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The 99 Percent Spring: The People Are Not Powerless
In the coming weeks, millions of Americans will take to the streets as part of the "99 percent spring," echoing last year's "Arab Spring."
At the root of this discontent are the extreme inequalities of income, wealth, and opportunity that have emerged over the last four decades.
The richest 1 percent now owns over 36 percent of all the wealth in the United States. That's more than the net worth of the bottom 95 percent combined. This 1 percent has pocketed almost all of the wealth gains of the last decade.
In 2010, the 1 percent earned 21 percent of all income, up from only 8 percent in mid-1970s. The 400 wealthiest individuals on the Forbes 400 list have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans.
These trends among the 1 percent are bad for the rest of us. Concentrated wealth translates into political clout — the power to use campaign contributions to rent politicians and tilt the rules of the economy in their favor.
Websites dramatizing the "We are the 99 percent" movement are full of personal stories of young people who are saddled with debt and no futures, and middle class families that have seen the American Dream collapse around them, losing jobs, homes, and hopes for the future.
"I used to dream about becoming the first woman president," one woman wrote. "Now I dream about getting a job with health insurance."
Reading these stories, I'm struck that the underlying conditions that have squeezed millions of Americans aren't going away. The current political system, captured by large corporations and the wealthy, is incapable of responding to their needs.
The "99 to 1" dichotomy may strike some folks as polarizing and inaccurate. Yet it's a powerful lens for understanding what's happened to our society and economy over the last several decades. The rules guiding our economy have been skewed to benefit the 1 percent at the expense of the 99 percent. These rules include tax policies, global trade agreements, and government actions that benefit asset owners at the expense of wage earners.
Who is the "1 percent"? Primarily it consists of households with annual incomes that top $500,000 and wealth exceeding $5 million. The 1 percent isn't a monolithic interest group. Plenty of people within this group have devoted their lives to building a healthy economy that works for everyone. But there's a small segment within the 1 percent — the "rule riggers" — who use their power and wealth to influence the political game so that they and their corporations get more power and wealth.
Just as individuals in the 1 percent are diverse actors, the 1 percent of corporations is also not unified. There are several thousand multinational corporations — the Wall Street inequality machine — that are the drivers of rule changes. But they are the minority. There are millions of other built-to-last corporations and Main Street businesses that strengthen our communities and have a stake in an economy that works for everyone.
We must defend ourselves from the bad actors — the built-to-loot companies whose business model is focused on shifting costs onto society, shedding jobs, and extracting wealth from our communities and the healthy economy.
This spring, watch for millions of people in motion, participating in protests at banks, outside lawmakers' offices, and in the streets. They'll be pressing for an economy that works for the 100 percent, not just the 1 percent. This is a healthy sign for our nation because it dramatizes that the people aren't powerless in the face of extreme inequality.
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32 Comments so far
Show AllLeaders. Platforms. Votes.
Anything less is useless.
Votes: That's one thing the 99% has in spades and the 1% would like to control either by convincing us not to cast them or convincing us to cast them against our own interests. They've been pretty successful in the past. It's up to us to wise up.
The 1% simply need to own both the "count" of the votes and the media to run flack around any questions concerning their count.
And they know it.
THE 99% RULE!!! Too bad only about 0.001% are occupiers -- apparently fairweather ones too.
You'd be surprised how even those who are not actively involved right now, may if the movement persists in the right vein and isn't co-opted, swell the ranks in coming months and years. Nothing really springs from "Zeus's" head fullblown. You should resist the urge for instant gratification.
One thing that happens with movements is that they move the center of gravity - even a slight shift - that has the capacity to target not only false dichotomies and the rhetoric that supports them, but to introduce a space that unlocks the stranglehold of media at the local level and introduce civil interaction knowingly - and I hesitate to use the term - transcending that hypnosis to settle into community and wrestle with the real 'boots on the ground' issues. Boots as in gardening, walking, booting out lies and deceit...
Cultural aspects such as false sense of security/threats are a challenge not because they are difficult issues, but because they contain the real vigor, creativity and vitality of peoples and nature. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to say they imprison the real vigor, creativity and vitality of peoples and nature.
The entire world of 99% is now awakening to the lies of the "growth model" as perpetrated by globalization corporations and minions. Word by word, concept by concept, a foundation is being excavated and slowly built that truly requires departure from the fear mongering, violence and denial of civility as essential to life on the planet. Listening is something the growth model is proven to be incapable of time and time again. In fact, it is dependent on being disingenuously tone deaf at best and beyond that, profoundly ethically corrupted by that same failure of practice.
"The entire world of 99% is now awakening to the lies of the 'growth model' "
I wish that were true, but I suspect that the majority of the people involved with #Occupy (and certainly 99% of the labor movement) is more interested in finding a more equitable path back into the American Dream which was always an illusion and has become a nightmare for the Earth.
"... how long? not long, because no lie can live forever..." MLK
"But there's a small segment within the 1 percent — the "rule riggers" — who use their power and wealth to influence the political game so that they and their corporations get more power and wealth."
There was a time when behavior like that was deemed criminal and unsavory. If you know someone with Netflix, download the "Great McGinty".
https://signup.netflix.com/Movie/The-Great-McGinty/60011161?country=1&rdirfdc=true
99% Spring is a Democratic attempt to co-opt the Occupy movement based on faux populism and is unconcerned with wars, militarism, indefinite detention without trial, universal surveillance or our hawkish, imperialist foreign policy.
Exactly this is SO fake, 99% Spring is Dim party front Move On, and Institute for Policy Studies the author is from is a Dim party think tank. Shame on CD for spreading this astroturf bullshit! This is attempting to make Occupy which was organized by libertarian socialist anarchists into the DIm's own tea party.
"I used to dream about becoming the first woman president," one woman wrote. "Now I dream about getting a job with health insurance."
Ironically, it may now be easier for that woman to become president than to find a private-sector job that pays well, provides decent benefits and some security.
The 99% are not powerless... but they are divided.
The 99% have the power. Look around. The 99% has been at the forefront of what is happening here. 90% of the 99% vote D or R in every election. Does anybody doubt that they will continue to vote D or R in the next election. As the election approaches they will say that the lesser of the evils is good enough. I am already hearing "Obama is not perfect - but he's better than the other guy." Hey, Obama made almost a million dollars for a 3 hour stint in Vermont last week. Only $7500 for lunch with the prez and a photo op.
The 99% Spring is a predictable liberal ploy to hijack the people's movement. The 99% Spring organizers' objective is for the people's movement to dissolve into the Demok party, without influencing its agenda one iota. But that will be a "cold day in hell". The people see that das liberal emperor is butt naked.
The 99% aren't powerless but will need the proper guidance to defeat the 1% or it'll be back to square one.
democratic party front. Leninists like they are. The party above all.
occupy is the people. not your war party.
I read in these posts the same old hackneyed comments that have split the "left" since the Chartists in the UK in 1832 argued about how THEY should protest. Whilst the "right" profits from internal dissension in socially-responsible popular movements.The only dissent in the ":right" is to as to who may make the best deals and get rich. There are no nit-picking splits in "right-wing" ideology.
Move On as a Dim party front is a corporatist militarist right wing group. Just more of what we saw on Democracy Now! recently with Van Jones shilling for "Occupy like," organizations, and re-electing Oily Bomber.
Fail!
The only split in the left is the split between the Left and the Faux Left DemoRat Party Sycophants! Better to know your enemy as your enemy rather than to know your enemy as your friend.
99 Percent Spring: the Latest MoveOn Front for the Democratic Party
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/16/99-percent-spring-the-latest-moveon-front-for-the-democratic-party/
Well lets be honest at least. The 99 percent are not powerless for lack of power they are powerless for lack of mutual purpose. Of the 99 percent, how many share the same purpose? United we stand.......
Designating the 99 percent through the fact they are separate from the 1 percent does not really do justice to a clearly defined and mutually connecting purpose.
Faux-progressives do more harm than they could possibly imagine, but so long as they are paid (off), their bellies full, they will spew any sort of lie to keep biz-as-usual going for one more day .Yeah sure, predatory capitalism with a few minor tweaks is going to produce economic nirvana for everyone. har har. Just what are we going to breathe while we are all counting our riches?
Mr. Collins might be a good fact-gatherer, but his interpretation is seriously misguided, his article full of complicit lies.
How about this one: "There are millions of other built-to-last corporations and Main Street businesses that strengthen our communities and have a stake in an economy that works for everyone."
Hooray for exploitation! Corporations exist for one purpose only, to maximize profits while minimizing service, quality etc. Business school 101: Give them as little as possible for the maximum price.
Another whopper: "Plenty of people within this group have devoted their lives to building a healthy economy that works for everyone." Oh yes, the ownership class is so misunderstood, they only want to help people...pure boy-cow feces.
Personally I always thought the 99 percent under the 1 percent to be a bit heavy in the 'cow plop' factor. Deciding who the 1 percent is becomes risky business cause everyone is due their day in court prior to being judged.
The underground economy, barter, Craigslist, garage sales, and co-ops is the real non state capitalist market.
Targeted boycott - power we already have
We have to be aware there are two kinds of 1%'ers.
The first as described in the written article..
The second is a group of 1%'ers in your area, city etc. these are the richest who make decisions to do whatever in the local area at your expense. They are the local owners, they own small businesses that do not pay well or have any kind of benefits. They influence the local government, school board, church and elections ( I like to call them auctions ).
BillB...You make an important point. Cronyism, the ol' boys network - I write about it in POVERTY IN A SMALL TOWN. I wonder how widespread it is across the country. It has destroyed any hope of democracy where I live. They control the books in the library. The news that gets published in the newspaper. The news that gets covered up............
Many years ago we had "Dons" demanding "protection money or else" . Making us offers we could not refuse . The "Dons" begin to set up associations , unions , organizations (AUO) to promote the betterment of their power and reduce competition among the "Dons" . When these AUO s became very powerful our government , of the time , decided to step in and demolish the power of the "Dons" enough to make them ineffective .
It took several years but the "Dons" have returned with much more power and leverage . They have also changed their names to health care providers , health care insurance , auto and property insurance , United Foods , petroleum industries , Wall Street brokerage and banking , etc .
Through devious means they have replaced many of the peoples representatives with their own representatives . And they have replaced enough of the S Court members to legalize gouging of the general public .
Now that they have accomplished these things they have re instituted the "or else" part of "protection money or else" . (mandate)
In essence they have formed is a government that is a pay to play government , only , which allows those that pay to take as much from those that do not pay as they wish . With impunity .
A peaceful protest: If we all stopped paying taxes, where would the government get its money? how would the police and military be paid?
"The fundamental political question is why do people obey a government. The answer is that they tend to enslave themselves, to let themselves be governed by tyrants. Freedom from servitude comes not from violent action, but from the refusal to serve. Tyrants fall when the people withdraw their support." - Étienne de La Boétie (1530-1563)
The government borrows from other countries, has the Fed creating money out of thin air and more so abusing digital technologies, and slashes funding for critical programs. All of it must stop no doubt.
[img]http://veritasvirtualvengeance.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/spring_99_percent_co-opts_ows_for_bushbama.jpg[/img]
Is "Spring99%" a rejuvenation of Occupy Wall Street, or a false flag psyop aimed at absorbing OWS into the elite-controlled, false-choice Demopublican facade?
IS THE 99% SPRING INITIATIVE AN ATTEMPT TO ABSORB THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT INTO THE CORPORATE-CONTROLLED TWO-PARTY SYSTEM?
co-opt (verb): To absorb, assimilate or take into a larger group. See also co-opted, co-option, co-optive, co-optate, co-optated, co-optation, co-optative, coopt, coopted, cooptive, cooptate, cooptated, cooptation, cooptative, taken in, taken over, annexed, appropriated, subverted and screwed.
Here you will find the letter that launched the "99% Spring" initiative and the signatories of the 40 organizations who are openly behind it:
http://the99spring.com/who-we-are/
There is no question that Justen Ruben's MoveOn.org, Van Jones' Rebuild the Dream and many if not most of the other groups listed there have ties to the Democratic Party and the Bushbama re-election circus. Consequently, it would be prudent for all concerned to question the real agenda behind 99% Spring, as many are:
"There are accusations from Occupy folks that Spring99% is trying to co-opt the OWS movement. That MoveOn is a front for the Democratic Party. And there are denials both from activists within the Spring99% network and members of the Occupy movement itself. It is a needed debate, even though it's probably under the radar for many progressives and irrelevant for mainstream politics – except for the accusations that Spring99% is a front for the Obama re-election campaign. Meanwhile, paranoia of being co-opted has been a mainstay within the anti-Wall Street movement for months."
http://obrag.org/?p=58223&cpage=1
"In an interview, activist and author John Stauber - who founded the Center for Media and Democracy in 1993 and ran it until 2009 - laid it out: 'Democratic donors and unions have - since the 2000 Nader/Gore/Bush election - flowed millions of election year dollars into non-profit organizations and liberal media to rally progressives and create an echo chamber that can impact politics in favor of Democrats... 99% Spring's activities will surely be carefully and quietly coordinated behind the scenes to have a maximum positive impact in defeating Republicans and re-electing President Obama," he continued. "These groups will claim independence from the 2012 Democratic campaign agenda, but the fact is that funding will flow to them simply to create buzz and the appearance of a movement that dovetails perfectly with Obama's campaign rhetoric.'"
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/04/12/moveons-99-percent-spring-obama-and-the-dems-march-in-lock-step/
Clearly, Stauber suspected Spring99% to be a false front. Charles M. Young attended one of their "nonviolent direct action training" sessions this week, and brought back ample proof that it is:
"The first clue... was the sign-up table, where there were a bunch of Obama buttons for sale and one sign-up sheet for the oddly named Community Free Democrats (are they free of community?), which is the local Democratic clubhouse. That killed the 'inspired by Occupy Wall Street' vibe right there... Over half the crowd left early. Most of those who stayed appeared to be angry and mystified that they had received no training whatever in nonviolent direct action. I doubt that the Democrats or MoveOn succeeded in co-opting anyone, and I predict that they will be inventing more dreary front groups as the election year grinds onward."
http://thiscantbehappening.net/node/1126
I have not attended - and I refuse to attend - any 99% Spring or other Demopublican indoctrination sessions. I would never waste my time charging windmills with third parties, but neither will I allow them to sucker me back into the two-party fold. I have been actively supporting the Occupy Movement since day one (9/17/2011) ... Morpheus gave me the Red Pill in Washington DC two years before that (9/11/2009) ... and I've been waging a personal rebellion against the Kleptocracy empowered by 9/11 ever since. And based on what I've seen first-hand in venues like the OccupyWallSt.org Forum, if I still had any left I would bet my entire savings that Spring99% was not the first and will not be the last attempt by the corporate fascist elite and their puppet president Bushbama to co-opt OWS.
Good post, thanks for saving me some typing. :)