Occupy Wall Street

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
1045

[quote]Agressive Napkin wrote:

[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:

[quote]Alvirre wrote:
I"m still having troubles understanding what is that OWS crowd wants exactly.[/quote]

Oh god, this shit again.

They want corporations to stop running the government.[/quote]

The problem is, that’s not specific. They want corporation to ‘stop running the government.’ Well, how do they want that to happen? Do they want a law passed? Do they have some legal reasons to bring people up on charges? Do they have any sort of structural solution?

The answers, as far as I’ve seen (feel free to provide evidence that this is not the case), are no. Plus, the way these protests seem to work, they don’t have any specific targets. They just make gay signs that point out income in-equality. Well what’s your fucking solution for that? Taxing the rich, probably, in which case (as others have pointed out) they’re protesting the wrong place!

You can’t stop people from giving bribes by bitching at the people giving them out. You need to be able to bring them up on charges, or disincentive accepting them. Not sit in a row on UC Davis campus or something stupid.

The OWS crowd doesn’t seem to be thinking along these lines, they just want to complain that shit sucks (which they’re not necessarily wrong about).

Basically, they don’t seem very solution oriented, to the detriment of intelligent debate.[/quote]

See, this is the problem - since corporations run the government, it effectively takes away any chance the protesters would have of going through all the channels you talk about.

So the only power they have is to disrupt and obstruct. Think about it - how do you get a law passed, which goes against the interests of the people controlling the government? How do you “press charges” when all the laws are set up to protect the people you want to press charges against?

Seriously… what “structural solutions” do you see as being viable options?

1046

Meh, they’re done anyways. They should’ve listened to their critics, not their enablers.

1047

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:

They changed the national conversation. Do you think it is to the detriment of debate? I don’t recall hearing any conservatives talking about “the 1%” and very few talking about making a deal with the top tax rates and entitlements before the OWS protests. I think they have drawn attention to a real problem. Most everyone agrees with the problems they are pointing out. What people disagree with is their solutions and their “theatrics.” [/quote]

No, they didn’t. This conversation has been taking place since there has been a heated debate about deficits. OWS started in September 2011. The Bowles-Simpson Commission, for example, first met on April 27, 2010.

For those paying attention, the conversation started long before the OWS crowd, who, in any event, missed their moment by two years.

1048

[quote]Sloth wrote:

Meh, they’re done anyways. They should’ve listened to their critics, not their enablers.[/quote]

Yep. There’s an idea that there was a chance to mature into something that the actualy 99% could get on board with, but the DNA of the movement prevented such a thing from occurring. OWS remained what it always was in its infancy - a left-wing expression of disdain at capitalism which was held by the Occupants seven years ago the same as today. In other words, the economy could be healthy and hale, and we’d still get the same lament out of the OWS crowd.

It was never genuine populism, despite the contrived projection of its sympathists ("no really - they reall, really do represent the middle class!!! They have to!!!) - it being the child of AdBusters, I don’t know why anyone would think that anyway - and the movement squandered its goodwill through its behavior.

It’s over, but what worries me is that as the attention fades, what will the Occupants do to keep themselves in the media?

1049

[quote]MaudDib wrote:

[quote]MaximusB wrote:

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:

[quote]MaximusB wrote:

So why are the Occu-Poo people protesting the 1% when corrupt politicians are also the problem, yet they won’t address that ?[/quote]

Ummm, they are protesting in DC. Conservatives have posted videos on this very thread. As to why they are protesting the 1%, this has been answered several times directly to you in the last number of posts. [/quote]

Obama took the biggest payoff from Wall Street than any other president in history, are the Occu-Poos protesting that too ? I just want to make sure that the Occu-Poos are calling it fair, because I don’t think Chocolate Jesus should get a pass because he is black. That card is old and played. [/quote]

When Obama came to NYC last week for a $35,000 a plate fundraiser dinner with rich donors Occupy showed up en masse to picket his fundraiser and to try to get him to come out and talk to people who can’t dump $35,000 on a meal.

The whole “why don’t you go after DC/Obama” argument is ridiculous, there is an Occupy DC, they have mic checked and gone after Obama in multiple settings. Your arguments need to #OccupyReality

Also lol @ bring congress people who take bribes up on charges. Right now it is well known and totally legal for congress to insider trade on private information they get access to. It is also legal for them to take preferred stock offerings for below market prices. Yeah, you could bring the ones who take cash up on charges (good luck finding them) but right now it’s legal for them to accept $500,000 in stocks, sell them, and pocket that, no questions. You need to change the laws first, and guess who makes the laws…
[/quote]

Your last sentence was the only one worth reading.

1050

[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:

[quote]Agressive Napkin wrote:

[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:

See, this is the problem - since corporations run the government, it effectively takes away any chance the protesters would have of going through all the channels you talk about.

So the only power they have is to disrupt and obstruct. Think about it - how do you get a law passed, which goes against the interests of the people controlling the government? How do you “press charges” when all the laws are set up to protect the people you want to press charges against?

Seriously… what “structural solutions” do you see as being viable options?[/quote]

To be honest, I don’t know and am distrustful of anyone who thinks that they really do, life being complicated and all.

I’m more pointing out the shitty tactics OWS has employed.

Anyways, enough backpedaling, to (briefly) answer your question:

One of the best policies I think is to vote with your feet/wallet. That is the best way to disrupt and obstruct! That’s the foundation of the efficiency of markets, and if you don’t like the way your bank is conducting itself, you don’t like their bailouts etc., leave. Go to a credit union, buy local (it’ll cost more, but it’s worth it). Lots of people want to complain about corporations while still pumping money into them. (Wal-mart’s evil but people still shop there?)

I feel like the hypocrisy of decrying corporations while still buying their products is a major obstruction to the legitimacy of the OWS movement. And I haven’t really seen anything indicating that they don’t do that.

Anyways:
Write your congressman, he loses your vote if he agrees to shit you don’t like, that is, voice your support for bills or reforms such as:

One of the biggest things to reduce the systemic risk would be to put the Glass-Steagal act (or something similar) back in place.

Tempering that corporations are people thing.

Do you want more specific bills to support?

Problem is, the way our system is set up, radical changes usually take a large base of support (and in general this is a VERY good thing, but not necessarily in this instance where I’m sure most will agree we need a beneficial change). Congressmen will not listen to corporations if they hear otherwise from enough of their constituents (else they won’t get elected and we all know how self-serving politicians are). In the end, the people have the trump card, we vote them into office (or not).

The obvious problem is, most people are lazy and stupid, and won’t write their congressman, they’ll just mark next to the D or R (whichever one their parents were), and I don’t really have any kind of solution to get around that other than spreading the word. Democracy’s a bitch like that.

Throwing it out there: what would anyone think of state laws hamstringing corporations in some manner? First, is it even possible to bring up a Proposition like that? If so, I believe you could just skip the whole federal nonsense and vote on it in state.

Ex: You have shit here, you can’t give more than x dollars to a politician or some such thing? Even more businesses would probably flee to Nevada and stuff :(. Or maybe it would just be the players large enough to make those kind of donations and wouldn’t really slow down most business all that much? I could see it going either way. What say you?

In any case, I’m open to any solution proposal, and I would be delighted if that were the conversation, the simple vilification of the rich I feel has run it’s course.

1051

B-E-A-UTIFUL

1052

[quote]kevinm1 wrote:

B-E-A-UTIFUL [/quote]

Awesome!

1053

World’s smallest park occupied, oh and someone actually got arrested for this.

1054

[quote]Alvirre wrote:
I"m still having troubles understanding what is that OWS crowd wants exactly.[/quote]

They do not want to focus on points because then it would be DEMAGOGUED if you want an example take an unpopular stance on any subject on this forum. You will see the ease things are demagogued

1055

The main point of OWS is that people feel disenfranchised by the current political system. A combination of most all major media outlets being swallowed up by giant conglomerates with special interests, Citizens United lifting restrictions on union and corporate donations to political campaigns (where things now happen like people being paid to sign for referendums in California), Gerry Mandering, new voting laws designed by each party to exude the other’s party from voting, etc. has made people frustrated that they aren’t heard.

This happens against the backdrop of high unemployment, a struggling economy, and levels of wealth inequality on par with 1920’s America.

Lots of causes have been tacked on, including lots of contradictory ones but the above is really the heart and soul of the movement. I don’t get how the media manages to miss it, I should be a news analyst.

While I agree in principle, I also think people get the government they deserve. Americans get a government which isn’t responsive to them because they tend not to vote, or only vote for president, and they don’t make efforts to stay well informed.

1056

I’ve been involved in OWS since it started in Sept and was on the march that went from NYC to DC. Since OWS has not been very well represented by media outlets in general (much of the blame for this lies with OWS itself) maybe the perspective of someone that’s been involved might be of interest to people here. Most people I’ve spoke to that are not involved tend to only see OWS as something political - this is certainly not the case. Obviously OWS is significant in the political world, but even if you despise the politics of the movement you could still gain something from participating in it.

Non-Political

The practices used at OWS can serve as a very powerful example of self-organization and the way things are done can easily be adapted to different circumstances (not just occupations of public space). This is done primarily through a decision-making body called the General Assembly and working groups that form around particular tasks/ideas (for example - the internet work group makes websites, the direct action work group plans marches, food work group feeds people, etc). OWS’s style is such that decisions are based on consensus and actions are as decentralized as possible. I’ll elaborate on the GA process, work groups, or how this model can serve people outside occupy if anyone wants.

http://www.nycga.net - This is the NYC General Assembly website. Here you can see all of the working groups of OWS. This is supposed to serve the purpose of helping internal communication among working groups, but groups can also post public documents like meeting minutes there.

Basically, the message of OWS is to come and learn about decentralized organization, and then go apply what you learn to your own corner of the world. Because of technology the cost of communication has dropped so drastically that some things that could previously only be done by institutions can now be done by people.

In many cases things can be done mucher better without any institutional structure and in some cases either self-organized people or crowdsourcing can accomplish things that no institution can. Clay Shirky has a pretty good book Here Comes Everybody - Wikipedia on this principle that discusses “organizing without organizations.”

http://www.ted.com/talks/luis_von_ahn_massive_scale_online_collaboration.html - this decsribes a project attempting to literally get millions of people to “translate the web” which is something no institution could do in its wildest dreams. Not only that, but in the case of Duolingo all parties benefit without money being exchanged.

Politics

OWS actually has a surprising amount of overlap with the Tea Party (by that I mean the organic, grassroots movement and not the corporate funded side of it - two different groups). Both movements are essentially modern manifestations of Enlightenment principles.

The Tea Party sees government as infringing on our freedom and OWS sees corporations as infringing on our freedom - the reality is that it is an unholy alliance between the two that is infringing on our freedom. If you happen to go back through books from the Enlightenment and replace “state power” with “private power” in many cases you’d get books that seem as if had been written for modern circumstances. Politically the population is polarized and generally apathetic, but I think as time moves on the Tea Party and OWS will find they have more in common than they realize.

1057

[quote]Chomskyian wrote:
I’ve been involved in OWS since it started in Sept and was on the march that went from NYC to DC. Since OWS has not been very well represented by media outlets in general (much of the blame for this lies with OWS itself) maybe the perspective of someone that’s been involved might be of interest to people here.

[/quote]

Associating OWS with genocide denier and Soviet/Islamist revisionist Noam Chomksy wouldn’t do much to improve their image.

1058

Eh, they don’t need an image. The Tea Party has a shitty image but they still get to decide the nominee for a major party and dictate national politics. Radical parties can have a huge effect because about one half to two thirds of eligible voters will just herp a derp and not show up on election day because sitting with their thumbs up their butts watching TV is more important.