxonMobil and Goldman Sachs aren't either. And they aren't holding each other accountable.
The protests throughout the country are.
Loud, peaceful protest is making America pay attention to the discrepancies and weak spots in our economy. It's something we've been saying pointedly and politely for nearly five years. But it's something that needs to be said more loudly.
To our supporters: join the conversation today. Bring your voice and your issues to your local Occupy assemblies. Go. March. Make signs. Protest. Stand up for what you believe in.
Clean air, fresh water, healthy food, and good jobs aren't just going to happen. The economy isn't going to fix itself. Say so quietly is no longer saying it loud enough.
To the people Occupying America - young and old; black, brown and white: We add our voice to your calls for change.
- Posted in
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49 Comments so far
Show AllBravo. Great sign the protestor is holding.
Calling for "change" is not enough. As we learned from Team Obama, hope plus two dollars buys a good cup of coffee and change is what you put in the barista's tip jar.
Calling for eliminating corporate control of government is the first change we need, or the other concerns will never be addressed..
Yes, eliminating corporate control of government is key, but remember that in Eisenhower's famous speech, he had planned to refer to the congressional-military-industrial complex, the first term being edited out. The fact is that we live in corporatocracy, and have for many decades, and the division of government and corporations is a fiction. The most we could hope for are concessions under this system, and the corporatocracy has little incentive to do so. The US citizenry make neither profitable consumers nor producers anymore. Once people come to see that, this country will be ready to revolt, and if we do, we can expect the same respect given to the people of Afghanistan.
The corporatocracy seems to have taken Benjamin Franklin's words to heart: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Oh ye of little faith.......trust the people, allow the process to unfold before passing judgment. Look for change.
Exactly Phaedra gets it, it really is as simple as letting the 99% speak, and staying until the 1% collapses.
Yes, we are the 99%. So, let's NEVER VOTE AGAIN for any politician who doesn't specifically PROVE through his/her CAMPAIGN PROMISES that he/she will work relentlessly ONLY FOR THE PEOPLE!!!!! SCREW THE CORPORATOCRACY!!!! And if they don't keep their promises, we should DISMISS them immediately!!!!!
In other words, vote third party.
The Democrats and GOP's sole missions are to get more corporate money than the other party.
Well, the Constitution came through the ballot box.
That's one "meaningful change" right there.
You mean no meaningful change has ever come SOLELY through the ballot box.
All have involved larger struggles.
Libertarians aren't the only third party available, thankfully. They're no better than the Big 2. The Green Party is the only logical choice for Americans who care for each other and the Earth. Check out their platform, and vote for it if you like it,even if they don't have a chance of winning in 2012 . We have to start somewhere, so vote your conscience. And the only struggle that can be effective is to boycott those you don't support.
Indeed the 99%ers should demand only one thing... public funding of campaigns. All else will thereafter be legislated fairly.
Jack Lohman
http://MoneyedPoliticians.net
Yes, we are the 99%. So, let's NEVER VOTE AGAIN for any politician who doesn't specifically PROVE through his/her CAMPAIGN PROMISES that he/she will work relentlessly ONLY FOR THE PEOPLE!!!!! SCREW THE CORPORATOCRACY!!!! And if they don't keep their promises, we should DISMISS them immediately!!!!!
Hey FrankS,
Even if the 99%-ers don't vote, the plutocrats will still get their puppet politicians elected. All the wealthy elite need to maintain power is for a majority of the 1%-ers to vote for their government whores, and they win.
Besides, this whole exercise of popular demand by the 99%-ers can be ignored without effort by the 1%-ers.
BUT, there is ONE demand that can be made that will make this whole popular demand exercise successful, and that demand is: For everyone in the United States, and everyone in the world's other "democratic" nations, and everyone in the world to finally see and fully understand that there are no longer any REAL democracies. The governments of the world on planet Earth are plutocracies.
DEMAND THAT THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE WORLD ADMIT THAT THEY ARE PLUTOCRACIES AND NOT DEMOCRACIES.
The 99%-ers, by merely making the demand for an admission of this TRUTH, and the 1%-ers, and their plutocratic puppets refusing to do it, PROVES THAT IT IS SO!
Then, and only then, can the 99%-ers proceed to rage against the plutocratic oligarchy with impunity.
After all, it IS acceptable to do ANYTHING to ANYONE who is anti-democracy, and by the 1%-ers resisting this demand by the 99%-ers, it will then be the 1%-ers that will be fighting AGAINST democracy, which is treason, punishable by confiscation of their assets, followed by their imprisonment, and/or execution.
But until the admission that the 1%-ers are NOT of the democracy, the 99%-ers can demonstrate all they want. The results will be tepid, futile, and unsuccessful because all that has to happen is for them to be ignored, which so far is pretty much the strategy of the plutocracy.
But to ignore the demand that they admit that they are not democratic, PROVES that they aren't!
Then let the world's 1% fight to make the world safe for plutocracy against the 99% who will fight to make the world safe for democracy.
99 to 1 is overwhelming odds.
Checkmate!
MEL
Voting is not where our power lies.
[With apologies, partial comment from another post.] Capitalism is a failure. The only hope for this country is socialism, where the workers control the means and profits of production.
Under capitalism jobs are not going to miraculously come back to this country. The highest mantra of capitalism is to make a profit. If profit can be lost by bringing jobs back here, well that’s just not going to happen. It’s been stretched and reconfigured and realigned everyway possible. It should be more than obvious that it can’t be fixed. There will always be an economic class divide, as well as constant boom-and-bust cycles so long as capitalism is allowed to be the predominate model.
Ever since the implementation of the Federal Reserve and the IRS we have been slaves to capitalism. Why is it, after you are born, you are obligated to pay a government entity for the right to be free – including the right to be free of confiscation &/or incarceration if you don’t pay? Taxing a man’s (or woman’s) labor is NOT freedom. Paying for our own subjugation is not freedom. Paying for wars that we find morally unacceptable is not freedom. Giving the Banksters a disproportionate share of our treasury is not freedom. America is now the Land of the Elite and Home of the Slaves.
Tax is like any tool. What matters is in whos interest it is wielded. Remember that the key question is "who's and what interest"? The only great answer is: The PEOPLE's BETTER interests. The people being all people, not some sub-category. Better interests is a term meaning needs, not wants. Be careful to distinguish these. Ignore the special status of "the people's better interests" at the risk of societal/planetary destruction. The evidence abounds today.
there are more choices other than corporate capitalism and socialism. Both are top down hierarchies that are inefficient and prone to corruption. Check out David Korten's living systems economies, which has a lot more in common with a true market economy, that is a much more efficient and flexible economy than either socialism or corporatism ever dreamed of. It depends on keeping businesses small, and responsive to the local community.
thanks, Phaedra, well said!
i do disagree with one little point, "the economy doesn't affect them," wall street and the career politicians. "they" are so scared now, but too ignorant to change their dirty minds and underwear!
The inevitable winter die-down could be turned to an advantage by organizing an (indoor) National General Assembly.
This way, the Occupations could get out from the cold and retreat to the online base for a period, but make that period useful through organization.
Also, such a regrouping in new form would counter TV triumphalism about the "abandoned occupations", retain public interest, and grow participation even in the lean times.
Demanding is better than mere protesting, emailing, and petitioning, but the Ruling Class of the Murder Machine will not be compelled to change without action.
It is time to organize General Strikes and boycotts, and to spread the word to all citizens never again to vote for any candidate from the two Wall Street/Corporate/Warmonger parties.
Any candidate who supports U.S. wars and empire is a threat to our future and must be thrown out of office.
“I know for a fact that the Republican Congressional Committee is monitoring social media around the Occupy Wall Street movement, looking for ways to show potential voters that the movement is full of the most extreme views,” he says, “and Bank of America began running full-page ads in the Atlanta Constitution Journal telling readers how much they have done to help Georgia’s homeowners.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/1012/Social-media-drive-Occupy-Wall-Street.-Do-they-also-divulge-its-secrets
Who is ultimately reponsible for giving us good jobs, clean air, fresh water, and healthy food? I want to know in practical terms who I need to talk with? The demonstrations are great, but how do I really affect change?
Who is ultimately reponsible for giving us . . . jobs? The federal Government is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Employment_and_Balanced_Growth_Act
I AM THE 1%
There's a pigeon in your chimney
There's a pebble in your shoe
There's a hole in your roof
Where the rain is coming through
There's a mudslide in your road
There's a drone in your sky
There's so many thoughts in your head
That bring a tear to your eye
There's a frown on your face
There's crumbs in your bed
There's a dead dog in the ditch
And the buzzards circling overhead
There's a poison in your well
There's a wolf at your door
Your gun-totin' children
Will be children no more
There's a leak in your faucet
There's a drunk in your choir
There's your madman with a gas can
Trying to put out a fire
There's a run in your stocking
Cigarette butts in your wine
And a hurricane is blowing
All your clothes off the line
But I will... carry on
I will... carry on
On and on, I'll carry on
Long after... you're dead and gone
There's a crack in your windshield
Your river's all dried up
Your future's black as tea leaves
Left lying in your cup
Broken glass in your pool
Hopeless bums in your park
And an eclipse of the sun
Has left you all in the dark
There's a bomb in your mailbox
There's a thief in your hall
There's a line on your table
That just might kill you all
There's a snake in your garden
There's a shark in your wave
There's a falling star falling
That nobody can save
And your sherrif's on the take
Your secret agent's are all known
Your photographs are doctored
And your doctors are all stoned
There's a brick on the freeway
Your boom has gone bust
Your skyscrapers are collapsing
Into nothing but dust
And there's a finger on the trigger
There's a cross on the hill
There's a black man in the white house
That a white man wants to kill
And the credits are rolling
Asd the screen fades to black
And your fat lady's singing
About her last Big Mac attack
But I will... carry on
I will... carry on
On and on, I'll carry on
Long after... you're dead and gone
I will... carry on
I will... carry on
I'll carry on and on ...
Long after... you're dead and gone
I am... the 1%
Nice verses!
" The economy isn't going to fix itself."
The Australian economist Steve Keen has good ideas on the sort of reforms which might help.
http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/
Well said. Yes, we are the 99%. Some of us are young people, others retired, some of us hoping for a job, others working and worried. Some of us blame corporations more than government. Others blame government more than corporations. What all of us must remember is that each individual and each group is a small part of the 99%. I know that we will never unite all the the 99%, so we must set aside our differences in pursuit of the common goals. That means that we must remain focused on resisting the power of the 1% instead of arguing amongst ourselves. Remember, it doesn't matter if that person hoping for a job is a supporter of the Occupy Movement or a supporter of the Tea Party. The most important thing to them is still that job.
Nice work Phaedra. The comments here reflect people's lack of patience for the movement to unfold. Good things take time. Don't obsess over short term change. Before much will happen, people's minds and hearts have to be changed. Consciousness is raising fast as the movement spreads. As more people join and take ownership, the more solid the movement becomes. There is no one right answer. The beauty of a decentralized movement is that multiple answers and efforts will be made based upon PLACE. Things that are relevant to People in THEIR place will be acted upon there. There will also be larger more generalized understandings. Good ideas will take flight. Change is and will happen. One percent cannot possibly control 99% and they know that. So allow the process to unfold and the potential to be realized. Be joyful, it's happening.
Amen!
I'm dittoing the "Amen!" Beautifully articulated!
Stone: " Good Ideas will take flight ".
True. We have to remember that the #OWS movement, while nascent, is still in its infancy and I would compare it to the civil rights movement of the late 1950' s or the Vietnam movement of the early 1960's. But with the net, twitter, skype ect. I believe it will grow much faster than those movements and that is probably what scares the hell out of the 1%; but they won't show their hand until they have to ( like cleaning Liberty Park ). That was just a test run. You will know that the 1% are really worried when they get really violent like they did in the later days of the civil rights and the Vietnam movements because the greedy and nihilistic 1% only value is: $$$$$$$$$$$$$. They have a death grip on their wallets and will not go quietly.
And now this cannot go away. It is here.
It can burn low but it cannot be extinguished.
This is how we start. This is who we are.
We are the 99 percent of humanity.
The 1 percent may hunt us, may make us illegal, may ignore us, may disregard us, may kill us.
But now we burn like a tiger in the night.
We are the 99. We are the future.
Alice Walker was right.
We are the ones that we have been waiting for.
Unfortunately the time for restoration of true democracy through peaceful protest has come and gone. When the 1 percent have had enough of OWS, they will deploy their drones and their troops to "cleanse" the streets of demonstrators, arrest the ringleaders and put them into privatized prisons built with tax funds supplied by the people. The same technology that has put an end to millions of good-paying jobs and the working class will be used against the 99 percent. A recent "60 Minutes" report revealed that New York Police (numbering about 30-thousand, or roughly 2 army divisions) have the weapons to shoot down aircraft. Police nationwide have been "militarized" with heavy weaponry useful in putting down "insurrections". Kent State proved that the National Guard will shoot unarmed protesters. The right has the might and is willing to use it against all those they perceive as "threats" to their power and control. The street protests are about 30 years too late. Most likely they will drift away like autumn leaves before winter...even before the plutocrats feel the necessity to deploy force against them.
We're not drifting anywhere.
Freedom is life. No Freedom, no life.
Is your hide so valuable to you that you would not die to be Free, to know that those after you will be Free?
Ya wanna live forever?
You're a pessimistic part of the problem. You lost the dream.
You have to HOLD ON.
This stuff doesn't happen overnight.
This is a PROJECT.
And Kent State arguably opened the door for all such following actions and movements towards Freedom.
Thirty years too late?
Better late than... ahhhh fergit it.
The lackeys who take their orders from the 1% are not going to open fire on us. We are their sons, fathers, brothers, sisters. I don't think the gang of 400 have any more respect for us than they have for the foreign civilians, but they don't want the US streets to look like those in Afganistan. Remember, the foreign civilians are not exactly taking the invasion lying down.
Occupation forces always lose in the end. Many may have to die. It may take a long time. Guerilla wars do not necessarily favor those with the most guns. Even the rich fucks are not stupid enough to provoke a civil war.
It is NEVER too late to fight for your freedom, not unless you are dead.
HR 6550
Without fundamental monetary reform, nothing changes.
I first heard of the Mondragon Cooprative of the Basque in Spain, back in 1994. My Mom had been telling m the Family History of the Cheveries who are Basque. The French had kicked the Cheverie's out of France. We ended up on Prince Edward Island. The English tried to kick us out of there. My Ancesters went andn hid in the woods for 15 yars and had lots of kids. I told my Mom, ''I want to know what they are doing now?'' 2 weeks latter she showed me an Article in the Catholic Digest, about Mondragon's Worker Ownership.
As an IBEW Journey Man ""Wirenut'' (as we called ourselves.) who had worked in a good part of this Country, with all of my benefits being sent back to my Home Local, 103 of Boston, saw right away how Unions could make it work here. Been planting seeds about it to all kinds of Unions, Churches, and other gathering places, from my address book picked up through the years.
http://www.care2.com/news/member/406091837/2982427
''OWS has not yet formed a group consciousness to create Democratic Social Organizations to serve the Nation But Vermont and Montana are creating citizen operated Health Insuranc. And North Dakota has had its own State Bank for over 90 years, which bypasses Wall Street and The Fed. Ithaca New York has a Democratic Social Town Bank. And the nation media is showing their shameful censorship for the whole country to recoil from. United Steel is planning Worker Owned Factories. It's a long journey back to Liberty and justice. We will struggle to end lobbying and to end the Federal Reserve (Which is owned and run by private banks and has no reserves.). Its a lot of work.''-J C Skues --A good Facebook Friend of mine.
Some say OWS lacks a cohesive list of demands. I think there is a better way to demonstrate what the movement is about than again addressing the system trusting it will still work to fix itself. The best use of our energy is not in conversation but in action. This is what gives OWS its power, the fact that people are putting their bodies on the line to make change, not waiting for someone else to do for them. I would like to introduce the following into the continuing conversation. We must focus our energy on those parts of the machine that require our participation in them to continue. That is why I support the movement to Move Your Money from the big blood-sucking banks (B of A, Citi, Chase, Wells Fargo, etc.) and into local banks and credit unions. Also, I propose now a #dontfile movement to go out and encourage 5 million or more Americans to not file income tax next year. Income tax is a form of illegal extortion, it is tribute to a private corporation, the Federal Reserve, that has stolen the U.S. government's constitutional mandate to be the only entity to coin money for the use of the people and the general good. The federal Reserve has co-opted that role, sucking interest from us through taxes for the right to use its toilet paper for money. We rent those reserve notes and pay interest through taxes, how do you think those guys got so rich? They get a percentage off of each economic transaction every time money changes hands. The only ones who are exempt from this little circle of pillage is the Upper crust of CEO's, especially in the financial sector for they are the main money movers. We really have to cut them off at the knees. Can you imagine a more peaceful protest than to just not mail that envelope or consult H.R Block, or push that send button? Think about it..... P.S. You people in the world outside of the U.S. are subject to same banker class as us, the same corporate blood-sucking, war-mongering insanity. So what if you deprived the beast of its main food - your energy, your fear, your complacence. Move your money, buy gold and silver, refuse to pay taxes, and don't buy from the companies that are raping you. THAT GOES FOR US ALL!
Very proud of the demonstrations. Even the pundits don't get it. We are on a highly destructive track in all of the areas that made this country so wonderful. As a teacher I am constantly telling my students that they must become innovators. Why has greed taken over? Because they can. We must reform tax laws, public education. I feel like I'm watching what happened a century ago. I thought we had learned from our mistakes. Guess not.
I am extremely supportive of the Occupy Wall Street movement. However I do believe there needs to be a more cohesive and specific list of demands. Saying "We are against corporate greed" is all well and good, but WHAT exactly should be done about it? For instance, saying "We the people want to have the Glass–Steagall Act re-enacted" would be perhaps a bit more productive.