Guest Post from an Arrestee of the 99%
Posted 13 years ago on Nov. 6, 2011, 1:29 a.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
Nature itself is the beautiful expression of order and balance arising out of chaos. Time and time again, nature has demonstrated its ability to naturally grow this order and peace out of the random noise that makes its very basis. The myth of true order comes from human attempts to impose it where it does not naturally occur. While there may be order, its cause is incorrectly perceived.
By definition, imposed order is unstable. It must be forcibly maintained in order to continue to exist. People are as a whole intelligent enough to devise such structures but not intelligent enough to override our most fundamental sense of natural order. As a whole, our species' attempt to engineer its own order has been slowly successful. We created kingdoms, handing ourselves to a monarch. This is an extreme deviation from natural order, because there are in that case only a handful of people globally who matter. It leaves the commoner entirely outside the global order. Out of our natural human desire to move towards natural order, we devised a new structure of governments commonly known as republics. These were closer to something which we could naturally live at ease with. The commoner, despite not having a direct say in the larger global order was in some way involved, or at least believed this to be so. More recently, through the rapid development of communications technologies which allow any one commoner's voice to find itself suddenly amplified and repeated around the world in moments we have grown into an entirely new method of global order. As trivial as much of the social networking conversation is, through social networking borders have fallen, lines have blurred, and a kind of collective consciousness representing its participants equally has arisen from it. However, we find ourselves in a unique situation. The people have moved on from the easily corruptible pseudo-free societies of the past, yet the forces enforcing those societies have attempted to simply ignore this transition. Through force, violence, and illegitimate law which passed without the consent of the commoner, they have attempted to extinguish the phoenix, the collective society which has arisen from the ashes of the republics.
Government by definition creates order, whether natural or imposed. A government exists within the borders of some defined region, and exists to represent the people of that region. Therefore, by definition the only possible government is that which exists by the consent of those who represent the people. A government which is operating without that consent is no longer a valid government. It is a criminal enterprise which exists to serve only itself. It in this case has moved from an entity which serves and fears the people to an entity which is served by and is feared by the people. For the people to accept such a criminal takeover of their land is a violation of their core drives, it is a violation of the natural progression from imposed global order towards natural order on a global scale. In the case where a criminal takeover has occurred, it is not only the natural right, but the obligation of that region's people to raise themselves in great numbers against that criminal enterprise which seeks to exploit them. Fundamental human dignity demands it unambiguously. It is unfortunate, but an unavoidable conclusion that yesterday's republics have on a grand scale violated their purpose and made the transition from representatives of the people towards criminal slave enterprise which holds the people in bondage, extracting value and joy from them, forever unhappy with their current holdings. The organs and systems which we the people devised not long ago to serve and represent us have been hijacked by a select few individuals, making the commoner irrelevant despite numerous legal guarantees and protections against this. The methods used in these criminal takeovers vary and are too numerous to list in the context of this document, but they are well documented by many members of the newly arisen collective consciousness.
There are many and varied voices which have erupted from captivity which suggest methods by which we the people can reclaim our rightful place as our own rulers and each other's subject at once. In order to reclaim our human dignity and make progress towards natural order, a collective state where the people live in harmony with one another in naturally organized chaos, it is useful to examine the birth of the republics which today have become something grotesque and unrecognizable. Attempt after attempt was made to force monarchs to dictate the will of their subjects, but these attempts were made in ignorance of the fact that the very nature and structure of the kingdoms was not compatible with what the people desired. Facing a global order which could not advance any farther and had reached the end of its useful lifespan, individuals began to realize the increasingly undeniable fact that an entirely new order had to be devised to replace the old kingdoms. We have reached a similar point today. Society's process of collective consciousness and consensus has advanced beyond the point that the republics can follow. In response to this, a select few have hijacked the republics in order to bring them backwards while the people march forwards. As difficult as it is to accept, the time has indeed come to tearfully say goodbye to the republics. They are artifacts of a beautiful age, yet in their age have become irrelevant to the progress of society, and in fact have become a snarling, grotesque weight which fights progress at every turn.
The form of the global order's replacement is not mine to decide. It is not yours, it is not your neighbor's. The global order's form is for the globe to decide collectively. For this reason, my identity will not be disclosed. I will present no idea for the future's form other than the fact that society has advanced beyond the point where the republics can exist in their current form. Go forth, and reclaim your dignity. If you fear the republics, imagine this. You are no longer represented in the republics. Therefore, their laws, their edicts, their decrees have no legitimate authority over you. They are just as illegitimate as if I attempted to dictate the terms of your life from behind my keyboard. They have become little more than bullies with guns, and if there is anything the Arab Spring has taught us, it is that guns are utterly useless against an idea.
Solidarity,
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(Ed.: We'd also like to remind people who read this, especially if you're working with your local occupation, that you can submit content at content@occupywallst.org)
Agree with most of the main points here. My only problem is that I think you're throwing the baby out with the bath water. Yes, the bath water is dirty. So let's carefully lift the baby from the bath, drain the water and begin again with the baby intact. The baby is democracy / the republic. Radicals like Thomas Jefferson authored the American version of it during a momentous time. Revolutionaries fought for it. Our great grandfathers, grandfathers and fathers defended it. Men and women involved in various movements (including the civil rights movement, women's movement, Native American movement, etc.) gave their time and energy to keep it honest. Labor movement has worked hard to keep it fair.
Many have struggled. We are struggling now in an heroic way, following a great legacy of revolutionaries to keep it honest and fair. We haven't yet earned the right from the legacy of our ancestors to toss it all out. We can't toss it until we have a clear vision for what will replace it.
We can't be so transfixed by technology that we assume we can make a grand new world order out of the relationships created by social media. Why not use them, harness the power of the new collective consciousness you describe to remake our republic? We should form national general assembly and run our own candidates while at the same time occupying and transforming the market place. This baby is beautiful. Please don't throw her out with the dirty bath water.
To put it another way, just because somebody steals your bike doesn't mean you have to destroy the bike. You just need to remove the rider.
Let's remove the rider. Let's use active strategic nonviolent tactics ala Gene Sharp, Martin King, Jr. and Gandhi to transform this world. We can do this!
Thank you....
Martin Luther King Jr once said, "a leader doesn't seek consensus, he molds it" (from memory so might not be word for word but the idea is the same). Unless this movement truly addresses what the issues are and what the desired result is, it is not going to be able to truly affect peaceful change.
At least on the internet, the voices calling for the destruction of capitalism in favor of some utopian economic system where workers are "voluntary" are getting louder and will be turning more away than they are bringing in.
If the second paragraph is implying that we either keep capitalism or propose something Utopian, then I completely disagree. In critical theory this is called a binary opposition, but here it is artificially imposed and misleading. You would essentially be denying that capitalism has ever not existed. It has (not existed)! Utopia = nowhere. The voluntary (and peaceful!) abolition of capitalism is not a Utopian ideal. In reality the theory underpinning free market capitalism is what is based in Utopian idealism.
Utopia=Eden?
...? Utopia is derived from Greek (and perhaps Latin?): ou (not) topos (place). Hence "no place" or "nowhere." Not (or is it) to be confused with eu (good) topos (place).
The writer is obviously quite keen and likely understands that anything "utopian" is in no way possible or real. It's an interesting concept that can only be a concept. We will never be done. Or, established as a society, but always be emergent as life is change and we are always changing.
There are other ways beyond capitalistic and monetary systems. It's a heavy paradigm that runs deep because of what we've been fed our whole lives.
What?
That King quote is fantastic and so true. We need great leaders. Clicking buttons on computer voting issue by issue isn't enough. We need real leadership to inspire and build consensus.
I think we also need representatives. People can't be experts on everything.
Anarcho-Syndicalism, for example, is a decentralized autonomous system of governance based upon election of delegates (representatives) by local councils to higher councils. These councils would be structured around different trades, industries, and public issues, thus all areas of public interest would be managed by a group of experts sensitive to local concerns and whose term in "office" would be very limited.
My point is that representative government does not require a federal republic. Further, democratic self-management does not mean a lack of intelligent central planning.
Sounds interesting but unproven. As flawed as it is and as corrupted as it has become, our republic is still a wonderful and elegant system. The essay in original post above doesn't really explain clearly why we would scrap the whole system rather than just removing the people who have hijacked it. The premise seems to be "somebody stole our horse so let's shoot it." It just seems to jump to conclusion that entire system is no longer useful because some have corrupted it.
I'm not saying there aren't good arguments for scrapping republic. I'm sure there are important ones to consider. I just haven't seen them yet. Maybe I'm not looking carefully enough. I'm being sincere about this. I'm open to new ideas but I'm not quick to scrap old until I'm really convinced that the old is bad and the new is good. I'm not convinced of either yet. Only thing I know is that our horse has been stolen.
It actually isn't unproven at all. Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39 is a great example. Even better is the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia throughout the 50s, 60s, and 70s.
Both of these movements were forcibly overthrown by (primarily) external forces. In the Spanish case it was the Communists and Fascists both within an without. The collapse of the SFRY (with the subsequent horrors of ethnic conflict and NATO "military intervention") was directly initiated and actively pursued by the Reagan and Gorbachev administrations via sanctions, IMF "debt relief," and various other political machinations.
If you (or anyone else for that matter) are interested in learning more about this stuff:
"Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism" by Peter Marshall, offers a wealth of information about all types of Anarchism.
The Oxford "Very Short Introduction to . . ." books are also great. I have the ones on Gandhi, Socialism, Anarchism, Foreign Relations, and Economics and I really like them all.
George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" is amazing.
http://www.george-orwell.org/Homage_to_Catalonia/index.html
Noam Chomsky has also in many places written eloquently in favor of some form of Syndicalism:
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/19760725.htm
Including the preface to a reprinting of Rudolf Rocker's excellent "Anarcho-Syndicalism" (I believe my copy was put out in the late 80s by Pluto Classics).
http://www.ditext.com/rocker/preface.html
http://libcom.org/library/anarcho-syndicalism-rudolf-rocker
(Incidentally, Chomsky also wrote several scathing critiques of Clinton's involvement in Kosovo which touch on US complicity in bringing that terrible situation about in the first place.)
Of course there is always Wikipedia (I generally end up reading the sources more than the wiki page itself).
The involvement of the International Monetary Fund in dismantling the Yugoslavian economy is particularly significant as the IMF and World Bank have done this type of thing repeatedly all over the world. Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine" gives a pretty thorough account of this trend in global politics, and although she is a journalist and not a political scientist or historian, I think she makes a very compelling case.
Hope that helps!
Thanks very much for the thorough response. Will take time to review many of these sources over the next few weeks.
You are quite welcome. :)
Okay, thelastman, that makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately, that is NOT what the public is hearing about the agenda of this movement. The voices who want a "luxury" economy and a "volunteer" work force are too loud. As are the ones who spout anti - Christian, anti - GOP rhetoric.
Our founding fathers did not want "centralized" rule for this country which is what we have been moving to for a long time now. Education used to be the responsibility of the town residents - a teacher was lodged with a local family and all the families whose children attended paid the teachers salary. The wealthy, like Franklin, created institutions of higher learning with their own funds and the donated funds of the other wealthy. Only with the creation of the Federal Education Department because of civil rights did the power of education slowly begin to rest primarily on a centralized ruling power. How has that benefited the education of our children? Our schools are no longer segregated but the loss of local control has been devastating in too many ways.
I can get behind more local control....but not a direct democracy.
In many ways local control is direct democracy. I think that is a fundamental structural point.
As to your point about centralized rule, the men who founded this country, and the education system, I'm not sure I understand where you were trying to go with that.
I agree that our schools are in very poor shape. I am personally convinced that local control and -gasp- parent_involvement in creating a culture where quality education is actually valued is a big part of the solution. However, funding on a local level leads to the "ghetto-ization" of schools and communities where kids who (through no fault of their own) are already disadvantaged are placed at a further disadvantage. Problems like that will, I think, be solved by a combination of local involvement and the equalizing influence of some central funding and, to a lesser extent, planning. Don't even get me started on the pernicious influence of the Gates Foundation (et al.)!
It should be made very clear though, that many of our nation's founders demonstrably did want centralized government. This is evidenced, in part, by the debate between the federalists and anti-federalists. In any case, they certainly wanted a government that looked after their own groups' interests (often at the expense of many other groups of human beings). Just read about Shay's rebellion. When privileged members of society look to protect their own special interests the end result is almost always a centralizing, consolidation of power, in which many, many people are essentially told "sorry, we'd like to help but . . ." These seeds were planted very early on in our history. Just look at the demands of the group led by Shay. Are they unreasonable? What message was sent by quashing that "rebellion?"
One last point, I am afraid you are going to have to be more specific about "what the public is hearing." From the next sentence you appear to be referring to overly "loud voices" within the movement itself. I don't agree that this is our biggest problem or that it is even a problem at all. There are, in my mind, a few of reasons for this
(a) There are many voices in this movement not all of which agree on the means by which we should pursue the ends (ends that the majority do agree on). They are often selectively or misleadingly represented in some of the most popular media outlets.
(b) This plurality of voices is exactly what this movement is about and what Washington (and the greater, media-driven political discourse) hasn't been about.
(c) Many of these kids are just cutting their political teeth. They voted for Obama and have been sorely disappointed. I am sure that in the right environment their political consciousness will continue to evolve and mature. At least they are staying involved, rather than cynically "checking-out" of the civic process like so many generations before.
(d) A majority of the voices I've heard thus far are very well informed and very ecumenical in distributing their criticism. In fact, one of the most encouraging things about this movement is the determination to remain focused on the injustices inherent_in_our_system and refuse to be distracted by the minuscule differences in policy approaches offered be our "one-and-a-half-party" system.
I am sure there are others.
Regarding "what the public is hearing": I along with many others were intrigued by OWS in the early days...we heard that they were against the bail outs - as were the majority of the Tea Party's earliest rallies (its post 2008 version - not the one which began with Ron Lawl). We heard they were against the bonuses given to the very folks who were given the bail out money long before the success of the bail out could be determined - again as the majority of the Tea Party were...there were other things as well that it seemed that there could be a meeting of minds in the middle to get things done.Unfortunately, several things took place.
For me personally, I read the leaked emails of the organizers (those who met for weeks before the official beginning of the actual occupation). I read the August 12 posting here where one of those organizers talks of using a "Trojan horse" to disguise the fact that the ultimate goal was to "smash capitalism". I read that many of those organizers were "socialists" with a few anarchists and communists thrown in the mix.
I continued to come here to read about the movement; I began to read Tumblir to learn more. Anyone who is interested can read the posts that I refer to in my above message if they take the time to do so.
I'm all for Americans becoming less apathetic about their duty to vote. I care as much that they educate themselves on the truth before they do however. That they don't just read the Huffington Post or watch John Stewart or read Media Matters - that they broaden their viewing and reading to understand that "spin" is what the politicians use to lie to the people they need a vote from and that it comes from both parties equally. And that they understand that those politicians get away with it precisely because folks don't take the time to understand context.....
There is far too much "the GOP is the devil" and the "religious right are out to destroy this country" for me to ever go downtown and occupy with these people. When I hear a true discourse on how both parties are "spinning" to keep us all divided - then I will re-think it.
As I said, there are too few voices of reason in this movement - and while getting out to vote is great - getting out to place an uneducated vote is dangerous and while rallying and marching is a great place to begin to let the politicians know that we're on to them...smashing capitalism and "majority rules" democracy is not what I'm interested in.
So (and correct me if I am wrong) I get the feeling that you lean toward conservatism both politically and economically and thus oppose the bail-outs on the grounds that they comprise a (potentially unlawful) overreach of government power. As I am currently banished to East Texas I am not unfamiliar with this position - although I do not agree and have some serious problems with its basis both in philosophy and in facts. However, I too have hoped that this common ground of frustration (over a government that no longer fulfills its primary responsibilities to the citizens that socially constitute it) could provide an opportunity for a "meeting of minds" and begin to strengthen communal ties of solidarity and consensus. I believe that this is still very much a possibility and I would encourage you to rethink a couple of things. First, what parts of your own ideology (whatever it might be) are open to evolution and adaptation as new events transpire and new facts come to your attention? Second, to what extent is adherence to some set of beliefs (or what is often even more important, disavowal of ideas considered "beyond the pale") a precondition for meaningful dialog? In other words, how much will we lean on old narratives? How doggedly will we cling to them after they have outlasted any explanatory power they possessed and begin to ring hollow?
If you think that among protesters there is far too much "the GOP is the devil" and the "religious right are out to destroy this country" I would suggest that you have been misled. Again, there is a fiercely ecumenical streak in the vast majority of the criticisms that I have heard coming out of the various occupy movements. There were over 30,000 people at the rally in NYC on this past Thursday. Neither the sentiments quoted above, nor the goals of "smashing capitalism" and "'majority rules' democracy" are necessarily paramount for the majority of those people.
There is "a true discourse on how both parties are 'spinning' to keep us all divided!" Go out and engage it! Get some people together and, regardless of different political persuasions, have a conversation, read a book and discuss it, find out what you can do in your own community to reclaim our families, communities, and jobs. That is what this is all about: "rethinking" our own agency and our responsibility to exercise it.
The concerns of the thousands of people demonstrating all over the globe for social justice cannot be reduced to, nor should they be conflated with, some (supposedly) leaked emails, message board posts, a brick thrown through a store window, the demands of some supposedly monolithic "ism" (e.g. socialism, anarchism, communism, etc), cable news blurbs, blog posts, or what have you. This isn't about creating another space to struggle for power, wealth, and hegemony. It is about creating a space for freedom and dialog where citizens can begin to rediscover their own inner potential for powerful social transformation.
I personally feel that this should be a radical and thorough examination of our assumptions about society to precede a radical transformation of the entire human social space. Others are uncomfortable with such radicalism. They simply want the grossest wrongs redressed so that they can get back to their families, communities, and jobs. Again, this is an understandable sentiment. But one that history reveals to be a shortsighted misapprehension of the political reality we face.
Now, I have up to this point avoided just firing back on the things you mentioned or alluded to that I disagree with. I identify myself an atheist/agnostic (depending on what definitions we're using) whose own political views lie closest to the nonviolent movements for social and economic justice of Gandhi, King, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, and others. As such, I am firmly convinced that most politicians (including the GOP) are pretty evil. That all religions are myths and as such ought to be objectively reevaluated based upon their ability to help us make psychic and social sense of ourselves (isn't this why we keep em around?). I think that such myths should remain a part of cultural space when they aren't pernicious, but should play little or no role in the spaces of policy and administration. I see "free market capitalism" as yet another myth founded upon and encouraging bad behavior not to mention a regressive social consciousness. Far from being repressive, decentralized, direct democracy is, I think, the most fair and equitable way to cooperatively achieve social goals. We might not agree on many of these things, but we can certainly discuss them if you would like. Or perhaps there are other, more important, issues to talk about. We have always been able to do this. OWS reminds us that it doesn't have to be just talk. That is the potential of this moment.
First, you've apparently taken my references to the Tea Party to mean that I am a Tea Party person myself. In fact, I am an independent who leans more to Libertarian than to Conservative Right or Liberal Left.
I objected to the bail outs due to several things 1) that the Federal Government forced corporations who were solvent to take tax payer money they didn't need 2) that the bail out would only serve to allow corporations to take similar risks in the future because they could be fairly certain that the government would step in with taxpayer money to 'save" them again.
I reject the idea that a group of folks in DC feel can control everything - look at GM - those who wanted to let it go to bankruptcy were booed and ridiculed and those who wanted to bail the corporation out won the day - only to find that GM ended up in bankruptcy a year later. The bail out then gave the Federal Government the right to pretty much dictate the rules of how that bankruptcy would restructure the company. The stock holders were forced out and the unions were given (as of June 2009) approximately 60% ownership of the corporation. This is nothing less than a government take over of a private company albeit the government didn't keep the company for itself - it took it from the owners and gave it to the workers.....
You also missed something regarding the prevailing sentiment of too many who write here and on tumblir and on facebook of the evils of the GOP and the Tea Party and the Religious Right. It might be time for you to take a step back and read some of these postings. As I said, it is easy enough to do. Begin by reading the August 12 post on this site by one of the organizers on how their goal was to begin this with a "Trojan Horse" hiding the goal of smashing capitalism. And here's a link to the leaked emails....
http://owsmail.dc406.com/
No one is disputing that the "Trojan Horse" has worked....the organizers now have a crowd of thousands who don't have a single voice on what exactly it is they want, but the chaos is growing.
I personally have many friends (in the real world not the cyber one) who support some of the areas of protest...the bank bail outs, the lack of focus on jobs of this administration, the tax code, the lack of help and apparent corruption of robo signing of foreclosure documents to name a few. They understand the corrupt nature of our current political system and are frustrated with the partisan nature of DC that allows for no progress. Some of them have gone to local protests and walked away more frustrated and confused than before they went. They sense chaos whirling beneath the surface - exactly what those organizers wanted but hoped that folks would be having too much fun protesting the nasty 1% to realize was boiling underneath.
The very fact that those who are turning out to protest and occupy do not voice a single demand is proof of the success of the Trojan Horse. The organizers goal was to instigate mass disruptions of business (as in shutting down the west coast port and in disrupting people's ability to get to work in NYC) by thousands of protestors and you disrupt the economy; cause NY and other major cities hundreds of thousands of tax payer dollars to police the protests in a time when they are already having trouble meeting their commitments to public services.........cause mass instability and crash the system........They called for a massive "default" on mortgage payments and student loan payments. What would those massive voluntary defaults cause? A "smashing" of capitalism correct?
You state that most politicians are "evil" but then write (including the GOP). I would be able to believe that statement had you instead wrote (including the DNC)............ ; )
We can agree that we should have more local control of how our community is run. But a "direct" democracy is the point on which we part ways - direct democracy is "majority" rule. If the majority believes that private property rights are "unethical", what happens to all the homeowners and farmers who live in that local community? Does the community have the right to confiscate their homes and farms? If the majority rules that the elderly are a drain on society and so should be humanely euthanized, is that the new "ethical standard" simply because the majority says it is? Of course this an extreme view of potential dangers of direct democracy, yet there is historical evidence of societies where these things took place. You seem to think that society has "evolved" enough to avoid these pitfalls of majority rule, but many of us don't believe that is true.
James Madison didn't even want the word "democracy" fearing it would lead to "direct" democracy..Franklin felt much the same. Today, there are more than 20 states which practice forms of direct democracy...California is one of them. How many times has California's Constitution been amended recently because of their direct democracy? 500 times.
I apologize. I did not mean to mischaracterize your views in any way. However, your own description of your political leanings are a little confusing. I think some clarification is in order here. 'Independent' is not, properly speaking, a political position at all. Rather, it refers to someone who abstains from identifying with any established party. 'Libertarian', on the other hand, signifies the converse position from the Authoritarian position; this is often considered the social dimension of the political plane. It is possible to be a very conservative libertarian, a very liberal libertarian, or some combination thereof; usually referred to as the economic dimension of the political plane. From what you have written here you would fit more into the first category, as I said. If you haven't already you should check out the "political compass" @ politicalcompass.org It is significant that, with notable exceptions, almost every modern politician (even internationally) falls somewhere in the "Authoritarian-Right" quadrant of the graph - even Barack Obama!
Speaking of mischaracterizing things, I think that you completely missed the point of my statement about politicians. First, the use of the word "evil" was hyperbole and was intended to be consonant with the "GOP is evil" statement you originally mentioned. Second, and most important, "most politicians" indicates a broad and non-partisan classification on my part. Including the parenthetical, "including the GOP," further highlights the broadness of the statement and the fact that I personally don't limit my low opinion of politicians to only those in the GOP. Obviously, the DNC would be included in the purview of "most." I don't think any of that was semantically obscure or difficult to "believe."
Now, I don't know where you are getting all this "trojan horses" and "smashing capitalism" nonsense. With all due respect, I think that both your facts or your analysis are pretty weak here. I have heard this kind of thing before. From what I can tell, it is an effort by an odd assortment of voices from the establishment and the conspiracy nuts to discredit what is now clearly a populist movement. No credible news source or political analyst is giving this any play, quite simply because it isn't credible. Those who are raving about this are pretty clearly out of touch with reality. Here are some particularly humorous selections from the top hits for "OWS trojan horse" on google:
http://biggovernment.com/lstranahan/2011/10/20/occupy-emails-reveal-trojan-horse-strategy-to-hide-real-goals-of-ows/
http://bonfiresblog.wordpress.com/tag/owstrojan-horse/
http://coto2.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/occupy-wall-street-a-trojan-horse-for-nazi-revival/
Compare this, for example, with the very real evidence that emerged in the wake of the Tea Party campaign regarding its origins, planning, and funding. I think that the qualitative and quantitative differences are pretty stark!
Last points here. I read the statements coming out of the various GAs, talk with my political science professors, discuss with activists via email (and here too to a limited extent), follow the dialog taking place in reputable journals and in the OWSs own publications. I place little to no weight on what some anonymous person posts on Facebook, twitter, tumblr, wordpress, etc, etc. Any idiot with access to the internet can say anything they want with no accountability, or more importantly, authority whatsoever. No one really speaks for all of OWS. Which is the beauty and potential of the whole thing.
Based on your comments especially concerning "direct democracy leaning states," I don't think that you are really talking about direct democracy at all. Furthermore, your analysis glosses many important qualifications ostensibly in order to discredit efforts to expand and extend democratic processes. Your post below is riddled with self-contradiction and logical fallacies. For example, you cite allegedly ill-considered policy choices in states that you claim are "direct democracy leaning" (that California is not being presented as a model by any activist I have encountered is an understatement to say the least) as an argument against direct democracy. This is not a logically sound argument anyway, but you go on to completely undermine it by pointing out how another more limited form of democracy, the modern republic, suffers similar ills. I would suggest that you take some time to investigate some of the classical lines of democratic theory and praxis, as well as look over the most common formal and rhetorical fallacies (wikipedia has a good summary of them) before engaging in discussions of this sort. You also might not want to use "concerned" as your screen name either, if I had noticed that earlier I probably wouldn't have wasted my time on this. Best ;P
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)#Concern_troll
Here is the "Trojan Horse" statement I refer to ....copied right from this website....
OCCUPYWALLSTREET update from Adbusters
Posted 3 months ago on Aug. 12, 2011, 11:52 a.m. EST by LupeFiascoConcert
http://www.occupywallstreet.org http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbusters-blog/occupywallstreet-update.html
Hey you rebels, radicals and utopian dreamers out there,
We are living through a rare crisis and moment of opportunity. Western industrialized nations are now being masticated by the financial monster they themselves created. This is triggering a mood that alternates between angry denial and sudden panic. It looks like something is about to break, opening the space for a necessary transformation and a total rethink of global economic affairs. Events are playing perfectly into our September 17 occupation of Wall Street.
So … can we on the left learn some new tricks? Can we head off to lower Manhattan with a fresh mindset and a powerful new demand?
Strategically speaking, there is a very real danger that if we naively put our cards on the table and rally around the "overthrow of capitalism" or some equally outworn utopian slogan, then our Tahrir moment will quickly fizzle into another inconsequential ultra-lefty spectacle soon forgotten. But if we have the cunning to come up with a deceptively simple Trojan Horse demand … "
I've already given you the link to the leaked emails for all the other points I have made.
That should put an end to your belief that I or others have come up with the "Trojan Horse" statement due to any "conspiracy theory". I am giving you first person sources...written by the very organizers of this movement. Unless you choose to continue to discount the writings of those organizers....
I'm fully aware of what my feelings and belief system is as it pertains to how I vote and so on....
You apparently missed the "wink" I placed in my statement regarding your comment (including the GOP)...
There is NO real direct democracy in existence today to point to as a successful model.........one can only point to those states where a form of it is in play.
And of course, now I am a Troll. And this is why this movement will eventually fail. Because anyone who can't be convinced by its supporters is going to end up being called a "Troll".....
You sound like many academics - it works in theory - therefore it will work in reality. Sorry. Life doesn't work that way.
Where to begin?
I wasn't disputing that such a phrase was used or that some participants might want to put an end to capitalism (at least as we know it). That was never the point. Conspiracy theorists almost always have a body of "facts" (usually sizable - as though to make up for some lack). It is in the analysis that the difficulties arise. A populist movement, by its very definition, cannot be monolithic. Okay, someone said "Trojan Horse" - so what? I could quote all sorts of shit (in and out of context) from this and other web sites and then use them to string together all kinds of outlandish narratives. Contrast that with cogently analyzing them in light of the bigger picture and constraints of the reality that we academics apparenly have such a tenuous grasp on (surprising, since we spend so much time rigorously studying it and then - gasp - thinking about it). Oh, well. I don't really think that you can claim that this movement has been unclear or deceptive about their aims. What exactly is your point here? Because it sounds to me a whole lot like moronic, McCarthy-era bullshit.
"There is NO real direct democracy" - false! I intentionally have left off the next bit, "in existence today," because it is totally irrelevant (not to mention also being demonstrably untrue). Have you not read my original posts above? I can add many, many examples. You sound like many non-academics - your theories fit with the limited parts of reality you are aware of - therefore they must be sound.
As to the "Troll" bit, I never actually called you any such thing I merely pointed out that your screen name, your arguments, and your presence on a board for a movement that you seem to be claiming is a conspiracy to squish capitalism (or whatever) all fit the "concern troll" metric rather nicely. I'll let you be the judge. Apparently I'm not the only one that misses "winks." Sorry, you are gonna have to do better than this.
I note that you don't include examples of real direct democracy in existence today........
Really? You must have missed the part about doing better next time. You must also have missed this point: "I intentionally left off the next bit,'in existence today,' because it is totally irrelevant. . ." Let me repeat that in a different way (I apparently cannot stress this enough), the date of any particular example is not by itself relevant to the discussion. In any way. This should not be a difficult point to grasp.
There are, however, many current examples. I believe that Swiss democracy, at least at the sub-national levels, would be considered direct. There are also many successful factories and other businesses that are both employee owned and managed. Not to mention the many groups pursuing political justice and human rights all over the globe that use direct democracy to avoid beaurocracitization while remaining spontaneous and unpredictable and connected to the people. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo is one such example. There are many other examples. Wikipedia has a fairly long, but by no means exhaustive, list. Truly democratic societies have been spinging up all over South America for years and usually with promising results until the US decides to crush them (our common excuse being infiltration by dangerous leftists - wait, where have I heard that recently ?)
As you have avoided a careful (or in any way informed) definiton of what you are and aren't refering to as "direct democracy" (too academic, huh?), it is a little difficult for me to pick the most appropriate examples. Nevertheless, any moderately intelligent person with an honest curiosity, I would think could, with an Internet connection and perhaps a library card, find "real examples of direct democracy in existence today."
(responing to the post below) I am going to keep this as brief and civil as possible. I'll address each section in order.
"Switzerland is direct representation not a direct democracy." Correct and incorrect. Switzerland is both. That was the point. I am by no means an expert on Swiss government, however, from my research (which is not derived from Wikipedia btw) they have a lot of directly democratic political structures on all levels of government, including some real direct democratic checks at the national level (such as referendums). Such because our federal republic is a farce of true democracy doesn't mean all are. It is then in many meaningful ways an example of a working and stable direct democracy.
What the tea party would argue is completely irrelevent to serious political dialogue so I'll skip that bit.
Again, libertarian thought is not monolithic, as there are abroad range of libertarian positions, so I'll pass on that as well. I will only reiterate that you still seem to be under the impression that "independent" is a political position and remain fundamentally confused about and/or oblivious the full breadth of the libertarian position.
I included all of the other examples for completeness and because I was und the impression that we were talking about the effectiveness of direct and consensus based democracy. Now I am not so sure. Are we talking about direct democracy or federalism? You are right about the Zapatistas - my examples were not intended to be exhaustive.
"True direct democracy on a national level does not exist." False and irrelevant. They do and more importantly can. Again, is this a debate about whether direct democracy works or about the federal republican model of government? Either way, it is irrelevant and misleading to say that "they do not represent a national form of government." They can and in some cases do. If true democracy and justice cannot coexist within the framework of large nation states then it is clearly time to rethink our assumptions about modern nation states; rather than dismiss efforts directed towards greater democratic participation in government as impossible or utopian.
"You also use propaganda when you state that the US is directly implicated in failures of these small examples of direct democracy. Provide examples of where the US had decided to "crush truly democratic societies'" Come on, seriously? Okay textbook example: the Guatemalan coup of 1954. Read about it. Actually our overthrow of Mosaddegh in Iran in 1953 was the fist time that the US ever openly overthrew a democratically elected leader. Have you heard of the lovely theocratic regimes they've had in Iran since? Next, take a look at US policy in South America throughout the previous century - specifically, look at the Reagan administration. These are well known facts. I mentioned the collapse of the SFRY in my second post in this thread. Have you ever heard of the Vietnam war? Saddam Hussein? I could go on. This kind of ignorance of your own country's history is really quite pathetic.
"It is quite obvious that you seek to use political activists attempts at direct democracy to provide an argument for Federal direct democracy. It is quite obvious that you attempt to use worker owned and operated businesses to provide an argument for Federal direct democracy." Wrong again. Though I must confess that I am a little unsure of what you mean by "federal direct democracy." It is possible that you mean "representative direct democracy, " but of course this is a contradiction in terms. Regardless, I was not "obviously" argueing for any such thing. If anything I was attempting to illustrate that democratic participation is possible and positive at any level of organization and government.
"It appears that what you truly advocate is Libertarian Socialism aka Social Anarchism - or a stateless society. You advocate to abolish private ownership of all business and labor for wages." - First, it doesn't just appear that I advocate Libertarian Socialism - I fucking came right out and said so. But great detective work nonetheless. Second, if you actually knew anything about the political and economic philosophies you mentioned, you might realize how ridiculous that last sentence really is. I don't "advocate to" do any such thing, nor do most theorists and proponents of Libertarian Socialism - it certainly isn't off the table - but that whole Libertarian side pretty much guarantees that there will be no Soviet style seizure of property or involuntary elimination of labor for wages. It is worth noting here that what the USSR actually implemented was a top-down, authoritarian form of state capitalism - which is totally different from the type of socialism I'm talking about.
I don't promote Wikipedia. It is a helpful starting point. Real research comes from primary sources, books, and peer reviewed journal articles (hope that isn't t o academic for you). Even if I did it wouldn't make your silly listing of a bunch of "philosophies" any more relevant or less ridiculous. The quote you provide is just. List of names, it doesn't say anything about my philosophy at all. If you want to know about my philosophy or Libertarian Socialism I would direct you to thebooks in my earlier post. Or you could just ask me - that might save you the headache of trying to find relevant quotes to throw around authoritatively.
It might also save you from embarrassments like this final paragraph of yours. If this isn't a pitiful example of ignorance and poor logic leading to a hopeless spurt of non sequitur fallacies, then I don't know what is. What is you goddamn obsession with "smashing capitalism?" Jesus Christ! There is demonstrably a lot wrong with our current economic and political systems - including capitalism. Does this mean that capitalism in any and all forms must be abolished? Not necessarily. This is the dialog that people are wanting to have. For this dialog to be usefull your precious dogmas and doctrines about the peerless superiority of capitalism are going to have to be questioned. Get over it! The fact is that if you really consider yourself to "lean libertarian" or whatever you should be questioning them yourself.
But this last bit is really the kicker: "You do not seek the freedom already enjoyed to voluntarily form communities where direct democracies are used within the existing structure, you seek to force all of society into your new vision of a non capitalistic system. You do not seek the freedom of collectively forming co-operatives within the current system, you seek the overthrowing of the current system to force all to enter into your vision of how the world should operate."
What am I some kind of megalomaniacal, fascist dictator now? These claims are so untrue and irrational that I really can't address them in any way other than to deny their truth. That you would even characterize my own espoused position (and that of the majority of Libertarian or Anarcho Socialists with whom I am familiar) with such statements only indicates the depth of your ignorance.
Given the tone of that last paragraph and the general stupidity Of you comments in their entirety, I feel my response has been altogether too civil. Forgive me but, who do you think you are to tell me, your obvious superior in both education and intellect, what I "seek" or "don't seek?" I don't really have anymore time to waste on such blithering idiocy. Go home and read a goddamn book or two. But before you do anything else, you dear sir or madam, can go fuck yourself.
Switzerland is direct representation not a direct democracy. There is a Council which is elected by popular vote along with a council of state - combined these are the legislature which elects the President. Their local cantons remain largely locally controlled, I'll grant you that. However, it is NOT a direct democracy which you appear to be implying.
In fact, the Tea Party would most likely argue that Switzerland - in the main - represents more of the Republic that our founding fathers envisioned. The Federal level is responsible for foreign relations, the military, VAT's, currency, railways and national communications . Education is left to the cantons - so there are 26 different school systems whose cantons legislate their own taxes for that and other public services.
Libertarians (remember that I wrote earlier that I am an Independent who leans libertarian) also would likely state that Switzerland is more representative of their political platform since that party advocates little or no central (Federal) influence on economic, foreign intervention or social issues.
Other examples of direct democracies you cite, like the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo are political groups not national governments. I'm surprised you didn't use the Zapatista Councils of Good Government.
True direct democracy on a national level does not exist. Small groups in some instances do practice a form of direct democracy using - like OWS - spokes councils or something similar. Businesses exist as worker cooperatives or workers' councils or participatory economics in various parts of the world, but again, they do not represent a national form of government.
You also use propaganda when you state that the US is directly implicated in failures of these small examples of direct democracy. Provide examples of where the US had decided to "crush truly democratic societies".
It is quite obvious that you seek to use political activists attempts at direct democracy to provide an argument for Federal direct democracy. It is quite obvious that you attempt to use worker owned and operated businesses to provide an argument for Federal direct democracy.
It appears that what you truly advocate is Libertarian Socialism aka Social Anarchism - or a stateless society. You advocate to abolish private ownership of all business and labor for wages.
Wikipedia (which you promote) states the following about Libertarian socialism -
Political philosophies commonly described as libertarian socialist include most varieties of anarchism (especially anarchist communism, anarchist collectivism, anarcho-syndicalism,[12] mutualism[13]) as well as autonomism, communalism, participism, some versions of "utopian socialism[14] and individualist anarchism[15][16][17]., and also libertarian Marxist philosophies such as council communism and Luxemburgism.[18]
Smashing Capitalism goes right along with those philosophies. And therefore, you have more than proved the point that this is ultimately the goal of many of the OWS organizers and supporters. You do not seek the freedom already enjoyed to voluntarily form communities where direct democracies are used within the existing structure, you seek to force all of society into your new vision of a non capitalistic system. You do not seek the freedom of collectively forming co-operatives within the current system, you seek the overthrowing of the current system to force all to enter into your vision of how the world should operate.
These direct democracy leaning states are unable to fund their schools and other public services because of the cumulative affect of ballot initiatives that vote for increased services but no increased revenue to provide them. A study of the ballot initiatives that don't involve public services and revenues reveal the idiocy that a society that relies upon feel good legislation determined from attack ads and false perception of the impact of the legislation. Uninformed voters vote for the "feel good" resolution without any knowledge in the practical application of it.
A representative democracy is supposed to learn the will of the people and do its best to ensure that that will is followed but they also have the responsibility of ensuring that the practical application of that will does not cause more problems than it solves. Unfortunately, due to the influence of lobbyists and campaign financing, we have moved too far away from the ideals represented in such a form of governance.
We need both real campaign finance reform - I prefer a fully funded federal election with spending limits mandatory and without loopholes - and real tax reform.
For far too long, our government - local, state and federal - have been granting tax breaks to special interests and taxing our goods and services to pay for those income tax breaks. They've gotten away with this due to the "greed" (for tax breaks) and "apathy" (not investigating practical application of feel good legislation) of voters.
I ask you this.......how many folks today are aware of the 143% excise tax paid for each jar of peanut butter they purchase? Or of the fact that they pay 20 to 30% taxes on their cell and land lines, all of their insurance policies and their utility bills? Or that ethanol subsidies and the shutting off of water to farmland to save a wee fish have caused world food prices to increase 6% over the last year?
As long as those income tax credits and deductions are given allowing 47% of Americans to pay no income tax - they all feel good....never understanding that it is a slight of hand being used by our politicians...a case of paying Paul (by income tax credit and deduction) by robbing the blind Peter (through hidden taxes and fees).
An uninformed electorate is dangerous - which makes majority rule - which is what direct democracy basically is - dangerous. Take for example Florida's classroom size ballot initiative - limiting class size to 18 students sounds really good until you realize that to pay for it, all teachers aids will lose their jobs in order for the county and state to pay for all those extra certified teachers and build larger schools to accommodate all those needed classrooms. Until your property taxes have to rise to pay for it all - and then a few years later, the public votes to decrease or cap property taxes......leaving the politicians to add another increase in tax or fee to your insurance policy or your utility bill or your cell phone in order to continue to pay for those smaller class sizes the majority voted for all those years back......
I think we can conclude that you and I both agree that locally, a form of direct democracy must exist - and it does - in my county, our board of commissioners were "pro-growth" - they were allowing the rapid destruction of previously protected wet lands as long as those who were going to "grow" the county gave something back. We were seeing the farmlands in our counties being developed into concrete jungles with massive residential units surrounded by strip malls and so on. The county voted them out and replaced them with those who were not "pro-growth". Our governor then tried to appoint one of those pro-growth out voted commissioners to a state level position. Our county responded with a massive communication effort that led to her not being appointed.
The occupy movement - at least in the eyes of those who are working so hard behind the scenes - wants to cause massive disruption to the systems of our nation. Not at the local levels where the change can be controlled and less chaotic, but nationally by a smashing of the economic system as it stands now. In the void left by that economic chaos, what would replace our current system of governance? Something better or something worse? While capitalism is an economic system, the destruction of the economy inevitably leads to changes in governmental structures in some form or another...and this is exactly what the organizers and many of the protesters want....inside that Trojan Horse.........
I operate under a belief that one should be careful in choosing what movements to support - be careful that the goal of the movement is the same as yours, or you might find that you get something worse than what you sought to change. I wonder if those who protested and fought in Libya wanted Sharia Law in his place? Did women want to be told how to dress, whether they could be educated or drive a car? Do they want stoning as punishment for adultery or four male relatives to witness a rape for it to be rape?
Are there living examples of this working? Any resources you can point me to? I'm genuinely interested in learning more.
Democracy tries to achieve the happiness for the maximun but we want the happiness for all.And you equate utopian to impossible which is quite wrong.Now people know what they want.
"a leader doesn't seek consensus, he molds it" Wikipedia molds it. OWS is molding it again.
You guys watchin 'Blue Bloods' again.? The Tom Selleck character didnt quote it right either... it's not 'Seeks'.. but , "..A Leader doesnt REFLECT Consensus..
(As a Writer.. i always try to Quote correctly.. out of respect.)
What this country needs (as well as the world) is the legalized corruption of our political system and gov't. I believe if we remove the $$... and can restore an honest system of governance.. the rest (issues) can be discussed honestly and an honest solution arrived at. Screaming for a new system of governance just frightens people... better to restore our republic to an honest gov't and then let's work out the details.
There is a broad consensus among political theorist that any state (including the republic) is essentially institutionalized violence. Can we really preserve (or restore) "our" republic without preserving the injustices (structural violence) inherent in any state? Just food for thought.
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What they have so far been washing in the bath tub was only a doll not a real baby therefore it is worth throwing away.But if any body steels our motor bike let us instead use a car which cannot be stolen.If I do not understand things better like our forefathers did that does not make me right.What is required is the real understanding of the problem and the right solution.Please do not cite example of Gandhi who had no philosophy.Had he had weapons otherwise he would have chosen to fight which he once said publicly.
Don't worry Oakland, we're break you out of jail.
Thank you! What a great post! I would just like to add that a lot of people believe this kind of thinking is mamby-pamby and ineffectual. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our traditions are strong, they have just been neglected. But as we go along we begin to feel again their power, the power of truth - the power of human dignity. These things are real, more tangible than anything on earth and in them is power . . . there is force in it; otherwise evil would inevitably and always prevail. We can be filled with that power, it's real; truth power, feel it pulse within us. It's there, waiting to express itself; all we have to do is remember it.
Thanks.Wisely put.Now people do not want to continue their slavery and cannot endure to let the evil rule us any further.
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For over 100,000 years we live in tribes, some 8,000 years we lived in kingdoms and for some 200 years we have lived in republics. One of the things these systems had in common is distrust. We didn’t trust other tribes, we didn’t trust other kingdoms and we don’t trust other republics. We have this distrust since it was too difficult to know one another. I was lucky for being born in the United States of America and growing up in an area where many of my neighbors had immigrated from other parts of the world. That was 40 years ago… today people from other parts of the world are just a click away. We share our stories. We make each other laugh and cry. We learn that we have so much in common. We wonder why did we have such distrust in one another. For the first time in history we can see the truth of things. I hope we will all stand up together to first clean house, to repair our governments and that one day we all become united.
I am not a professional writer, so forgive me of any errors.
Your professional standing does not matter - your passion clearly shows in this. I agree - it's time to stop distrusting one another - this is how we are divided. It's time we earn each other's trust.
Yes we need a sort of revolution of the spirt, of the mind and body, but how this be achieved in a nation of such desperate elements, where continuity has diminished. The differences amount are so fast and alien, and our culture is so based within the material world. There is a wonderful book called "Bolo, Bolo", where the world is changed for a positive way - a world not based on materialism and consumerism. "Bolo, Bolo" is available free at this link - http://www.spunk.org/texts/misc/sp000137.txt
This piece was most instructive. I wonder if we in fact as a society, actually did take away the real lesson from the Arab Spring uprising. One thing I took away from it, especially the Syrian movement, was persistance and steadfastness.
As brutal as the Syrian authorities response has been to their peoples demands for freedom the people continueto resist. They protest in the 10's of thousands.
You have joined the ranks and are deserving and entitled to the moniker P#OWS one of the many [ Prisoner #Occupy Wall Street ] peace AtomicZ...
The rights of U.S. Citizens are being eroded by the TEA, Koch brothers and Pious Pims (lobbyist), The 99% are less than dung beneath the feet of the hate merchants of the far right. The U.S. Constitution didn't say you had to bring a state approved ID with a photograph to VOTE, nor did it say you could only use your first admendment right to protest your government at 12th and Main St in Everglades City, Florida between the hours of 12:01 A.M. and 12:02 A.M. on the 29th of February on odd years!
Most U.S. Citizens are being controled like cattle with electric prods. But don't worry you will fade away or get rolled over by like of Murdoch's hate and war machine.
Got to agree with this one as far as the hatred goes. Some of the things the far right do literally make me want to vomit. Rush Limbaugh is a hate-monger that should shame anyone in the right, but do they stand up for themselves and complain about him? No. Why? Because deep down somewhere they think he's serving their purpose to create more hatred and division. It's the same with a lot of fringe christian priests like the one in Arizona that got his congregation to pray the Obama got brain cancer. (Why is Arizona such a sucky place?) While a few christian newsletter denounced him, he got all the media attention. Why? Because somewhere deep down in thiose people's hearts they felt that priest was serving their purpose. Hate is hate is hate.
It is not for the globe to collectively decide its fate either. Nature decides its own order; naturally. freely, and perfectly without your efforts. Feel free to come along, but do not forget that your ego is not its own creator. All that stands against the Way will fall like mountains before the wind.
Finally, our minds are changing. It's the only change that matters. Though this article did not directly express it - it is not lost on me and many others that what it speaks of is a lack of authoritarian structure, commonly known as anarchism. It cannot be a newly established paradigm, but rather the absence of any. I, unfortunately, cannot bring myself to think that anarchy will bring us harmony until all individuals realize there is no individual. However, I have not given up hope, and I never will.
http://www.astonisher.com/archives/corporation/corporation_intro.html
A THOUSAND YEARS from now, our time will be remembered as the Second Dominion of the Corporation.
During the early 20th century, enterprises bearing imprimaturs like Corp., Ltd., AG and S.A. gained control of the vast physical wealth in what used to be called the Free World.
Although this comment's not a direct response to the article, I'd be grateful if you'd allow me to inject it here.
Urgent proposal: OWS to call for a massive EMERGENCY national action opposing Congress's upcoming attempt to impose--is it a trillion dollars?--in cutbacks to social programs that the 99% depend on. Obama will prove useless in opposing the cuts, so WE HAVE TO STOP THEM! I’m referring to the virtual dismantling of essential social programs that are essential to the survival of the 99%, using the deficit as an excuse. In an hour-long talk on YouTube to Occupy Boston, Noam Chomsky describes this projected assault on the 99% as a dagger aimed straight at the heart of the country.
Thanks very much.
In solidarity
I would really like to read this person's 'theory of human nature'. Because as far as I know, one doesn't exists.
Half the claims in this essay, not only anthropomorphize nature, but are also dubious at best. Where is the mountain of evidence needed to support claims like;
'Nature itself is the beautiful expression of order and balance arising out of chaos.'
'By definition, imposed order is unstable. '
'People are as a whole intelligent enough to devise such structures but not intelligent enough to override our most fundamental sense of natural order.'
Where is the evidence for such broad sweeping statements?
What would an experiment even look like to test these generalizations?
Lets do away with the metaphysical nonsense and stay grounded in material reality. That is what this whole thing should be about.
I respect what you've done, and I recognize that this is consistent with the well-regarded arguments of Kropotkin's "Mutual Aid" - nonetheless, I disagree. The natural world is a harsh place of fang and talon, and even within species there is war, murder, rape, infanticide. There is a very limited role for arguing a basis in nature in human activity - namely, as with homosexuality, when its detractors try to brand it as "unnatural". But social hierarchies, rulers and the oppressed, are found in baboons and other primates.
A better description of the underlying conflict can be found, not in science, but in the Christian religion, which describes two "covenants with God" with very different purposes. One, an Old Testament, is a deal with Abraham to make his seed "as numerous as the dust of the earth" using war and oppressive legislation. The other describes a path toward immortality of the soul through universal love and forgiveness in which the most contemned people are treated with genuine respect. Now without getting into whether people believe or disbelieve this, it provides a compelling analogy for the change which, in large part due to this religion, has spread throughout modern culture.
Today people feel solidarity, not so much with their flesh, not with their genes, but according to the aspirations of their hearts: it is normal, for example, for a family to love an adopted son as their own. In a society where ideas compete, and where the exact pattern of single nucleotide polymorphisms in the next generation is just trivia, where everyone feels increasingly his nature as an expression of the universal Atman, the rules are different. We no longer perceive the need for total war between nations or races, the idea that ours must survive by wiping out the others. The same should be true for social stratification - instincts to gather wealth by hook or by crook, and pass it all on in inheritance, should be growing increasingly obsolete. The problem is that this process is not proceeding as it should, because it is too easy to dehumanize the poor, to set up walls around the wealthy. Nonetheless the higher purposes and aims of human history, the enlightenment of man, does work toward the end of such inequalities. And on that much, at least, we agree.
I completely agree with the following comment -
"I will present no idea for the future's form other than the fact that society has advanced beyond the point where the republics can exist in their current form. Go forth, and reclaim your dignity. If you fear the republics, imagine this. You are no longer represented in the republics. Therefore, their laws, their edicts, their decrees have no legitimate authority over you. They are just as illegitimate as if I attempted to dictate the terms of your life from behind my keyboard. They have become little more than bullies with guns, and if there is anything the Arab Spring has taught us, it is that guns are utterly useless against an idea."
I am a diehard patriot. My own ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War. I have studied governments. I have always felt that our founding fathers got it right with our Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, etc. But I've also felt that the republic as America knew it from long ago, can no longer work in our world anymore. We will need to find something else. Something better? I say that will trepidation, because what IS better then what our founding fathers came up with? I truly believe that our world as we know it and the potential for where it can go, must leave the 'republics' behind for something that will indeed become even better then any republic out there mankind as lived with. Until corruption, greed, power, and control are eradicated from humanity at large, we will continue to just spin our wheels with trying to reinvent the wheel. The time has come for a change, a change to radically shift our worldwide consciousness. I, personally, am looking for a more spiritually based society where humanity runs its places on earth by living the Golden Rule. But that's just me living in la la land hoping for a better world for my kids. I believe anything is possible with just the right amount of shifts in consciousness. I believe we change the world one consciousness at a time. The time has come for us to learn to govern our own affairs from WITHIN and not to look to 'systems' out there be they religious, political, economic, etc, for they have all proven time and again to fail in providing for what is in the best interest of EVERYONE involved. It is time to look to ourselves to govern ourselves.
As I read through these replies until this point, I thought a lot about the Golden Rule you refer to, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." I don't believe you are living in la la land as you say. I wholeheartedly agree with "The time has come for us to learn to govern our own affairs from WITHIN and not to look to 'systems' out there be they religious, political, economic, etc, for they have all proven time and again to fail in providing for what is in the best interest of EVERYONE involved. It is time to look to ourselves to govern ourselves." The change begins from within. I have seen a new picture with this saying, "occupy your mind, change begins within." It is truly the only change we can affect. It is beginning to happen. This is that shift in consciousness that many of us have been waiting for. it is an awakening of the heart and the soul. We, who understand this and have been on this path want everybody to join us. Now that we have been forced to connect via the economic crisis upon up, we are realizing that we are all in this together as humanity. If we continue to strive for balance in nature, together, with the same intention, many great things can happen. I sometimes fear that the powers that be will not go down without a fight, but we do not have to resort to violence. As anonymous said in the above article, guns are useless against an idea. When many people together have the same thoughts and intentions that in itself is a force of energy. Collectively we are witnessing the modeling of a new way of living as represented by the encampments across the country, particularly at Lilberty Square. We must continue the dialogues here and in other forums, with our neighbors, our friends, co-workers and any other American. The writer of this article is correct, the systems in place do not work anymore in this new world of global interconnectedness. Something new is emerging, as we create the world each and everyday. When we realize we are not individuals, but all part of the same humanity, we can truly apply the Golden Rule everywhere all the time. Some of you visionaries may like this website. www.freeworldcharter.org. I am here, and will continue standing up for what is moral, ethical, and just. Nations may divide us, religion may divide us, politics may divide us, race may divide us, money may divide us, education may divide us, and more, but WE ARE ALL THE SAME. The current path the world is on is unsustainable. Willie Nelson said a few weeks back in NYC, "We are the ones we have been waiting for." In solidarity with all the occupiers.
http://www.porn.com/videos/bbw-milf-karma-camille-gets-drenched-in-cum-by-many-men-83354.html
I agree to your yearning for seeking the just system.
This piece is wonderful. I would like to discuss a possible cause of the whole movement we see globally today.
The world wide response we see (Arab Spring, OWS et. all) to me is a natural response to the global "free trade" objective set in motion many years ago. Nixon "woke up" China, the Berlin wall came down and brought "free trade" with eastern Europe, NAFTA was developed, the global economic summits evolved, they've developed a World Bank, etc. In the US unions became weakened because companies simply moved operations off-shore to union-free work zones with cheaper labor costs and no organized labor. And so on.
As the profit seekers expanded their markets beyond their local communities and national boarders into "global free trade markets" they gleefully accepted profits by exploiting communities afar, and never considered this to evolve into an global working class. Thankfully, through technology, the profit seekers are running out of resistance-free populations to exploit for profit. Slowly, the working class of the world is recognizing a form of world-wide solidarity. I believe the global response to global free-trade is the natural driving force of today's events.
Yes. I believe in global thinking, global movement, but global economics brings it's own problems that must be worked out or exploitation too easily takes hold and outsourcing kills countries while making a few very rich. I think some have some very noble thoughts about a United Earth, but they must work things out first before their enthusiasm does too much damage.
I fear the tyranny of the majority. It is in the nature of all living things to get the most reward for the least effort. Add to that the fact that too many voters won't take the time to study an issue. The uninformed will just vote in their own self interest or what they have been told is their interest and you'll end up going from bad to worse.
The workers will end up being slaves for the non-worker instead of the1%. Read deep enough into the "technology can provide so much more " idea.....they are already experiencing it at Zuchotti Park - the cooks were angry at the freeloading homeless and "professional" vagrants...the idea behind it is that the producers would be "volunteers" and no one would be forced to "volunteer" but the producers wouldn't mind because there would be so much production that everyone would get enough....sounds so wonderful on the surface. But it wouldn't work; we'd still fall into the same traps just from the bottom up instead of top down.
Yes that is usually the way things develop, it seems to be in the nature of life to get the most benefit for the least effort. We're close to that now with so many people getting things we consider free from the government.
Wow, a very thought provoking article, trigerring very different types of comments, but none reallly against it. I liked the initial thesis of the end of republics but also the caveats that push this possibility, if ever, very much into the future, like "Much of the world has only recently began to explore the 'republic' paradigm" "One must resist the temptation to make hierarchies into villains and meshworks into heroes, not only because, as I said, they are constantly turning into one another" "Already people are affected by all sorts of "governments" that are not obvious" (W3C, Apple, Google, Wikipedia) So, while hipothetically we might find our way to democratize sources of power, the next step would be to democratize sources of knowledge? Far in the future, if ever. Some people here think that there was some sort of collective government in the past. I'm not sure if this ever was the case in the USA. Maybe in Iceland today...but probably nowhere, ever. So this not a questions of going back to past times. Democracy, thus, lies in the future. The idea of democracy is still and always new, in a way. We'll get ever closer to the ideal, without ever reaching it, if we work on it. And there will be big setbacks on the road, you can bet on that.
I appreciate the author's taking the time to share his/her thoughts with us. However, I would like to respectfully point out what I believe are some flaws in the analysis presented.
For instance, I certainly prefer republics to monarchies (as I trust the vast majority do here) but they aren't necessarily 'less stable' or 'less naturally ordered' than 'republics', they're just more democratic. I'd like to think democracies are inherently more stable than dictatorships, and there are some good reasons for supposing this is probably true, however, stability is indicated by how long something persists, and unfortunately, monarchies have been around a lot longer than 'republics'.
I like what the author says about technology. I believe advances in technology, particularly global communications and information technology, will likely bring about a paradigm shift with regard to the way we as humans see the basic building blocks of society; for example nation states may eventually be replaced by some new basic societal organizational paradigm.
However, it's a tad premature to declare 'the end of republics'; in fact, much of the world's population today live in nations ruled by a dictator, regardless of whether it is formally a 'monarchy'; the world only appears to have collectively moved beyond autocratic rule from the perspective of the Western democracies. Much of the world has only recently began to explore the 'republic' paradigm.
In short, the analysis lacks sufficient rigor. It's important when writing a piece like the one presented here to use clearly defined terms and to back up what is claimed with sound arguments and documented facts; this article contains too many questionable assumptions, sweeping generalizations, and unsupported assertions presented as fact.
I hope this hasn't come across as hypercritical; I appreciate the post and am offering this as hopefully constructive criticism, not a snipe at the author.
I tend to agree that there is some "black and white" thinking in the essay, and what the world needs now is to learn to think in "color": http://www.anwot.org/
For example, consider what Manuel De Landa wrote: http://www.t0.or.at/delanda/meshwork.htm "Indeed, one must resist the temptation to make hierarchies into villains and meshworks into heroes, not only because, as I said, they are constantly turning into one another, but because in real life we find only mixtures and hybrids, and the properties of these cannot be established through theory alone but demand concrete experimentation."
I agree with the original writer that we have serious problems as a society (including extreme inequality), and I agree our society is going through some kind of phase change (James P. Hogan wrote about such a "phase change" in "Voyage From Yesteryear" in 1982).
What is to come may be some culture-specific mix of subsistence, gift, exchange, and planned economies, with lots of meshworks and hierarchies at all levels, like discussed on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY
Already people are affected by all sorts of "governments" that are not obvious. There is the "government" of Apple Computer which decides what software can go on the iPhone (and what an iPhone looks like). There is the government of Debian GNU/Linux that decides what software goes into Debian (by very different policies and processes than Apple). There is the government of Wikipedia that decides how that community process is managed. There is the government of W3C (the World Wide Web Consortium) that manages web standards. http://www.w3.org/Consortium/ There is the government of Whole Foods that decides what products to stock and how to present them to customers. There are local governments of regions that decide how to maintain public roadways. There are governments (boards of trustees) of local non-profits. OWS in Liberty Plaza park has formed its own sort of government (including the GA). There is a federal government with many different agencies often working at cross-purposes, like the Department of Agriculture subsidizes unhealthy foods and the Department of Health and Human Services tries to combat obesity. http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/11/the-subsidized-food-pyramid.html And so on...
All these governments overlap to some degree. Sometimes they conflict; sometimes they are in agreement.
We need to move to a more sophisticated "color" view of social organization. There is already no single government that affects our lives in most places or contexts. There are many groups of people interacting. How do we make all those governments more participatory and more accountable to human needs -- while still having them work reasonably efficiently and effectively to support community, health, prosperity, security, family, and joy?
I wonder if the neccesities of human existence and endeavour could be undertaken voluntarily by people who live in a country in which each person was a corporation. In which each person ruled themselves, and volunteered to belong to organisations which exist in name, but not in a centralised physical location backed up by miltary strength. The internet seems to make this possiible. So people activate their group-companies which operate on a local level even though they have access to resources from far away made cheap by the fact that the whole world is a "company" made up of 7 billion individual "companies". Don't really know where I'm going with this, sorry.
Don't lose sight of the fact that individual and collective violence are evolved human characteristics. Social order is an engineered overlay that allows large numbers of people to live in close proximity and share the earth's resources if not in harmony at least in acquiescence. Government is the instrument of that social order and its 3 functions are:
If any one of these functions is missing or if one predominates, the system is unstable and will eventually break down. A fine balance is necessary, but requires constant effort and vigilance to sustain it. Consensus finding is often delegated by the people to a representative body as a more efficient means of reaching decisions. When delegated, that power is open to abuse.
(further amplification of this position to be sent to content at occupywallstreet).
America used to work The people had work. The system worked. It was far, far, from perfect, but we all had some share in the struggles AND the rewards. But somewhere along the way, we lost our way. Because now we have an economy and a political system that works only for the rich. We need to get back to what America was, and what it should be, and what it can be. Occupy Wall Street is no longer just a place called Zuccotti Park --- Zuccotti Park is everywhere. You can try to pen us in, you can take away our generators, you can beat us, you can mace and tear-gas us , and you can try to "permit" us to death....but you can't kill an idea. You can't keep down people’s hopes and dreams for a better life.....a life with dignity and freedom....for themselves and their kids. More power to Occupy Wall Street, as it spreads to every town and city - because OWS is us, and for us, and by us. America has found it’s voice, and it demands fairness and justice. This land IS your land! And we want it back! We want our lives back!
The clouds have been building, the first drops are just beginning to fall, thanks
This is beautiful. I truly believe the world can be a peaceful harmonious place for everyone. People are brainwashed into believing this kind of thing "just can't work" with all sorts of lies, but I challenge anyone who reads this to just think outside the box for a second. The world has x amount of resources. There is (and nobody can deny this) the elite of the world who hog a ridiculous amount of of these resources. Everyone on the planet is so caught up in trying to survive that they can't see the forest for all the trees. Stop fighting. Stop exploiting your brothers for personal gain. If we would just stop and share these resources, we have the technology and brilliant minds of this modern age to figure out a way to really make it work (the problem with debates about socialism and related systems is that we expect one person [the debater] to be able to absolutely figure out every problem that's presented at them so the argument crumbles, just like the elite want. Let's bring our heads together guys! There IS a way! There really is!). It's a new era guys. We're living in it. We can either make it happen, or let them destroy us.
I agree that we can make the world work for everyone, like Bucky Fuller suggested long ago: "We are blessed with technology that would be indescribable to our forefathers. We have the wherewithal, the know-it-all to feed everybody, clothe everybody, and give every human on Earth a chance. We know now what we could never have known before--that we now have the option for all humanity to make it successfully on this planet in this lifetime. Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment."
Our technology also reflects our social values. We should not take our technological infrastructure for granted. There are reasons light rail systems were bought up and destroyed by oil and rubber companies (to sell stuff for automobiles), for example. We probably could have had safer nuclear power using thorium reactors, but ironically they were not developed in the 1940s and 1950s because it was not easy to make bombs out of them. We could have had passive solar construction required in the USA decades ago (like Canada has stronger requirements), but people fought that too for various reasons (it cost a bit more up-front, even as it saved a lot of money in the long term).
For another example, if we had decided collectively that energy producing technologies should be required to pay up front for external costs like pollution, defense, disease, and risk, fossil fuels and conventional nuclear would have been seen as "too expensive" compared to solar power and other renewables ever since the 1970s. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power
Still, the "market" can be useful to the extent it supports people using the "ultimate resource" of their imagination to figure out how to meet unmet social needs: http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/
But as a society we always use our values to manage the marketplace (either actively or by just doing nothing). See: http://web.archive.org/web/20101205055704/http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/change/science_market.html (That site is down at the moment?)
Still, I agree that we may move beyond the market and exchange as our technology continues to improve. For example, 3D printers may eventually allow people to print common consumer goods at home using free and open source designs. People are working on printing solar panels and even printing more 3D printers. http://reprap.org The gift economy has been growing on the internet of people working together stigmergically to make free software and free content (including on this website). We can soften the market through a "basic income". http://www.usbig.net And the internet can be used to help make all types of governance processes more participatory, transparent, and accountable.
That can all be true even as nanotech might be used to make terrible weapons. Or copyrights and patents are being used to harm the gift economy (and some gifts themselves could be harmful -- like "trojan" computer programs that damage your computer). Even the internet has another problematical side too, for profiling dissenters. It is a race, like Bucky Fuller said, between "Utopia and Oblivion". Hopefully we will use the technologies of abundance to create abundance, not use them to create terrible weapons to fight over perceived scarcities left over from the 20th century way of thinking. Albert Einstein talked about this in the past, and Donald Pet talks about it on a site about "A Newer Way Of Thinking" with lots of free (gift economy) materials: http://www.anwot.org/
Real change will only occur when there is enough bio-survival tickets (money) distributed equally. This can only occur in a technology of abundance, and I applaud this post.
Thanks. You might like this link on distributing money widely: http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html
Or this one: http://www.livableincome.org/amillionairegli.htm
Outstanding post! I have been seeing a huge outpower of support from all across the country, including where I am at the Occupy Gainesville protests. This video on Occcupy Gainesville caught my attention! Keep up the great work and stay strong http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLS0qnv5N38
Some of us see what you are doing, we are to strong to live by your illusion, you are walking here on earth like parasites. Everything that you get in your hands turn into dust. I will fight with love and inner power, I will take away the blindfold that you have covered my sister and brothers eyes with. We are here now, and your time is over. You spread like cockroaches over continents, manipulated us with fear , that's your only power. Your promises is forgotten before you even preach them. You gave us one thing and took away 10.
Now we know the truth, You made Sisters and Brothers turn against each other, but now we work together. I feel your tremble, your masks are not confident anymore. I see you falling as I watch my sisters and brothers give there life for your illusion, some lay in their own blood to protect your lies. You smiled while we where struggling to serve your evil needs. But its over now, go ahead swim in your money and greed. That's what you will eat while we fight for our freedom. We gave you our trust while you ate what was ours. Our body spirit and mind where starving and now we are not you servants anymore. It is your turn to serve us now, you are yesterday and soon you are gone from our memory's,. They held us in their hand than made a fist and crushed us, they have no power anymore, now they will serve us. Rise my sisters and brothers, never fear change. We deserve this IT'S OUR TIME TO SMILE!!!!! May light be with you now we are free. I am not anymore the 99%
http://photoshopupdates.blogspot.com/
The people have left themselves out. You act as if the government is filled with evil people. But it's not. You probably see your local representatives around the town/city you live in. Your Congressman is generally listed in the phone book and in Texas there are signs pointing out their offices. Republics are great. They are the system the people can live with peacefully but you're failing to see that we have 'general assemblies' every year. They're called elections. If you don't participate of course your voice isn't heard. Blaming this on anyone but the people of America is just amiss. If we fail to accept the blame and then correct our actions we'll be fine. With a Republican system. Of course I vote Libertarian and I'm constantly reminded that I'm wasting my vote. The only thing I can say is at least I vote. If the heads of this movement would start trying to disseminate information and encourage the participants to educate themselves about our political system and how to participate it wouldn't possibly fail. That and denouncing corporations while using corporate means to propagate the message is pretty suspect to begin with.
And do not take our technologies for granted. The plug could easily be pulled and where would that leave us? We must continue to enjoy the facilitation of communication and organization that our technology has allowed; and, at the same time, we must prepare in ways that will ensure that we are not so easily stopped when we become an entity that threatens government/corporate hegemony. Please not that I said "when" ... indicating that I have complete confidence that we are indeed a real threat to the current order.
I just wanted to thank OWS for inspiring me in many ways but particularly today in that I was inspired to find out more details about "the banking system" and the federal reserve. I just wanted to share a few things I learned with whoever may be interested. I assume most of you already know this stuff but for those that don't.... The federal reserve has a primary majority private owner, the Rothchilds. For every new dollar that goes into circulation, every new Euro, the Rothchilds (and a few other banks) receive interests from taxpayers. So we pay interests to private banks on something that is created out of thin air, paper money. The Rothschilds representative bank in New York is J.P. Morgan (Chase). So anyhow, private banks literally own a monopoly on making money in which the government pays interests on, we pay interest on, in the form of taxes. One demand, I believe, OWS should be making, is that the Federal Reserve be forced to change its name to something representative of its privately owned nature.
The other very significant tidbit that I was not aware of is that banks are permitted through financial legislation to loan out ten times more money than they actually have in their accounts. We, the customers, are obligated to pay interests on loans that are fictitious in nature, based on assets that aren't even there. So, for example, the car loan that I received that totaled $7000 dollars was actually based on bank assets totaling $700 dollars. A $200,000 dollar mortgage is given based on $20,000 of actual bank assets.
So imagine having the power to walk into a car dealership and you have been given the privilege that your dollars are being multiplied by ten. That 25k car costs you 2.5k. Amazing, isn't it, the privileges that have been written into law for the banks?
all people must to know US is going to start a new war in world that will cause world war 3, how we can to stop them?
Start researching AFRICOM. I think that will be the front. We are militarizing the African continent, China is building up their infrastructure. I was in Grenada and my friend pointed out their new cricket stadium. He said, happily, "yeah, it was a gift from China. They brought in a crew of workers and built the place quickly." Now, Grenada has a great new sporting, arts, entertainment center thank you to China. Do you remember our foray into Grenada?
Very good, this is new, to name it from the past, would be to loose it.
I'm sorry...
but I feel you have been mistaken. Republics, YES, have been hijacked (our American Republic above all) but it is not the Republic, nor the concept represented, which is grotesque or malicious but what has risen out of the hijacking. Pure Democracy is the product of this hijacking and Pure Democracy is grotesque and malicious. All of the 50 States are Republics and their Citizens are Citizens of each and all 50 States. However the Federal Territories are properties owned and completely ruled by the Congress. Unlike the 50 States, whose Citizen's rights are granted by Nature (i.e. Natural Rights) and which are PROTECTED by (not given by) the State and U.S. Constitutions, the Federal Territories and all born within them or living within them have their rights granted them by the Congress. They are not Citizens... they are citizens. There are 3 United States of America. 1. The United States (plural) meaning the 50 United States 2. The Federal United States (e.g. the Federal Territories including Washington D.C.) and 3. The combination thereof.
The word and hence the form of government spouted, shouted and publicized by all of the big voices is "democracy". This term literally means mob rule or rule of the masses. However in a modern democracy we have a small group of people (in our case the U.S. Congress) which is the masses by vote and therefore by election to office, not because they truly represent those whom elected them). This massive body of "the people" (comparable shall we say to a whale) is governed by a tiny democratically elected body (the size of the pinpoint of a needle) and their rights are not protected but are granted. In a Republic, as stated, they are not granted but Natural. Therefore a Republican form of government is the best (Please do not misinterpret this as referring to the absurd Republican/Democratic 2-party system which should be outlawed).
The fact that you so articulately and correctly outlined is that there is something truly wrong with this Republic. It is this that must be found out and corrected. The Republic must be saved, solidified, modernized, secured and protected with everything we can provide. It is this Republic which is the expression of the Natural Order in its dance with modern human systems. In our growth from Bands to Tribes to Chiefdoms to States we had lost our way as you clearly illustrated above... BUT...it was the greatest merger of the Natural and Human Systems of Order and Government (that of Self-Government) which after nearly 7,000 years of civilization we have produced and which is the greatest piece of political art and science that humanity has done. It is the most selfless, peaceful and benign form of government which has graced this earth since true Natural Order reigned supreme and if we lose it I can assure you that we will not return to Natural Order but to that Mythic Order that you spoke of. It will digress to a truly disgusting, abhorrent, cruel, selfish and destructive state of being where countless lives shall be lost and those unlucky enough to remain will truly exist to serve a needlepoint oligarchy that matches word for word the state of being they will command with cold iron ruthless control.
I hope, truly hope, for the people of this world that they fight to secure this Republic and spread it, not the myth called true "democracy" before this nightmare becomes a cold reality.
A republic is a form of government in which the people, or some significant portion of them, have supreme control over the government and where offices of state are elected or chosen by elected people.[1][2] In modern times, a common simplified definition of a republic is a government where the head of state is not a monarch.[3][4] The word republic is derived from the Latin phrase res publica, which can be translated as "a public affair", and often used to describe a state using this form of government.
Both modern and ancient republics vary widely in their ideology and composition
In modern republics such as the United States and India, the executive is legitimized both by a constitution and by popular suffrage. Montesquieu included both democracies, where all the people have a share in rule, and aristocracies or oligarchies, where only some of the people rule, as republican forms of government.[6]
Most often a republic is a sovereign country, but there are also subnational entities that are referred to as republics, or which have governments that are described as "republican" in nature. For instance, Article IV of the Constitution of the United States "guarantee[s] to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government".[7] The Soviet Union was a single state composed of distinct and nominally sovereign Soviet Socialist Republics.
So the idea of the "Republic" itself is not the thing to be proud of and having it "be saved, solidified, modernized, secured and protected with everything we can provide" can only be supported if such a "Republic" allows for certain protections and freedoms which promote egalitarian ideals and do away with needless zero-sum games. Democracy is not the operative evil here, as there are many different versions of that as well, and like Communism or Marxist ideas has just as many pitfalls imbedded in it. (Though it's hard to get people to listen to that fact) What we need are the NEW Karl Marxes and Adam Smiths - people who can envision and plan a NEW paradigm that is inherently BETTER than the one we have with the ability to TRANSISTION smoothly from our current situation and into the new one. Bigger brains than mine for sure...
I agree with you to a point but the protections and freedoms are in fact protected by the Constitution. It is for the people to protect the document which protects them.
I think the last thing we need is another Karl Marx but more Jeffersons, Lincolns and kennedy's. We need a more educated populace and to get States rights back to the States and out of federal hands. The Constitution clearly states that the federal gov has no power to create new powers. Therefore every amendment (for good or bad) that has been created which grants the federal gov new powers it didn't have - are illegal and null and void. This definitely includes the Federal Reserve Act, inclusive of the IRS. Also fiat currency is clearly outlawed by the constitution. The federal gov has no business in the States matters of education or much else besides interstate commerce, matters of Immigration, etc. Anything which falls within the boundaries of a State are purely under the sovereignty of the State and outside of the boundaries of the Fed Gov. When will people wake up and see that the Fed Gov is usurping power (and has been) and this is both illegal and dangerous. Wrapping usurpation in a blanket of charity or morality (as in education or social services) does not change the fact that it is still usurpation. It is for the States and their people to enact laws to govern education, social services, etc.
People need to wake up and learn about the U.S. we used to have... the one the founders founded.
I agree - the point is not to get your party out and our party in, or to reduce the effectiveness of government against a bunch of snakes who cheat their way into vast sums of money with which to plot to destroy the government, but to carefully realise WHERE we need to reduce the size of government, and WHERE we need to regulate businesses.
I think there's a bit of folly in saying that a monarchy is inherently unnatural. Plenty of animals (bees and ants, as an example) live in a similar system. I'm not saying that we should stand for totalitarianism, but rather that the author picked a bad metaphor, in emphasising nature. What the author seems to be advocating is a sort of global government ruled by consensus. While I admit, that sounds lovely, it simply isn't realistic. Any large enough group cannot be ruled by consensus. There will always be a holdout minority that stops progress. Hence why democracy and republics have been formed in the first place.
Thank You! There is no reworking this system, this system must go. The ovens of Aushwitz will not be used to bake bread! The machine of capitalism will not be used to subjugate any longer!
“The methods used in these criminal takeovers vary and are too numerous to list in the context of this document, but they are well documented by many members of the newly arisen collective consciousness.”
One of them is Wikipedia
"To keep within the monetary union guidelines, the government of Greece had misreported the country's official economic statistics.[14][15] In the beginning of 2010, it was discovered that Greece had paid Goldman Sachs and other banks hundreds of millions of dollars in fees since 2001 for arranging transactions that hid the actual level of borrowing.[16] The purpose of these deals made by several successive Greek governments was to enable them to continue spending while hiding the actual deficit from the EU."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_sovereign_debt_crisis
Jack Abramoff CBS interview is very relevant here. Enjoy! http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57319075/jack-abramoff-the-lobbyists-playbook/
If you are still confused as to what this movement is about, I stumbled upon this documentary. And i have to say it is the most "to the point" documentary i've seen so far that explains everything in a way that anybody can understand what's going on.
The title is "the end of poverty", it links the economic and social infrastructure that's been set in place since colonial times until now to the poverty and wars we see today. It shows what this 1% is doing to the world in a global scale. What I've been trying to get across is that people are not seeing/understanding the full picture. You have too see everything as the whole world, not just localizing it as a movement in the U.S. It's a global movement/reformation.
All the people on the streets marching right now, whether they know it or not, they are marching for the world as one. The reasons as to why there are so many ideas on change and not just one unified idea when you ask any one of the protesters, it's because of an accumulation of everything wrong in the world. They represent all. That is why many people are confused as to what these protesters are marching for, the "what" is the system we live in.
Please watch this video, it is free on Hulu. Just click on the link. It will clarify things about the world we live in.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/151119/the-end-of-poverty
Since the occupy sites include them nations one may presume their models shall evolve too as 99% rule & 1% fill their pants.
Eau d dickcheney if u ask me
What's this? Eat Dick Cheney? While I would love to see Cheney get eaten by a small tribe of pygmies, I fear that if I ate him I would die from some kind of poison flowing through his bloodstream.
Yer frightened of anarchists so u prefer cronies to keep bankrupting 99%? We cant afford 2. Your fright is zero concern to 99% being threatened by armed forces of croney goons masquerading as peace officers. Scared of yer own shadow. Gro a pair
Sure ill go along with that. Why not delegitimize congress formed under crony system now, form transitional 99% congress then pass this act as 1st legitimate 99% legislation
I think that the USA should become an parliamantary monarchy. That is what the Netherlands, The UK, Canada, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and so on are. Its true that you give one person the soevereign right to be the head of state. But the people's voice is heard via the parlament. And the King/Queen's function (at least in the NL) is to be some kind of neutral judge. The King/Queen can not be corrupted, because I don't believe that any kind of sum of money could convince them to destroy their country, for anyone. And the NL is one of the most social countries in the world. I mean nobody lives on the street, you receive money while you study (and you can study for ten years if you want) free healthcare. And the other upside is that you dont have to have one King/Queen per country, In the case of Queen Elizabeth for instant, she is the head of state of 16 countries. And a Republic is nothing new, it is as old as the monarchy. The Roman Empire was for 400 years a Republic before it went back being a Monarchy. The constitutional Parlamantary Republic is something of this age, but the constitutional Parlamantary Monarchy is also something that occured at the same time. And as I read before, you don't want to repeat history, well you ideas are anything but new, Carl Marx had the same ideas that you give here. I havent read anything new so far.
I think the evolution of states is more like this: Absolute monarchies AND republics towards parlimantary constitutional monarchies and republics.
Excuse me for the bad English. (BTW I am not against the OWS)
I myself live in the Netherlands, and I have relitives living in Norway and Sweden, so I know what I am talking about.
While I agree that some elements of a parliamentary congress work, America was founded on trying to get away from many of the problems such a system created when there were absolute monarchies hundreds of years ago. You will be hard pressed to convince any American that this sounds like a good idea...unless maybe you sold it under a different name! ;)
How about we all focus on getting all Government appointed officials, from our local City, County, State, Mayors to Governors and all their elected cabinets, all the way up to and including the Federal Government, Congress, Senators’, Obama and his cabinet take, a 10% cut in their outlandish salaries and freeze their raises for the next two years!!! This would make a serious impact on our economy, Christ maybe even balance the budget!!!! They all keep talking about cutting into our very needed social and educational programs, but no mention on their lavish life styles.
They are not overpaid on an individual basis. There are just too many of them doing too many foolish, wasteful, and even criminal things. We have to cut the size and scope of government.
This statement without a corresponding statement about the consumer protection regulations that must also be imposed on corporations just shows a partisan bias. Corporations and Government are BOTH to blame. They. will. not. police. themselves. I don't want either the Government OR Corporations to do what they've been doing - f%^&ing us up the wazoo.
Shut congress down. Illegitimate misrepresentative bankrupt incompetent still clutchin the 99% money tho.
No refuge on earth for robber thugs any more. No mercy 4 cronies no immunity or anonomity 4 crony cops gassing 99% intentially not wearing badges like at g20 in toronto
How about we all focus on getting all Government appointed officials, from our local City, County, State, Mayors to Governors and all their elected cabinets, all the way up to and including the Federal Government, Congress, Senators’, Obama and his cabinet take a 10% cut in their outlandish salaries and freeze their raise for the next two years!!! This would make a serious impact on our economy, Christ maybe even balance the budget!!!!
Its far better than the wall st crony rags. Far more readers here. Wider audience smarter. Growing by the hour.
Change inevitable. Deny 99% theres no escaping 4 saboteur cronies. Eichmanns defense at his trial just following orders. They executed him. Invalid defense. Cops take a long moment to reflect on this before obeying illegitimate cronies 4 we are the 99%
Occupy cia langley
We are the 100% We are all the story of man.
You see, there is either a revolt within the pattern of society, or a complete revolution outside of society. The complete revolution outside of society is what I call religious revolution. Any revolution that is not religious is within society and is therefore no revolution at all, but only a modified continuation of the old pattern. What is happening throughout the world, I believe, is revolt within society, and this revolt often takes the form of what is called crime. There is bound to be this kind of revolt so long as our education is concerned only with training youth to fit into society,that is, to get a job, to earn money, to be acquisitive, to have more, to conform.That is what our so-called education everywhere is doing: teaching the young to conform, religiously, morally, economically; so naturally their revolt has no meaning, except that it must be suppressed, reformed, or controlled. Such revolt is still within the framework of society, and therefore it is not creative at all. But through right education we could perhaps bring about a different understanding by helping to free the mind from all conditioning -that is, by encouraging the young to be aware of the many influences which condition the mind and make it conform. - J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life
Babbling about u never meeting a crony u didnt vote 4
They have become little more than bullies with guns, and if there is anything the Arab Spring has taught us, it is that guns are utterly useless against an idea."
I am 1 year shy of 70...and it shows. I didn't log out, but I was and a beautiful creation is gone...didn't think to copy to save.
I am SO impressed with what I read, see and hear as I observe the "Occupy" sites. The un-focus of issues with the unity of effort is perhaps the most encouraging that the effort will succeed. The "problem" has as many facets as observers and it appears that the facets have joined to create that single jewel, knowing each will have to compromise to accomplish the task.
PLEASE keep it non-violent; this planet has seen more than enough violence and anger talk; but PLEASE keep at it!
OWS has been keep it non-violent, but the bullies with guns can not keep it non-violent.
Unfortunately your gatherings (peaceful yes) also draw in stupid thugs who like to blend in with the crowd and then act like an ass. The "Bullies with guns" are just there to keep the peace and try to control the "stupid thugs" that mix in at your gatherings and ensure that normal daily activity is not hindered by your presence. I have also watched enough videos of people screaming in officers faces, refusing to move out of the way of officers vehicles, hitting officers vehicles, and even pushing over officers motorcycles. How long would you be able to put up with that before you punched someone in the face? If you tell me you could take it, then I call you a liar. Stage your protest, (and please keep the stupid ones from acting like spokespersons, they are only hurting your cause) (such as,"but the bullies with guns cannot keep it non-violent"), but if the police say that an area needs to be cleared then clear out. I am a Veteran who believes in your right to protest, I just believe that the bad comming from this will prevent you all from making any changes. And please pick up your trash. All gathering sites look as if a dump truck exploded there. Also, please consider the fact that keeping the police busy dealing with you guys is preventing them from chasing down the real criminals. I think you are wasting your time, but I agree that it is your right, just think about some of the things I have said. Dion
The bullies with guns are "leaders" who work for the !%. The officers are 99%. http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh234/DirEnGreyRulz/SAM_3943.jpg
Sorry bud, you make no sense. Not trying to be mean, maybe you just need more than 2 sentences to get your point accross.
The officers are helping occupations. http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh234/DirEnGreyRulz/SAM_3943.jpg
Ok. Who were you refering to as "the bullies with guns"?
The bullies with guns are our "leaders" who work for the 1%.
Ok dude, you make no sense. Going to focus on constructive debates. Later.
Old hippie fuck I need your help.
Need help making a t-shirt. We need to draw a picture of Zooccotti Park with a cage around it. Here are some ideas: Draw a hippie climbing the cage like a monkey and throwing shit.
Draw a hippie rolling in mud and shit like a pig.
Draw a hippies fucking like dogs.
Draw a picture of a hippie eating peanuts like a big fucking elephant. Draw a hippie as a lazy fucking Ape doing nothing.
Problem is, it's hard to draw a picture of the apes outside of the cage not notiicing what IS happening because they're too busy making fun of the ones in the cage. Thanks. Keep up the good work.
[Removed]
U should make em edible so old hippies can feed em to u & use your mama 4 bodysheild u vulgar bitch
Ha ha, thanks for stooping to my level and being vulgar. Guess your a bitch too!
nice!
If we all were content as u 99% wouldnt b lookin 2 clear house now
Which croney candidate do want 2 stick around another year?
They r corrupt cronies. Impeach fire them for crimes against 99% fraud warmongering
How refreshing, after reading all that trash in the press, to finally hear someone who makes perfects sense!
This is an open source revolution and none of us are in control of it, but it always warms my heart to see just how much so many of us are on the same page. Thanks for the contribution...
It is apparent that the elites of the world are defenseless against the majority and the big issue of wealth inequality they all agreed. The invincible weapon of wealth inequality is going to draw the majority, unite them together and fight against the elites. Wealth inequality will be the focus. Wealth inequality is going to tear down all the defences of the elites and start changing the world.
Socialism is a failed and corrupt evil system, Period. I occupy the thought that our REPUBLIC was hijacked by evil people, hell bent on revolution into a Godless people with no heart and only oppression. Fight Wall Street Greed and ALL corrupt politicians in BOTH Party's & paid off by Wall Street $$ and greed. Vote them OUT, the good American way. God bless America, she needs it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqC_Gma221M >> Read the lyric's, they apply to any fool's on the hill
Nope, Socialism is a word that means a lot of different things depending on the time period and what kind of socialism we are talking about. Socialism as used by the Nazis was a movement coopted by the Nazis which became fascism. The kind of socialism that, say, Canada or Britain, or Australia engage in is very different and works just fine, thank you very much. other than that, I agree - this Republic has been hijacked - mostly by bankers and republicans from what I can see. Whether people are godless or not means nothing to me - and nothing to a country, really. One of the things this country was founded on was religious freedoms, but what that really ends up meaning to a lot of people is "freedom of MY religion" because they don't want to respect anyone else's. The golden rule must always be "An thou harm none, do what thou wilt".
What are you referring to when you say Socialism? The Marxist transition to Communism? Leninism? Stalinism? Maoism? Libertarian socialism? Anarcho-socialism? State socialism? Centrally planned (i.e. state) capitalism? The idea of a worker cooperative in general (e.g. the Kibbutz)? Democratic Socialism? Modern European Socialism? The modern "welfare state?" etc...? Without a specific target your statement is meaningless. Before you start dismissing "systems" out of hand, perhaps you should devote some thought as to what it is you are actually talking about.
Additionally, the fact that the REPUBLIC (not sure why we are shouting that word) was so easily "hijacked by evil people" is a very significant point in this debate. "Voting them out" does absolutely no good when (a) the system itself is so vulnerable to corruption and (b) there is a dearth of viable alternative candidates to vote in. I will resist the urge to close with duplicate punctuation.
Cronies read the post
Reading this piece reminded me of Thomas Paine and Ben Franklin. They knew the tyranny of monarchs and the perils of the republic. Paine's "Common Sense" and later the "Rights of Man" helped establish the tenets of modern democracy and some of the wording of our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. Franklin and Jefferson, both, saw the tyranny of the majority and the constant threat by the elite as something to be en-guard for. Jefferson even advocated reconvening a "Continental Congress" every generation (19 yrs.?) to re-approve or revamp the Constitutions. Now, that seems like an excellent idea. Where we go from here will be a process not unlike those "congresses". The thing we know is that the OWS movement will be a force in the halting of the ongoing abuse the criminal 1%. I thank the author for his insights and sacrifice.
Squirm cronies
Squirm cronies
I understand the purpose of the "Anonymous"-thing, but I believe this conviction will not hold until the end. Simply because we do have a personality. We do have 'a name'. It`s up to us to connect our personality with our heart and soul, in authenticity, for the sake of the greater good, for all life, small and big, in equality, dignity and service.
It
s good to make connection to thewhole` by staying Anonymous, realizing consciousness and a heartbeat in one group, one mass, the 99%, but know that every tiny bit of those 99 % are real people, with a real history, with real names, with real desires, hopes and dreams.Let us be, by ourselves, in our own name, be powerful vessels of Anonymous values like equality, tolerance, love, forgiveness, equanimity, peace, brotherhood, permaculture, and so on - and connect, as ourselves, as who we are and who we want to be, by heart, to all our fellow beings and mother nature, as one.
Just sharing my personal insights, Kindly, Steven Vrancken
Sorry, I don't mean to troll, but the first paragraph is a reference to the discredited concept of the Balance of Nature. Nature is actually quite chaotic.
I certainly agree that the currently imposed "order" (if that term may be used here) is crumbling.
This sounds poetic, but it is incorrect. Actually, one of the fundamental laws of nature is that entropy in a system will naturally increase, not decrease.
Actually that is a (common) misunderstanding of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The fallacious argument against evolution on the basis of the thermodynamics is a classic example of this misunderstanding. "Local increases in order can occur spontaneously without violating the Second Law" (http://www.tccsa.tc/articles/evolutionist_view_max.html)
Mathematically (my own field of study), Chaos does not equate to a lack of order or determinism. Chaos is also not the same as randomness or loss of information. As a matter of fact, beautiful, ordered patterns very often emerge in chaotic systems. Basically, chaos just refers to a lack of predictability in a system.
So the guest's submission is both poetic and scientifically accurate.
Fair enough I suppose, but this thing looks a lot more like Brownian motion than a Mandelbrot set to me.
Touché. Personally, I feel that the temptation to apply the formalism of mathematics to human behavior via the social sciences (economics is a particularly egregious example) is a very dangerous one. We run the risk of shaping people and relationships into uninteresting (and easily manipulated) objects rather than actually reaching any deeper understanding of humanity or the human condition. Just my two cents.
I agree with this whole heartedly. Too many variables. Only generalised overviews of the crowd can really be gained unless a massive program was installed that psychologically analysed each and every suporter of OWS and then their figures cross-referenced. Even then, it still wouldn't help postively predict action. Information IS anti-entropy. Comparing the human brain to a computer is fine, but we must never forget that it is NOT a computer (even if part of it has the ability to act that way)
Yeah. I am currently reading a lot of Hannah Arendt for a political philosophy class. She is always on about the "acting, speaking man" engaging the 'polis' where we are simply with others and neither for or against them in "sheer human togetherness." She contrasts this with "Homo faber," man the craftsman, who deals with objects in their tangible physicality.
Like Martin Buber, she makes a fundamental distinction between engaging 'what' someone is as opposed to 'who' they are. The former is akin to what Buber called an I-it attitude toward the world, the latter to his notion of the I-Thou relationship. The world to be 'used' and the world to be 'met'. In modern society we are far too prone to treat everything as an object. Arendt points out that this leads us into many blunders, not the least of which is a false sense of predictability and control over human affairs.
"The basic error of all materialism in politics [. . .] is to overlook the inevitability with which men disclose themselves as subjects, as distinct and unique persons, even when they wholly concentrate upon reaching an altogether worldly, material object." (Arendt - The Human Condition, section 25)
"Under these circumstances, there are, indeed, few things that are more frightening that the steadily increasing prestige of scientifically minded brain trusters [...] The trouble is not that they are cold-blooded enough to "think the unthinkable," but that they do not think. Instead of indulging in such an old-fashioned, uncomputerizable activity, they recon with the consequences of certain hypothetically assumed constellations without, however, being able to test their hypothesis against actual occurrences. The logical flaw in these hypothetical constructions of future events is always the same: what first appears as a hypothesis [...] turns immediately, usually after a few paragraphs, into a "fact," which then gives birth to a whole string of similar non-facts, with the result that the purely speculative character of the whole enterprise is forgotten. Needless to say, this is not science but pseudo-science, 'the desperate attempt of the social and behavioral sciences,' in the words of Noam Chomsky, 'to imitate the surface features of sciences that really have significant intellectual content.' The most obvious and "most profound objection to this kind of strategic theory is not its limited usefulness but its danger, for it can lead us to believe that we have an understanding of events and control over their flow which we do not have . . ." (Arendt - On Violence, section 1)
Unless you're Hari Seldon, of course.
Fair point. And the counter argument is to point to the Occupy movement and note the stark difference in effectiveness, versus a similar movement that did NOT eschew organization and leadership. The Tea Party, for example, who managed to frame the debate in Congress for the last year and focus government attention on the national debt. Or to point to the counter-productive activity in Oakland this week, when the anarchists were able to misdirect the Occupy movement's energy because there was no structure to prevent disruption from becoming the dominant force. I see the Occupy movement as solid evidence of the value of leadership, organization, and focus. A counter example to demonstrate what doesn't happen, absent those things.
After reading over the discussion in the link you posted, I have a couple concerns:
(1) That you would even think this is a counter argument or that you would think that so-called "anarchists" in Oakland are ruining everything indicates that you are completely missing the point here. The point is that we, as Kant famously put it, "wake from our dogmatic slumber." Only then can we stop saying the same old things, stop half-heartedly participating in the same broken institutions, and start taking back control of our own lives and communities.
(2) Many, many individuals involved in the "Occupy movement" have demonstrated all of the qualities that you rightly point out as being important to a movement's success. To state otherwise on the basis of isolated events or specific actions you don't personally agree with is disingenuous to say the least.
I also feel that we need rethink what true success looks like. Would (seemingly) "framing the debate in Congress" really bring success? I highly doubt it. It is entrenched interests (such as universities, corporations, political parties, churches, chambers of commerce, etc. . .), working through news coverage, entertainment, advertising, curriculum, etc, that currently frame the debate in most of the world (this is exhaustively documented by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky in "Manufacturing Consent"). If they are allowed any expression at all, unorthodox and dissenting views are consistently marginalized and mischaracterized.
(3) The so called "Tea Party" is a horrible example to cite. This is not a spontaneous, populist movement. It is carefully planned and executed effort by large corporations, think tanks, PACs, and people like Karl Rove and the Koch brothers to manufacture a campaign that would serve their business and political interests. This is also well documented. If you are trying to tell me that the 2010 congressional elections were the result of the "leadership, organization, and focus" of the individual citizens who chose to identify with the Tea Party, you are either woefully naive and misinformed, or just being dishonest! For one thing, voter turnout was barely over 40 percent. The Tea Party did not "succeed" because they chose not to "eschew organization and leadership." They have met with "success" only because:
Given the vacuous content of their message they received ridiculous amounts of airtime on major media outlets. This is clearly the result of influence and patronage not organization or merit.
They over-simplified every issued and played to uneducated people's worst fears. They created superficially compelling narratives to explain the maladies plaguing the country and portray their policy goals as panacea.
They had an army of charismatic radio and t.v. personalities delivering fiery speeches to all corners of the country literally day and night.
They lied to people. Right and left, over and over.
They pretended to be "grass roots" and "true to American values."
Last and most important, they have bottomless pockets.
'They' mostly refers to the politicians, pundits, and ideologues who promoted this campaign. Even so, regardless of how many pages these cleverly marketed, astro-turf campaigns borrow from the Third Reich's playbook, at the end of the day there are no "good germans."
I have a lot of respect for the fact that you're responding to me in a respectful manner, unlike most of the Occupy supporters here who tend to respond to my constructive criticism by dismissing me an "idiot" or a "moron" or a "troll" or an "infiltrator". And your concern about attempting to apply scientific laws to predict the behavior of crowds is certainly valid. So it's pretty ironic that you then discredited that idea by invoking Godwin's Law. I'm not even going to respond to your polarized comments on the Tea Party, which I don't support but I brought up as an example of an effective political movement that was able to select clear objectives and pursue them successfully.
Regarding #1, you're missing the point of the post that I linked to. Why was the port of Oakland shut down? A movement with no leadership and no objectives is vulnerable to being hijacked and used to further the goals of special interest groups. If the movement as a whole doesn't have any clear objectives, then people will fight to impose their own objectives on the group. When I said that I see the counter-productive activity in Oakland as an example of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, what I meant was that there were two different broad factions operating in Oakland. One was fighting for order, and one was fighting for disorder. Disorder prevailed. Entropy won. Because fighting for disorder is much simpler than fighting for order.
That brings us to #2. "Success". What is "success"? That's what I was asking, when I asked why shut down the port? What did that accomplish? The original rationalization for shutting down the port and causing 11,000 workers to lose wages that day was to express solidarity with a labor dispute 700 miles away. Nobody who responded to my question of "why?" seems to even be aware of that. People came up with justifications that ranged from protesting against police brutality (circular) to wreaking havoc on "the system" by interfering with shipping. But the shutdown of the Port of Oakland didn't have any effect on any labor disputes, and is Occupy a labor movement? It harmed the workers in the 99% more than it harmed "the system", so that aspect was a failure. The net result will be that a lot of the 30% of Americans with no opinion yet about the Occupy movement now associate photos of bandana-masked rioters breaking store front windows with the movement. And 11,000 workers at the port are now a lot less likely to support the movement. The whole thing is an example of the Second Law of Thermodynamics truly applying to crowd dynamics. With no leadership, organization, structure, or objectives, entropy naturally increases. Beautiful order and balance did not naturally emerge out of the mob in Oakland. Entropy won. Entropy always wins in the end. Especially if you make no effort to oppose it.
Information is anti-entropy. Arm yourself with it. Solidarity first. Healing of the divisions first. Specifics later. Show people they can come together peacefully at all - there is so. much. feeling. of. helplessness out here that people are sick of.
Um, no problem. I feel like the what is needed is for people to connect and discuss, agree and disagree, maybe reach some consensus or perhaps not. If it isn't constructive there is really no point in my opinion.
Though I appreciate the rhetorical value (and humor) of Mike Godwin's observation, it is usually used to discourage people from discussing Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, something I feel is just as unwise as carelessly invoking Nazism. Sorry, I supposed I could have been a little less hasty and thought up some slightly more obscure totalitarian regime (that at least temporarily enjoyed popular support) for my intentionally hyperbolic comparison. I don't know if I understand the point you were making there though. In what way is it "ironic" or did I "then discredited that idea?"
If my comments on the Tea Party are "polarized" it is only because that campaign is itself polarizing. I didn't assume that you supported them and realized that it was merely being used as an example of a political campaign that was "able to select clear objectives and pursue them successfully." However, my point was, and is, that the Tea Party is not a movement - any more than a viral ad is a movement. There is no comparison to a legitimate populist movement because the Tea Party is not people driven - it is driven my endless supplies of money, fear, and disinformation. Ordinary citizens didn't dream up the Tea Party, select "clear objectives," and then "pursue them successfully." A few very wealthy, business and political interests conspired together to create a massive P.R. campaign disguised as a populist movement. They then used it to manipulate a relatively small segment of rightfully dissatisfied Americans. These citizens then turned out en-mass to (unfortunately) vote for a set of policies that are diametrically opposed to their and their communities' well-being. Coincidentally (of course), these policies happened to protect the very narrow interests of the plutocrats who initiated and funded the Tea Party in the first place. These are not my own opinions, they are facts. I can dig up all the material I have on the subject and send it to anyone interested. The point was that this is nothing like OWS or any other political or social movement I would personally feel comfortable identifying with and participating in. Most importantly organization and selection of "clear objectives" have had absolutely nothing to do with their success. No honest movement can ever duplicate what the Tea Party has done - nor should it try.
I have to get back a paper that I have due tomorrow, but I am very much interested in discussing with you the real issues of organization and success that you raised in the rest of your response. Later.
Wow. What utter nonsense. The Tea Party reminded people that the Constitution matters. That we are a government of the People. They invented nothing new. Rather, they pointed out that the original structure of the Republic is what secured our freedom.
This is exactly the kind of meretricious yet intellectually insipid, empty phrase-mongering that the Tea Party is famous for. Let's see if we can tease out some substance here:
How is it nonsense? In what ways does the Constitution matter? What does "a government of the People" actually mean? What does it look like? Did "the original structure of the Republic" secure freedom and well-being for everyone?
Enlighten me.
Why don't you start with the Federalist Papers, and get back to me after YOU have done all the hard work that you want me to do for you. I'll give you more reading assignments after you complete that one.
Really? Seriously? Sounds distinctly like cowardly evasion to me. I have actually read quite a bit of the Federalist Papers. I could probably dig up some of the papers that I wrote on the subject. I have also studied some of the classical liberalism and economic theory that the different statesmen who founded this country drew from in formulating their own (largely derivative) thought.
If you would like, I could give you my own (typically unoriginal and uninteresting) view of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the either side of the federalist / anti-federalist debate. Do you posses any considered opinions you would like to share on this matter?
Here's a question for you to ignore, do we just crack open our skulls and pour in their every syllable and fart without critical reflection? Is the narrative we are given by the "founding fathers" themselves (such a disgustingly patriarchal phrase - isn't it?) and also by most modern textbooks strictly 'true' and 'factual,' or is it just that - a narrative? Is it the only narrative? Were a bunch of more or less well-off and well-educated white dudes the only people on the continent at this time? What about the thoughts, interests, and well-being of the human beings not at the constitutional convention? What about their freedom and liberty? Open up your mind! Those men did a lot of good AND a lot of harm. Now, lets get our heads out of some myopically twisted fantasy version of 1776 and return to the present day - let's get back to reality.
Oh, and as it turns out I already have plenty of reading assignments right now, but thanks. Nor do I need YOU to do shit for me. And just a tip, if you are going to be condescending perhaps you should do it with some substance. That's all I asked for to begin with - some substance. Giving me reading assignments from my sophomore year of university is not substance. Still waiting. . .
http://www.youtube.com/drunkenmonkiees
dedicated to the occupy movement
No truer words have ever been spoken. This was exactly what i was thinking. Thank you for your contribution
Truly real post unlike anything I have ever read truly original. Look at the situation, we are obligated to claim our stake in the world around us.
John Locke and his social contract theory sound familiar?
Locke's political theory was founded on social contract theory. Unlike Thomas Hobbes, Locke believed that human nature is characterised by reason and tolerance. Like Hobbes, Locke believed that human nature allowed men to be selfish. This is apparent with the introduction of currency. In a natural state all people were equal and independent, and everyone had a natural right to defend his “Life, health, Liberty, or Possessions". This became the basis for the phrase in the American Declaration of Independence: "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"
Fantastic post, a vision is forming of the road we are on.
Putting the vision into words helps make the idea come to life.
A global order working for the common good is what the world is so urgently trying to evolve.
Well done, we really are taking the next step in our evolution.
HERE IS MY OCCUPY WALL STREET EXPERIENCE: www.anti-est.org/2011/11/pre-occupied-wall-st.html
I absolutely agree. Our founding fathers could not predict that their system of government would be corrupted by corporations in this day and age, so therefore it is flawed and no longer works for the majority of its people. There should be a system which allows the people to individually vote on all creation of bills and laws over the internet (or mail) in which the majority will only pass. This will eliminate corruption by corporations, lobbyist, politicians, and put control back into the power of the people. United we stand, divided we fall. OWS!
Are you ok if that vote means we teach Creationism in the public schools? Isn't that a majority opinion?
Is Creationsim a majority opinion? If it were shudder I sure would hate to be forced to live in that abomination of a world. Scientific discovery and Religious Myth really have no need to disagree and it's kind of a stupid red-herring that they do, trying to lead public awareness into areas of needless fervor in order to gain delaying tactics. The truth is, that Creationsim could be a why, and Evolutionism the how - except that the real idiots are the fundamentalists (on either side of the fence) who can do nothing but pout and get angry and call each other names and stomp their feet that THEIR model of reality is the ONLY one that's right. Sorry fundamentalists, but a literal interpretation of the bible is pretty dumb, and science has a long way to go before proving everything about the way the universe works. (Though in this case evolutiion is more than just a mere theory, it pretty much is proven)
It doesn't matter what your opinion is if you are in the minority. Let's just suppose it was a majority opinion. We'll throw in school spanking, outlawing abortion, and mandatory loyalty oaths from every citizen. Perhaps you just can't imagine this in your secure intellectual circle of life, but just assign it some plausibility. Do you want to live in that society?
Well - this is one of the problems with democracy. If you have a formula for the perfect lemonade, but the rest of the world - because of economic efficiency - finds a cheaper way of making lemonade that will eventually kill everyone, but your voice is a tiny fart in the wind - that is injustice. I am uncertain what my secure intellectual circle of life means since I neither adhere strictly to the principles of science or religion. I do know that the extremities of religious whacko-ism wants the world which you speak to which I am fervently opposed...to religious whacko-ism, not the religion itself. I find more often than not, that rich businessmen who get into politics buddy up with relgious whackos even though they may not really believe themselves in order to get votes, and to have an easy way of controlling people, because religious whackos are the easiest puppets in the world to control if you say you side with them and support their causes and give them money.
Your secure intellectual circle means the group of people you associate with, who would all more or less vote the same as you on the big issues. Now realize there are other such circles at the Elks club. They might outnumber you. So this IS the problem with democracy, and that's the reason we want a very, very limited government.
That's all fine and dandy - government should be streamlined - but lots of people who talk about limited governments don't seem to see the spending that goes to fixing their roads and bridges and infrastructure, seem to think that welfare is a bad way to spend money and that blowing people up are good ways to spend money. If you have a government that guarantees consumer protection, protects the environment, puts limits on what congress can make connected with the GDP, put limits on their terms, reforms welfare into programs that actively help people get off of welfare, doesn't set up puppet governents in third world countries and gains the respect of the world through foreign policy, promotes transparency and better participation in our democracy, guarantees freedom of ALL religion and promotes separation of governing concerns, religious concerns, and business concerns...then you have some steps in the right direction.
The environment is protected by property rights. Adding new regulatory agencies with extra-Constitutional powers limits our freedom without helping the environment a whit. Industry loves regulation - it lets them operate to the lowest common denominator, it shields them from having to compensate for damages, and it takes away an individual's right to seek redress for harm. It also allows large companies to lobby the government to keep out smaller, more innovative companies.
Building roads and killing enemies is pretty much the point of a strong federal government. It's when the road goes nowhere and is built to buy votes, or the nuclear submarine is not even wanted but is built to maintain employment, or when the war is for anything other than defense that we get off the rails.
I personally think welfare IS a bad way to spend money. Beyond some minimum threshold of human decency, the rest needs to be taken up by charity. I think it would be more effective, more dignified, and less prone to the kind of unintended consequences we have now. Decades of government welfare have produced no change in poverty, and gulags of trapped minorities in multigenerational welfare. They are human fodder to buy votes for democrats.
As civilization has advanced, the pack-bond (the tribe, the extended family) has been broken. This is the root of the widely diagnosed "anomie" or "alienation" or "existential anguish" about which so many social critics have written so eloquently. What has happened is that the conditioning of the bio-survival bond to the gene-pool has been replaced by a conditioning of bio-survival drives to hook onto the peculiar tickets which we call "money". Concretely, a modern man or woman doesn't look for biosurvival security in the gene-pool, the pack, the extended family. Bio- survival depends on getting the tickets. "You can't live without money," as the Living Theatre troop used to cry out in anguish. If the tickets are withdrawn, acute bio-survival anxiety appears at once. Imagine, as vividly as possible, what you would feel, and what you would do, if all your sources to bio-survival tickets (money) were cut off tomorrow. This is precisely what tribal men and women feel if cut off from the tribe; it is why exile, or even ostracism, were sufficient punishments to enforce tribal conformity throughout most of human history. As recently as Shakespeare's day the threat of exile was an acute terror signal ("Banished!" cries Romeo, "the damned use that word in Hell!") In traditional society, belonging to the tribe was bio-security; exile was terror, and real threat of death. In modern society, having the tickets (money) is bio-security; having the tickets withdrawn is terror. Welfare-ism, socialism, totalitarianism, etc. represent attempts, in varying degrees of rationality and hysteria, to re-create the tribal bond by making the State stand-in for the gene-pool. Conservatives who claim that no form of Welfare is tolerable to them are asking that people live with total bio-survival anxiety and anomie combined with terror. The conservatives, of course, vaguely recognize this and ask for "local charity" to replace State Welfare — i.e., they ask for the gene-pool to be restored by magic, among people (denizens of a typical city) who are not genetically related at all.
Plus, property rights are a bunch of hoo ha bullcrap that got us to this state in the first place - the tyranny of the landlord over tenants that have little rights. So your family was in the right place at the right time in history to gobble up land - well now we have 7 billion people in the world and as long as some think they can hide behind castle walls with their piles of money, they don't give a damn about what happens to the rest of the world unless it benefits them at everyone else's expense keeping them from being competition. They say this is just "good business" which is always their excuse for compassion being dead inside of them. Worthless automatons who think that their money makes them entitled and inherently "better" than other human beings. It's sickening.
If the majority of people are in favor of the amount of money we put into social welfare, then you would think that we could expect them to support it just as much through private charity as through compulsory taxation. When I put this to my liberal friends, they are all horrified that no one would support it. At the same time, they are sure that a plurality of americans are completely in agreement with the scope of the current welfare state. The ability to support such cognitive dissonance is a precursor to being a liberal. I didn't inherit the gene, so I don't get it. Basically, the liberal idea seems to be that, while we all have an inner saint who is in favor of welfare, our outer sinner would not support it on our own. Hence, force must be used on the sinners. This, to me, is un-American. I think if we got the government out of welfare we would unleash a wave of money and innovation from private citizens and corporations.
I think it's a fairy tale, so I respectfully disagree with you.
Where I to think you (the specific author, and also the collective) actually had any realistic power to enforce these blind ideals, this article would scare me silly!
What check and balance are you going to put on that collective? Just because a moderate scale wall street protest can be lead (or wiji-board guided?) using certain rules, do you truly believe as a collective we'll be at our best, wisest, most educated, most forgiving to minority voices as a national government? God save us if we ever truly face IT-enabled mob rule. These "bullies with guns" are the best our ancestors have been able to win for us, so let's not pave over the family graveyard just because we want to build a new data highway. Just because it works ok at OWS to collectively manage a rally where most people have some basic common ground in what they are pushing for, doesn't mean I want to be governed by that system in total. I'm not drinking that kool-aid.
Even the Arab Spring groups, while wildly successful in showing there are limits now everywhere to how much government power can be abused, only got what I see as incremental change. Same rules and military power, but under different names and a little less cocky.
So, yes we need change, I agree. It will also be hard to get and take a lot of efforts like yours, way to go OWS. But don't ask me to throw away my legacy entirely. Make what is good better, and what isn't there at all, bring it on. I would love to see a new house of congress or branch of collective government. I would love to see more daylight and limitation on executive and legislative power, and immediate feedback when tiny interests are getting beyond what 99% of us can reasonably stomach. I would love to see an executive branch that has more directly elected positions.
But I don't believe that "natural order" will protect anyone from tyranny. Nature, in fact, does not seem repelled by tyranny in the slightest. Maximizing our freedom is left to educated and vigilant people who demand effective changes and clear limits on power and secrecy. It is nearing time for some specifics to get formulated, rather than these general rants that we need more "natural order". That's for animals in the wild. We need something more like "direct constituent participation", so nobody gets lost and nobody leads us in teh dark.
U have an intimitating use of violent force of cronyled stooges funded totally by our taxes using every dirty tactic conceivable and yer fearing 99% legitimate more?
It depends on the scale you speak of. Strictly speaking, when reduced to particle physics, there is no consciousness apparent - it's a clockwork universe, though the quantum realm has some interesting things that throw Newtonian ideals out the window. These particles STILL have behaviourisms, and it's not so far fetched to base a psychology of human behaviour on these very particles we are made up of. When you get into how specific particles fit together, on a molecular scale of resolution - say like DNA - suddenly you have an agenda. DND creates a flesh robot with an atennae array and processing device called the brain which it carries around protectively and searches out a way to procreate to send the immortal DNA on to the next generation. Developing in a 3000 mile gravity-well called the Earth, the DNA finds itself concerned with the politics of physical safety, emotional/belief system safety, intellectual safety, and social safety. The forward-back, left-right, and up-down, characteristics and territorial disputes of three dimensional space. So there are definite imperatives along those 4 stages. Some might say that the "inventions" of money and skyscrapers are little different imperatives than the huge nests that ants build. As long as we keep trying to understand more about ourselves by studying animals (since our biological physicality categorises us as animals) the less we will understand about what it means to be human, and the freedoms we have involving our own nature.
You know, I think it rather egoistical of yourself to claim the world as your own. But whatever...
One of the fundamental theories of science, that science is yet to discover, is that chaos begets chaos. For that very reason, formulation is impossible; understanding therefore lies beyond all human ability to comprehend.
Truth IS relative, but when all sides are taken into consideration it is also probablistic. If we can take a large enough sample of data, we can find that some things are 99.999 percent true. at that point, I say we start treating those things as sufficiently "true enough". But for other issues, whose truth factor lies closer to 50 %, we must continue to model and research and develop and not just create bandage solutions that do not confront the root of the problems...
Thank you for articulating what many are feeling. I do see this future irrespective of all the turmoil which will come in it's way to stop this from happening it will not stop.
A government which is operating without that consent is no longer a valid government. It is a criminal enterprise which exists to serve only itself. It in this case has moved from an entity which serves and fears the people to an entity which is served by and is feared by the people. For the people to accept such a criminal takeover of their land is a violation of their core drives, it is a violation of the natural progression from imposed global order towards natural order on a global scale.----- very true, if only more people would see that the government is operating without our consent
I also feel the change you speak of, but like you and others, cannot envision it. This concerns me. If we cannot 'see' it, how can we 'be' it? Those who understand this, have no recourse but to sit and watch. Where does that leave us? Still waiting here for everyman. Lazy visionaries of the world, get off your butts. Tell us in detail what you see?
Tell us what YOU see! :) If you (hypothetically) had the power to create how this country runs - how would YOU do it? Make a plan, no matter how detailed or not. Will it include human dignity? Prosperity for all? You are The King (if it is a monarchy) and it is up to you to decide how to handle the different situations a government must face and do something about. Perhaps a vision of the future will come to you along the way...
Peace.
I wonder if #OWS has lawyers in its ranks, as well as laymen willing to jump into the subject, to start drafting reforms to the current law in all the subjects that should experience changes. Let me tell you about our experience in Mexico. Several independet citizen groups, not formally associated, have been able to block taxes to internet services, introduce independent candidates, class actions suits (both formerly not allowed), new laws for nurseries (we had a nursery on fire two years ago, 49 kids died), funds for drugwar victims, and some more. We have been forced to draft legal stuff, with or without professional help, look for sympathetic legislators, block entrance to congress to get attention etc, for several years. No permanent camps, rather patient and sturdy lobbying. Now that winter is coming and #OWS might eroded for several reasons, it is time to prepare a short-term legacy like the one I mention above, while also planning for patient action with other mechanisms to last for years. Sorry to take my very discredited country as an example, but it's the case I know best and it is what we have been able to do against the bad things happening here. What I ask you to focus on is the mechanics used here and analyse if it works for you guys.
Good idea.
Rather then confirm a trend towards violence I would propose that it is overwhelmingly an escalation of non-violence, at least on the part of the noisy majority [sic]. Some who have studied the violence in the U.S. during the struggle against the Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon wars undoubtedly notice the signature of 'institutional violence' as a constant and the use of agent provocateurs in particular. This is all well documented for anyone interested in the subject (see CoIntelPro, Mongoos, etc.).
One hopes that what we're seeing is an informed public (via the communications revolution) passionately asserting constitutional rights (a grand tradition in Western thought) and perhaps a turning point. Either the institutions inflict 'quantitative' action under the threat or implementation of violence, or the public, with 'qualitative' actions ie intelligently implemented non-violence influence the conscience of a Nations to make better choices with their time, money and energy.
"Medium is the message..." - you know who
Very helpful read. Thanks.
Keep Up the Good Work. Fair-ness.
Gandhi says: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
This movement just started and takes time to become effective as a rock. we also must be aware of conspiracy of Intelligence and under cover officers. They have tricks such as "spread disappointment", other called "Drop Crime" by innocents to have ground to charge them. These are some of their weapons in civic uprising.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG9XlRSq-9c
God bless all arrestee whom occupied court rooms.
It's amazing - that those operations even exist makes it glaringly obvious that the system which makes them is an illegitimate sham. The power which protects, the benign power, the confident power - do not need to stoop to such things. They only exist to keep those benefitting from corruption in power.
Great article, I encourage the author and others to view this video... it is quite educational.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7AWnfFRc7g
Yeah . .cool . . .now lets fuck em up
There's a perfect goverment. It's called Monarchy. The King is the servant to his people, he gives them complete freedom and protection from crime and they love their benefactor, who returns their plentiful gifts to him, to the least wealthy, eliminating poverty. His subjects are busy improving their lives. Oh wait that's religion. The idea the we can create a Utopia by spending our lives governing ourselves, is a stretch. It takes goverment workers. The leaderless are being tried to be led by persons who have made it their goal to lead. Buy their book. I hope that freedom brings prosperity, but there's much to consider. Common sense is that the people in the street want prosperity, and want justice to keep prosperity, and spread it to the world. Peace.
As long as the king and the land are one this is sort of true, but there are darn good reasons why we no longer have real monarchies anymore. Hardly any of any size are left at all.
" It don't make no sense, that common sense, don't make no sense, no more" John Prine
Societies tend to naturally move towards order. In actuality, it is the chaos of anarchy that needs to be forcibly maintained at every turn if it is to persist. This is the reason anarchies don't scale, and why they have seldom lasted for extended periods of time. They are unnatural.
"Chaos" is at this point, pretty clearly a childish myth. We live in a world of causality, as is proven by more science with every passing day. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. All is connected to all - regardless of human perspectives, which through their own illusions are often disconnected, though never in fact. Perspectives may be of "chaos". The world however, simply is not.
The science of today is based more and more on the uncertainty principle of Heisenberg. We are realizing that causality is not as simple as it once seemed, and that it breaks down on the Quantum level, the very level at which our brains operate. This explains why we have free will, and are not simply machines acting and reacting in predictable ways. Your definition of modern physics seems like it was taken out of a textbook from two centuries ago.
For this particular discussion, I equate order with predicability and chaos with unpredictability. In that sense, I would say the life of a Jew is more predictable in modern Boston than in WWII Germany where, at any time he could have been beat, taken to a concentration camp, or simply killed on the spot. I assume you never lived in a situation where life on a day to day basis was unpredictable and dangerous. I'm sure if you took a vacation in the middle of the Amazonian tribes, you might start to understand the notion of political chaos.
The problem with your argument is that it attempts to relativize every political system into having the same amount of predicability, and thus order. Anyone who has studied history knows this is not the case.
Agreed, that causality is not as simple as once thought to be. Through quantum physics we know how much deeper it goes - but we don't leave causality at the door as we enter into ever deeper levels of our physical word just because it's harder for us to anchor it. If we leave "causality" at the point of that which is physical alone (as we dive deeper into the energy that makes up all which is physical) - it may be easier for us to choose to apply it or not, but it disserves any understanding of what is going on in terms of quanta. For instance, the recent discovery that microparticles may actually disappear when not being observed, does not mean that there is no causality. It means only that our idea of what the root of causality IS, could use adjusting. To simply fall back on "chaos" when we reach new discoveries that are not immediately easy for us to understand is very much throwing the baby out with the bathwater. We always return to causality, because it is always present. It is perhaps, not anchored in the factors we used to see it anchored in; factors which we used to see as immovable, which we now know to be pliable or even ever-changing.
As for "unpredictability" - everything is predictable from some perspective. The limited human mind classifies in order to understand - but it does not dictate the unknown - no matter how much it might like to try. The unknown is simply that; that which we do not as of yet know. It doesn't mean it is unpredictable from another perspective. In fact, "another perspective" is exactly how we have eventually reached everything that we have come to know. That doesn't mean that we can't anchor - it just means we need to keep adjusting what we are applying our anchor to.
As for assuming my experiences: Assuming anything is foolish. But, as a man who understands science - I'm sure you already know that ;)
You are drowning in definitions, and using more red herrings than Cochran on his best days as O.J. Simpson's defense attorney. What you are doing is called the Chewbacca defense. It's designed to confuse me and the readers of this thread. Stop it, it's lame.
Let me pull you back to the subject which was how political systems influence order in our everyday lives. Your stance is that it doesn't matter what political system is used because you believe order is relative and cannot be decreased on increased. You are essentially using a relativist argument, the type that never leads to any solutions. For the reasons I stated above, I disagree. I believe some political systems provide more orderly lives for its citizens than others. And, I believe the goal of an anarchy is to breed chaos.
The problem with not understanding advanced learning, is that Judges must rely on speicalists and consultants to make a decision because they're too darn stupid themselves to understand - part of the insect like specialisation of our species that doesn't encourage multi-disciplinarian work. Your so called "Chewbacca defense" doesn't confuse me at all, and are important parts of this conversation - the Newtonian push-and-pull physics and how they affect the physics of government and economics as opposed to the Quantum world is an important paradigm that every person (who is kept ignorant through simple slogans) should learn about. It's not that freaking difficult to understand some of the concepts, even if the nitty-gritty details of the math eludes you.
I understand mechanical physics and quantum physics quite well and I'm probably one of the most multi-disciplined posters you will find on these boards. I have no problem with using metaphors and experience from other fields to talk about politics and economics, but the comparison doesn't work in the particular context of our discussion. It seems forced and contrived. If you read TheoSocrates' replies, you will see how he keeps jumping from one lily pad to the next like a frog in heat.
It would be nice if you contributed to the subject at hand. Perhaps you have arguments we have yet to explore tucked in your pocket and ready to be placed on the table. If so, please do share.
I presume you wish to inherit TheoSocrates' position and argue that political systems do not influence order in a society? In other words, that all political systems throughout history have created the same amount of order for its citizens, and thus, it does not really matter which political system we use. They are all the same in terms of practicality.
You poor thing. Heal well. Be well.
I think this is the first time Socrates wasn't able to argument with Thrasymachus. lol!
cute ;)
fyi - able. just not willing or interested. argument is not for me. i hope it serves you well. i am sincere in wishing you well.
Why call yourself Socrates if you don't like a discussion built around strong arguments?
i think you understand me as well as you seem to understand Socrates.
also, i do not believe that is close to an accurate portrayal of your discourse.
Perhaps, but I don't recall Socrates making such constant use of red herrings.
Be well.
I was surprised to read (in wikipedia) that apparently some people regard the idea of self-government, as anarchy. Which completely baffled me. I always equated anarchy with violence and ignorance. I aim to be self- governed, self reliant to the greatest extent possible. Leave government to those who still need to be governed. So this makes me question.. am I an anarchist? Under that definition, perhaps. But I know for sure that I do not aim to breed chaos. So yeah, I don't know. We should all be wary of labels and definitions.
I know, right? This is why a lot of Punk Rock politic always pissed me off because their form of anarchy seemed to have violence inherent in their message - anarchy is simply living by your own rules, and as long as everyone accepts that "An thou harm none, do what thou wilt" - this form of anarchy works great. It's trying to define what constitutes harm that would have lawyers taking baths in cold hard cash...perplexed Asimov's robot creations too...
Direct democracy breeds chaos because it does not scale. That is why Graeber and Sargi chose this system for OWS. They are anarchists. Chaos in the sense of politics is a lack of hierarchic organization, hence why an anarchy is said to be chaotic. Many times this results in violence, but not necessarily. OWS is textbook anarchy, so yes, if you support them you are an anarchist.
Well, I support anyone or any group who teaches people to stand up and think for themselves. So anarchy it is. I heard on the radio today, in California they are testing this new voting system. You pick your first, second, and third choices. If your first candidate comes in last, your vote goes to your second.. etc. I really like this. I think it would encourage more independent parties to run for office. Not exactly direct democracy, but they say it results in a more accurate representation of the masses.
Let's hope it does indeed work and encourage a wider variety of candidates and ideas in politics.
I am coming to this realization.
This is a beautiful piece. I must admit I have one simple reservation about actively participating in any of the OWS demonstrations because neither do they appear to be human behavior in a natural state. These demonstrations are a response to the unnatural way that most people have been treated and are programmed to treat themselves: as cogs in an economic machine. It is crucial to think and imagine what are the long term and short term goals of OWS, that is, if given the opportunity, what role would you, as individuals, play in life for oneself and for others? It is ironic how so much emphasis is placed upon ones identity in the workplace at a time when work is not readily available to so many people. It is high time to question the value of these limited roles that are defined for us. I can recall the first time I saw Ralph Nader speak at a small community church in my home town. He spoke about what television COULD be if it were not taken over by corporate interests...more people would have access to this powerful medium of sharing ideas and information. We do not have to identify with any occupational title to be validated, it is just the way that we have been programmed to be. While the OWS movement is reluctant to make sweeping demands, which is commendable, the freeing of systems from the alleged profit motive (as to be motivated by profit hardly ensures profits will be made). That includes the transportation system, because it is astonishing that 80% of all the oil the U.S. imports goes to feed our automobiles in what is the most disjointed transportation system of any industrialized nation. It included television, because the more people are encouraged to be creative on their own, the less we are dependent on the ignorance and agenda of others. It also includes health care...let doctors be doctors instead of cogs in the administration schemes of insurance companies. It also includes education. Access to education is key, but it needs to be for the sake of real learning, not for the sake of getting a job, as this has proven to be an absurdity. Access to our food production, so that people can be learned and aware of where and how their food is produced and so that better food can be produced. Local economies are crucial both socially and economically. The ideal of wealth accumulation for its own sake had brought about an unaccountable madness, as finance institutions believe in their success when they have failed. It is time for We the People to take responsibility for the actions of our government and we can only do this by being government.
I think you conflate 'natural' with your sense of 'just'. Strictly peaking, all human behavior is 'natural', but there is no 'naturally preferable' society. Both "monarchies' and collectivist societies reflect naturally selected aspects of 'human nature' that have evolved in us over millions of years. We are hardwired both to cooperate and to allow ourselves to be dominated by 'alpha males'.
Not at all, when I say "natural" I mean it in a basic sense, that is, disjointed from the natural world as well as the unnatural one. This is why there is so much speculation about whether the demonstration will be able to survive the cold. I mean natural in the sense of sustainable, not only in the physical sense but the spiritual one. I did not use the word "just" in my post, so I am not sure why you liken my use of these words. I wonder who you believe the alpha males in society to currently be?
Scientists gave some runts of the ape-litter some empty gasoline cans which they learned to bang together quite loudly and make a ruckuss that scared the ever living s*&t out the rest of the group, including the alpha males. They soon became the leaders of the tribe. This shows that what we are actually hardwired for is the semblance of power. As "rational" human beings I should think the question might be - what power do we respect more - the one that rules by force or the one that attempts to understand and benefit everyone and not just an elite?
Even if what you say here is true (I'd like to see a credible reference) it doesn't refute what I said; apes banging empty gadoline cans hardly amounts to "attempting to understand and benefit everyone". Incidentally, we (and our ape relatives) are hardwired for cooperation as well as following the alpha male, and both are seen manifest in society (which I said in my post above). I'm not saying rule of an elite is desirable, only that it isn't unnatural. Niether are more democratic alternatives.
True, I was trying to make separate, if connected, points. That leaders get respect from what they do - but that many are duped by the semblance of power in that they think money = power. If it dresses like power and spends like power, then it must BE power. But the ONLY real measure of repsect is how you treat others - especially those who can do nothing for you.
I agree that we need to get the corruption out of American politics. That is why I suppport the occupy movement. I have some trouble with this post. I think it goes off the deep end just a tad. ( I'm not trying to be mean) I just think it is too extreme and if this kind of ideology will cause people to stop supporting the occupy movement, as the true 99% are not extremist. Peace and love and taking care of each other is great, but if you want to equate the common good of the people to some sort of evolved state of human nature, then it is my feeling that you are badly mistaken. It is the basic instinct of survival that causes a person to gather unto himself. Humans are the only animal on earth that do not coexist in harmony with nature. Yet, we are not the only animal that has put into use a form/forms of government. Animals, other than human, lack free will and are guided through life and coexist in harmony with nature by use of natural instinct. Humans might, at some core level, be guided by natural instinct, maybe. But, it is our human conscience, and our free will, that come into play in our survival as a species and the forming of our governments. What we are seeing today around our country and around the world is nothing new. As we ( humans ) have a long history of letting greed get the best of us, and then, putting things back into or nearer to the order that nature intended. We as Americans do not need to dismantle our government. We simply must revisit what our founding fathers created with our U.S. constitution. We already have everything we need to correct the problems our country is facing. We have a democracy in which all people have a voice. The problem begins when we fail to use our voice. And that is what we have done wrong, and that is what we need to correct, and that is what we are correcting as part of the 99%. Because we as Americans have been lazy, spoiled, and complacent is no reason to destroy the greatest government in the world! Would we destroy the government that allowed our grandfathers and great grandfathers to recover from the great depression? If so, I will no longer support the occupy movement, because it will no longer support me. Use the tools our founding fathers established, take the greed out of our political system, use your voice, and your vote!
jason - please keep supporting the movement, getting money out of politics is the goal. OWS is going to attract all sorts of people, and we should allow them the platform to express their ideas. The main goal, still remains.
I would take some issue with your description of human nature. I believe that empathy is more aligned with us than we think. Their are a collection of neurons in the brain called Mirror Neurons, who sole purpose is to replicate the pathways fired of the same action you see someone else doing. There are very few animals that have these neurons. They lend themselves to empathy, sympathy, and socializing (it is useful to interpret body language, and these neurons help to do that)... There is a reason why humans have formed communities, and the main reason is survival... the survival of the community in the past has always been in relation to other communities, but once all these communities become one, there is no other, and there is no reason why we cannot all survive in harmony with each other.
The the ideas of the constitution will still be present in this new society, no one is saying throw it out, but most of us also realize what was put on paper was written 235 years ago and in the context of political and religous prosecution... we must add to it to reflect the current context of our lives.
please watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7AWnfFRc7g
I am pretty much done with the movement. The inmates are now running the asylum.
Democracy is not an excuse to do what is wrong. The do no harm principle is the basis of law and if we stick to this principle then everything should work out well. Family food gardens are the best way to ensure that we do no harm and it is ethical to elect people who also live by the do no harm principle. http://occupywallst.org/forum/family-food-gardens-this-is-the-solution/
"Family food gardens are the best way to ensure we do no harm"? What are you babbling about?
Sorry. The way to have minimal impact is factory farming. It produces the most high quality food in the smallest space, with the least amount of pesticides and fertilizer. I know you don't believe this, because feelings matter more than mathematics in your world. Your hobby is harmless, but if actually adopted on a large scale would wreck the planet.
This is total nonsense. Small scale permaculture production doesn't need any pesticides or fertiliser and is 3 times more productive than industrial farming. http://permaculture.org.au/2008/09/23/biodiverse-systems-are-more-productive/
Also food from ones garden is the only food that can be considered fresh just picked. Many foods rapidly decay once harvested. You are talking utter crap and need to wake up or stop shilling the forum with Corporate slave propaganda.
I hope that we can,over just a few years develop a network of co-ops in every state.There are already many such organisations in existance right now-does anyone with good computer skills have time to create a master list of these with contact info?Life in a co-op would free up enormous amounts of human capital and money which are currently being completely wasted thru lack of opportunity on the one hand and slavish bill paying on the other.Getting started in life would be better,faster and easier with a college degree,employment,housing,food,tech and voc ed,use of vehicles and clothing all provided cost effectively thru co-ops-co-ops could become an incubator for small businesses as well.The possibilities are truly endless and with just what i have now,i could start a co-op this spring.I intend to start looking for people at ows and o-albany in December who are tired of working for the 1% and paying stupid bills that serve no worthwhile purpose other than to buy a single month's peace while enriching those who need money the least-wait for me-DAYLIGHT
http://www.go.coop/
You should write an article about this to bring more attention to the concept. This is exactly what needs to happen. The time is more than ripe for a new communal or co-op movement with an emphasis on self-sufficient farms and green energy. There are so many of us that are completely fried out with individualism. There are tens of thousands of OWS supporters that would love to be part of developing new independent communities and are more than willing to make the necessary sacrifice to do so. One hundred people with 100 incomes can buy a nice piece of land. 10,000 people with 6,500 incomes? 100,000 with 65,000? Anyhow, it should be considered.
Green energy is a farce, a scam.
Yes - everything is a political conspiracy. That whole Global Climate Change thing is alllll just a lie for political gain. Cos what if you passed laws improving our relationship with nature on this planet that sustains 7 billion of us and it's all just a lie? Boy would THAT suck, right?
Yes, It is a lie for almost what you said. Financial AND political gain.
Actually when our economy depends the sun, wind, hydro, geothermal, it will be much more stable. We have a responsibility actually to use less invasive means of supplying energy. It is only because of we have placed the profit motive on an altar that clean energy is not a priority. I firmly believe that God would prefer us to respect all living entities and embrace a cleaner energy culture.
Contrary to what you think you know, you can't depend on the sun, wind,hydro or geothermal. You can depend on oil, gas coal and nuclear.
Actually, contrary to what you think, an entire town in Germany has a 40% electricity surplus that it sells back to the grid that is produced exclusively from wind turbines.
oil, coal ,natural gas and nuclear.
What I think I know points to the fact that oil, gas, and coal are not renewable and have deadly byproducts and the only reason people "rely" on them is because the industry built up around them is so huge people can only whine and complain that a change would be too drastic because they're too addicted to their lives the way they are. Like those who sit and acceot they will die in huge ship disasters. Nuclear is a little different - it's more reliable, but also has deadly byproducts and as 3 mile island and Chernobyl and recently in Japan has shown us if you don't build them right and in the right place you're screwed. The real reason people think this way is that no one can own the source of solar energy and that pisses off people who can only think in terms of ownership, power, and money.
Good points. I really like your last point. I never really saw it that way before, exactly. I love the concept of turning the meters backwards. I didn't realize how powerful of a concept real renewable energy is until I saw an ad by a solar company. The camera zoomed in on the electric meter, going backwards. How can you not love that concept? Meters going backwards. The sun making money for you? The wind making money for you. The dirty energy cartel/monopoly, the 1%, does not want the 99% to have that kind of sovereignty. Turning the meters backwards is evolutionary on many levels.
And actually many examples are surfacing of entire communities that are producing energy surpluses exclusively through clean energy. One town in Germany has a 40% surplus that it sells back to the grid that is entirely wind energy.
David Korten has written pretty extensively, I believe, on how clean energy can revolution every aspect of our lives. On so many levels it promotes personal and communal sovereignty. From the standpoint of karma it is our duty to choose the least invasive process of extracting energy from the earth. It is our duty to choose the most responsible method. The karma for that choice is time will be on our side, not against us.
Anyhow, I just wanted to share a few ideas.
solar is not reliable, nuclear power is.
Solar power is not reliable by itself, but charging battery banks with massive solar power cells means that when there is cloud cover there is still power. The sun doesn't go away, go extinct, run out, burn down, break open, flood, or meltdown. Sounds pretty reliable to me.
It's not reliable.
This will devolve into a yes it is, not it isn't posting, so let's just for the sake of argument assume that it goes on infinitely down the page and agree to disagree.
O.K.
I have been re-reading Peace Is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh. It is a remarkable little book. A personal, community, national, international call to peace! His approach is so humble, so kind. His message is very political! We can change. Peace is Every Step.
http://knowledge321.wordpress.com/
Last post happy reading...........
Fox New's just doesn't seem the same anymore..............
“As a whole, our species' attempt to engineer its own order has been slowly successful. We created kingdoms, handing ourselves to a monarch. This is an extreme deviation from natural order, because there are in that case only a handful of people globally who matter. It leaves the commoner entirely outside the global order. Out of our natural human desire to move towards natural order, we devised a new structure of governments commonly known as republics.” Capitalist oligarchy is unnatural and inhuman in its spirit and content.. totally agree with this unknown Democrat.. “A government which is operating without that consent is no longer a valid government. It is a criminal enterprise which exists to serve only itself. It in this case has moved from an entity which serves and fears the people to an entity which is served by and is feared by the people. For the people to accept such a criminal takeover of their land is a violation of their core drives, it is a violation of the natural progression from imposed global order towards natural order on a global scale”.. It is being a criminal oligarchy and create fear and enimity.. so it should be replaced by a democratic alternative.. well said the challenges before the present and future generations.. “They are just as illegitimate as if I attempted to dictate the terms of your life from behind my keyboard. They have become little more than bullies with guns, and if there is anything the Arab Spring has taught us, it is that guns are utterly useless against an idea.” Not only Arab spring the revolutions fought every where teach us this focal point.. Thank u very much for the timely intervention..--- PEOPLE AGAINST GLOBALISATION[PAG]
With respect and love I have to say that you are required by the people to enlighten them and I request you to continue to be the part of #OWS movement.
Well and generously spoken. Hear hear!
You talk too much
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natural order is the only order. we are essential unnatural and will never find order unless we rejoin natures order by abandoning all "civilization". All we need is all around us. What choice do we have but to re-learn our place in the natural order and exist within it's limitations. If we do not voluntarily join nature, nature will reenact order by default. We will be brought back into that order or we may all perish.
guess we can all listen to this song for better clarification of this post:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Won't_Get_Fooled_Again
The Egyptian people were oppressed under the old leader, but overthrowing him did not make their situation better. In fact, the economy is even worse off now then it was before and the new leaders are no better then the old leaders. Churches are being burned and the Israel embassy under attack. Is that an improvement over the old system? IMHO, no it isnt and the revolution was for not.
In Libya, it is now ruled by various militias and strongment. There is still opression. Its not an improvement over the old leader.
So its business as usual and like the song goes eventually the new system becomes as corrupt as the old one...
They decide there we here. C the point yet. Been here days. A thick one
Occupytheimf - you might have missed the point just a bit. Do you believe that the women who were out in those Libyan protests want Sharia Law? Was that what they were out there for? Did THEY decide that that would be the new form of government that replaced the old? Or were they so caught up in the movement that they didn't really look deeply enough to see what the organizers of the movement really wanted?
This Occupy movement in the US has no clear cut goals - yet there are folks rallying to the "we are the 99%" rallying cry because they want "change". But what change? Americans voted in a President because he campaigned on "hope and change" and what have we gotten? Is employment going up? Are gas prices down? What about the price of food and utilities? How about all the mandated insurance plans we now must carry - not just health insurance but auto and home?
Understanding just what the "change" will be is important in order to truly get a "consensus" - we have consensus that change is needed. What's the next step? Overthrowing capitalism? Majority rules? If those are the consensus, then I have a real issue with it as do many others.
"How about all the mandated insurance plans we now must carry - not just health insurance but auto and home?"
Auto and home insurance were around way before Obama was. Auto insurance is dictated on a state level.
SwissMiss, that is not the point. The point is that those costs are continuing to rise in large part due to the hidden taxes and fees that are included in those policies. These mandated things that we must purchase and in the purchasing pay hidden taxes and fees are what is really squeezing Americans. Take the time and really look at all your phone, cable, electric and insurance bills and calculate the percentage of taxes and fees we are now paying.
These fees are a direct result of back door taxation due to the credits and exemptions offered to special interest groups - placed there to make up for lost revenue by states and federal government.
I used the "hope and change" president comment to point out that hoping for change and demanding it without specifying what change you actually want to see is dangerous....ask those Libyans who thought they would have freedom instead of an exchange of one kind of dictatorship to another........
Blah Blah Blah - until I see some balance in these posts - i.e. that corporatiions are every bit as to blame as the government - I see only people trying to persuade partisan agenda. Why not be non-partisan and change both?
blah blah blah back at you.
-Wall Street would have no influence on politicians if the politicians weren't legally allowed to accept money that influences elections and legislation - in other words, if the politicians weren't accepting "bribes" in the first place, Wall Street would have little to no influence on elections and legislation.
Politicians are the ones who write the laws and regulations and appoint the boards and agencies that are to structure those regulations and enforce them. IF those boards and agencies were doing the job they were appointed to do, Wall Street could not have used a loophole to come up all the ways they did to cover their own risks at the expense of Main Street because the loophole would have been spotted and closed.
No matter which way you look at this, the Greed of Wall Street was allowed because the politicians were receivers of that money (which includes both parties) and therefore were bribed to create conditions in which those abuses could take place.
Blame it all on Wall Street for as long as you want to but basically you are just screaming Class Warfare without getting to the root of it which is the bribes ACCEPTED by the politicians in campaign funding and future job possibilities. Stop that, and you take a step forward in stopping Wall Street.
You don't attack a cancer from one side. You don't blame people for getting loans they can't repay, you blame the professional institution for knowingly giving loans to people who can't repay. The wallstreet bankers accepted money meant to go back into the economy and then paid their CEOs with it for insane bonuses for FAILING. This is fraud, plain and simple. It isn't a process that needs changing, it's an event that is documented and can be defined as requiring legal recourse. The corruption of lobbyism is ALSO something which needs to be addressed, and it seems that publicly funded elections is an answer. There is no - oh, but it's business' JOB to make profit or - but it's a politican's JOB to keep their party in power. No. It's not, in either case. Not at any cost. Business MUST have regulations to keep consumers from being f$%^ed up the a$$, and Government MUST be answerable to the people, not corporate interests. Stop both sides, and you majorly cut down the corruption possible. Stop one side, and the other will come back to kick you in the nuts - mark my words. Stop the pendulum from swinging in either direction.
Wow. Looks like we can actually agree on a few things....but its the first time I think you've admitted that the politicians must be dealt with as well as the corporations.
The CRA initially dealt with the discrimination towards certain areas which were low income housing - in other words racism in the mortgage lending industry. While that was the goal, the program worked in that the lenders must document why a loan was not made and they had to actively seek out borrowers in those areas.
Under Clinton, that changed to where those lenders had to lend a certain amount in those areas - regardless of credit worthiness and income. This increased the risky loans and resulted in "fancy financing" that caught not only low income minorities but upper middle class professionals which all led to the industry finding and using that loophole....
Which brings us right back to the government doesn't it?
Then there is our less than stellar public education where our children are taught to the test instead of to the life they will lead out of school..our public schools used to require consumer math where you learned all about financing things like mortgage loans. How many schools teach that today? Could the fact that those life skills are no longer taught have had anything to do with why so many people got caught up in those fancy financing mortgages...?
Which brings us right back to the government again.
And this is issue I have with OWS - they are only protesting Wall Street and too many are spouting off how the republicans are the enemy and the democrats will be their saviors.
Both parties got us here along with Wall Street. And only a two pronged agenda will get us out of it...
They are not - it was called Occupy Wall Street because it started in Zucotti park, but they have supported crusades on the Fed and have posted articles denouncing Obama's backroom deals to give Wallstreet bankers broad immunity. The bottom line for them is - it is NOT the point of your business to make profit at any cost - you do NOT always do something JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN. LET'S HEAR IT FOR TWO PRONGS!!!! :)
"I used the "hope and change" president comment to point out that hoping for change and demanding it without specifying what change you actually want to see is dangerous....ask those Libyans who thought they would have freedom instead of an exchange of one kind of dictatorship to another........"
Got it.
I think you "got it" Mr Concerned. The true colors of the OWS will slowly emerge, good or bad. Follow your heart and use unbiased discernment. I fear socialist & Globalist's wish to hijack the OWS into another failed revolution that will end in oppression and occupation by systems long endured by the poor folks in N.Korea, Iran, Russia, Red China, Cuba and a bevy more. Listen and read the lyric's to this fine John Lennon song >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqC_Gma221M
Some people believe this wasnt planned...but it was planned...some people believe there are no leaders...but there are leaders...some people are not sure of the future...but the future is mapped out well ahead. OWS wants to re-invent the Democracy in America. This article describes the past, the present and the future.
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1081425
I am not against some of the ideas which OWS is putting out. To be honest, I am angry about all that has happened in the last few years and I have indeed lost money over it. My quality of life is obviously not what it was prior to 2008 and I have struggled emotionally over it.
However, I do not want to see the "government wheel" reinvented. I do not want to see Capitalism and Democracy as we know it go into the garbage. I do not believe for one second that by sitting on the steps of a bank, stopping traffic, shutting down ports, blocking traffic on a bridge or any of that will help the situation. In fact, I think its hurting the situation. Imagine that poor guy on a bridge trying to get to his job and he lost money that day because he couldnt get to his job.
Let me put it this way. We all go through problems and troubles from time to time. We have our best years and then we have our worst years. You cannot stop bad times...they just happen. However, when the bad times do happen we have to work like a team to get things going again. Civil disobediance is not teamwork. Reinventing the "government wheel" is not teamwork. None of what you are doing is helping.
You can believe what you want and say what you want, but please do not block me from going to work. Do not smash the windows of the building I work at or prevent my movement coming or going. Stand outside with your signs, sing to your heart's content, but please do not try to impose or force your ways upon myself. I enjoy the concept of freedom of speech. I love it, I get it, but I want to live life on my own terms...not yours.
Thank you for reading.
Protests are disruptive, the reason for this is simple, to get people to start thinking about WHY they are doing this...
Until I am in the position not being able to go to work, I can not tell you how I would handle it. On the one hand I personally may be loosing money (if I am on a wage system), on the other I would hope that I would step back and realize they are fighting against the neo-liberal policies that have since the 1980's continually decreased the pay of the average joe like myself.
If your "troubled times" are caused, indirectly or directly, by policies put into place by lobbiests and your elected officials put in place policies because their campaign was funded by some wealthy person... should you not also be protesting?
For too long capitalist forces have suppressed democratic influence. If a system is failing, then it must be changed. We have the ability to change it from within, but only after removing moneyed influence over elections and politicians. We want capitalism with democracy, but we want democracy to always have the upper hand in that relationship... democracy in the work place, not authoritarianism.
Democracy in a workplace? Maybe you should have told Steve Jobs that.
Can I ask you a question? Looking at the former Soviet Union, Cuba and North Korea, are you certain you want to go down that road away from Capitalism?
How is democratically organized corporations, competing over the same market even remotely a road away from capitalism?
They are all still competing on a free market, with customers with the same free will they have now... the only difference is now everyone in the corporation has a say in the fate of the corporation... if it fails, they can only blame themselves. If anything it allows more personal responsibility, than the traditional model of the corporation.
Each one of those nation-states were STATE-socialism, not libertarian socialism... there is no comparison to what I am advocating and what they did.
I am not saying that the corporate authoritarian model does not work, what I am saying is who suffers the most when it does not. I am sure Steve Jobs would do well even if Apple failed, but the workers/labors in the corporation would have fared much worse. It makes sense to allow those who suffer the most under failure the ability to steer the ship in one direction or another.
invient...all valid points. And there are ongoing experiments in the kind of thing you are talking about - with those who choose to participate in the experience. The US Federation of Worker Cooperatives is one example of a group helping to establish these cooperatives and spread the word. This site is a good one to visit...http://www.go.coop/
The "voluntarily" part of it is what I am concerned with. There is too much talk among OWS supporters of "over throwing capitalism" and "destabilizing the economy" which can be construed as nothing less than "forcing" those who don't agree with them to get taken down in the process.
Go live the libertarian socialism you advocate for and then show your success to the world around you - those who want your way of life have the freedom to join you or not.
In my opinion, the organizers of OWS and way too many of their supporters want to take that freedom of choice away from the rest of us and force their idea of utopia upon us....
I agree with you, no one should be forced to do anything, and anyone of the libertarian ideals could not call themselves such if they did try.
I have been working with a friend of mine to form a company, we are currently a partnership. We have talked about forming a coop, but there really is no point to file until we have employees other than ourselves...
I have a differing opinion, I respect yours and can see where you are coming from. The original creators of this site (I recall) were anarchists, and adbusters is not exactly a capitalist friendly mag. So all in all I can see you view, however I would caution in the assumption that they are still pulling the strings... It is in my opinion their influence over the movement has been decreasing rapidly as time goes on, the people at each occupy have taken over, and ultimately it is up to them where this goes.
invient, I appreciate our differences - that is the beauty of a free society, one that unfortunately, two many of these occupiers think they don't actually enjoy living in.
Just a note, a few years ago I took a "test" to see where I fit in on the political spectrum - I was very surprised to learn that I fell firmly in the Libertarian group....not so far as to be a candidate for the Libertarian Socialist platform, but we are closer in beliefs than one might think.
here here!
Hmm. We have public corporations with democratically elected boards. In other words, they are owned by the people, and run by the people. What part of that is broken?
How about the part where shareholders are left out of decisions re. outrageous bonuses for CEOs; especially where those bonuses were in excess of $100 million and paid (literally) from government subsidies.
Is that broken enough?
Or perhaps the 'betting on shorts,' such as the case wherein CitiBank was caught (after the expiration of the criminal statute of limitations had expired, due to the tactics of their fleet of attorneys) having 'sold' bogus stock portfolios to their own investers to the tune of >$500 million (for which some of the insde-agency e-mails from their own traders referenced the stocks as 'dog shit,' etc., etc.), profiting in ~$30million for setting up the deal, and another ~$130 million betting against their own investers, who lost ALL $500 million.
In the end, CitiBank was fined ~$285 million. But the primary caveat and note of caution or perspective is this; this case exemplifies the instance in which they were CAUGHT. For those times that these buggers AREN'T caught, the fine delivered in this one case amounts merely to a tax on 'business as usual.'
Bottom line? The buggers at the top should've been in prison for 20 years, not giggling over caviar that night. And their corporate status should've been yanked immediately, as was within the power of the states under the corporate laws in the beginning of this Nation. The power is, in theory, still there, within the bodies of governments in this country. Why hasn't it been applied?
*See 'Citizens United' for a starting point in that rhetorical question's answer.
The shareholders are NOT left out of those decisions. Those decisions are approved by the Board - the elected representatives of the shareholders. Note that those same shareholders voluntarily purchased the stock! Why can't we let adults alone to do what they wish with their own damn money?
You are conflating corruption with normal operations and compensation. I don't buy into this at all. If I am a shareholder, I want the board accountable to ME.
If you actually took the time to read my post, you would realize at the bottom paragraph (I know its far) that I said the current model does work.
I would argue that current corporate models are democratic. Many corporations require you to have a certain amount of stock before they will hear your voice, sounds like a restriction like the "you must own land" variety. If you own any stock, you should be allowed a voice and a vote equal to everyone else's vote.
All I am doing is proposing a new model, where the workers have a say in their own fate. To me it is a question of morality. If a CEO makes a decisions that decreases profit, he can just layoff workers to increase the margin. Why did labor get punished for a decision the CEO made. In this new corporate model, the CEO would likely be fired for his decision rather than the work force, and that I believe is more just and moral than how things are currently done.
I read somewhere that you are starting a company, or some kind of organization. Do you really want someone who scrapes up $10 to buy a share of stock in your (let's say) $100M operation to have an equal vote? They don't have the same skin in the game as the larger shareholders. As for employees, many companies have stock ownership plans for employees: They have found it aligns everyone's motivation.
I don't buy into this idea of "labor": People who work for companies are free agents - they can go to any other company at any time. They are not "punished" when the CEO makes bad decisions, they are just participating in the reality of that enterprise. And CEOs are routinely fired.
This whole thing makes no sense to me.
The company I plan on starting would not allow just anyone to buy stock, the only people allowed to have stock would be the workers. There will be quite a bit of policy issues deciding on how things are done, what happens if a person decides to leave the company, and so on... but the goal in the formation will be to make it as democratic as possible, for the people whoms lives are actually effected by the business. Of course it would have to have more than the two employees it has now :P ...
How is losing your job because of the decision of someone else, not being punished for that persons decision? The reality of the enterprise is that they had no say in the decision and are dealt all the consequences, that is the problem. Justice is not balanced. It is reality for the workers, and heaven for the CEO... both would be culpable if both had a say, but as corporations are run now, only one does.
As you grow you will have some employees who naturally contribute far more. You will want to reward them. They will have more stock than other employees. Same with long time vs newcomer employees. Eventually there will inevitably be a "senior partners" group who have more influence. Many of the less invested employees will view this as a GOOD thing, in the same way that I really don't want a democracy flying the jet airplane I am on. It is a natural evolution.
And I disagree with the concept of punishment. I view it as just the way the universe works. Shit happens, as they say.
Your equation of one dollar/one vote with one person/one vote is a perversion of what is meant by democracy. You say that corporation's boards are democratically elected by the shareholders of a company, and that somehow reflects the wishes of all the shareholders, of at least a majority of them. But each share represents a vote, so a millionaire who comes in and buys, say, 500,000 shares has far more say than the ordinary person. That's a working description of Oligarchy, not Democracy. Whether you agree with that system or not is one thing, but to call it a democracy is a gargantuan distortion.
The second point, as least as important, is that even if, for the sake of argument, corporate decisions are democratic, there still must be no illegal action taken by that corporation. It cannot, for example, dump deadly toxic wastes in the nearby river. So we CAN'T let adults do whatever they want with their money. Many would - and have - done terrible, tremendously harmful things with it. People who have worked all their lives have seen their pensions vanish due to what banks did with other people's mortgages. And I'm not talking about these worker's investments, but the pension plans from their municipalities or the companies they worked for have become worthless. 16 million people did not act as consenting adults in a corporate transaction in being laid off from their jobs. Did CitiCorp, et al, have a right to do that (among many other things) to the economy, adversely effecting tens of millions of people who had not even a single share of stock in any investment bank? Did they have a right to impact third parties (who are the 99%) who agreed to no actions, who entered into no contracts?
"Adults" often act irresponsibly toward each other, or their actions have consequences for third parties not involved in any transaction. That is the very reason every society on earth - large, small, modern, prehistoric - has had laws or rules that limit individual behaviors. What those limits are are determined by each society, according to mechanisms that they decide upon (at least in democracies), but there is no such thing, thank God, as a society that doesn't do so.
The problem today is that, in terms of such rules, the very corporations that are acting so unethically have bought those making the laws, so the system is rigged entirely in their favor. There is no check on corporate power, either from within or without. It's the fox guarding the chicken coop. Everyone outside of that structure, the aptly named 99%, is left to live with whatever consequences those corporations decide is OK.
That is the opposite of democracy. That is plutocracy.
A corporation is under no obligation to run itself as a democracy. Indeed, most shareholders with any sense would not want it to do so. What you do not acknowledge is that the person who puts in more money is taking more risk. Votes need to be "risk adjusted" to be meaningful. Otherwise a few persons who each own a single share can vote to send the company careening off in a very unwise direction. It's why a commercial airliner or ship at sea is also not run as a democracy.
We see the same total breakdown in our current form of government: A mass of people who pay no income tax will blithely vote for any and all goodies - no matter how reckless the outcome is for the economy as a whole. Tragedy of the commons, and all that.
You are arguing a point I didn't make. I never said that businesses should be democratic. I simply said that characterizing them as such was untrue. On the other hand, you are speaking out of both sides of your mouth. You first claim that they are a democracy because they are owned by the people and everyone votes for the Board, but now you're denying that they should be a democracy and not everyone's vote should count as much. Which is it?
The bottom line is that the overwhelming majority of shareholders have squat to do with the election of any corporate board or its decisions. A very very small handful people control the majority of the stocks and therefore have all the say.
Regarding the amount of risk involved, that also depends on other factors besides pure dollar amounts. The middle class person who invests $10000.00 has far more of his assets in a company than does a billionaire who invests $1 million. The poorer person is risking more of his-her own financial well-being. Something to think about......
I also said that the political power of corporations undermined democracy as a whole. They have captured the government. The fox is guarding the chicken coop. They decide who runs for office, they finance the campaigns, they determine even what issues are debated, they spend billions on lobbying, they wine and dine legislators and offer them lucrative no-show jobs upon leaving office..... the list goes on. Do you really think that the bank bail outs given WITHOUT DEMANDS FOR CHANGE happened as a result of a democratic process? During the last administration the energy companies themselves wrote the administration's energy policy! The current administration may not be so bald-faced about it, but they are far from innocent; witness the oil pipeline from Canada issue.
As to the electorate, I have no idea what "goodies" you're talking about their voting for. Furthermore, the poor vote in significantly fewer numbers (as a percentage of their demographic) than do the middle class. And the wealthy need not vote; as George Soros once famously said, he has no need to vote since he afford to buy any law he wants.
Regardless, rest assured that those non-income-tax-paying voters didn't vote for any "goodies" that hadn't already been vetted by those in power, both economically and politically. Had it not been deemed an advantage for the power elite, no candidate or law would ever have made it to the ballot.
That's the real lack of democracy that today's corporations impose. There is no tragedy of the commons. The commons has been foreclosed upon and is owned by the banks.
We agree to disagree about the punishment thing.
More stock can be rewarded, but they would still have the same vote as anyone else. In the context of it being a software company it would make sense to reward the person with more autonomy. Ie start their own idea and explore some creative solution to a problem. I want to explore different motivating factors rather than monetary.
We are not born into this world to be wage-slaves.
It seems you are referring very much to the General Strike in Oakland, which is a specific and separate matter altogether than the overall OWS Movement. Have OWS protests in general blocked you from living your life?
TheoSocrates - I understand your question to thomasmiller and I can't answer for him of course. But I can point you to the Cafe that had to lay off about 20 workers last week because he'd lost 30% of his business since Occupy Wall Street took over Zuchotti Park. Trump - part of the evil 1% - took up the cause of the small businesses impacted by this and had the police at least take down the barricades that were blocking these businesses.
So while I cannot answer for thomasmiller, I can speak out and say that folks are having their incomes impacted by this movement. Will the occupiers donate some of their donated money to those who have lost their jobs? Probably not, they'll just invite those folks to come join them in the name of how unfair it is that they are made to be "wage slaves" in the first place.
The cops erecting the barricades in the frist place was not a choice by OWS. it was a choice resulting from paranoia on the part of the authorities, i.e., NYPD, Bloomberg, et al.
There was no requirement or demand by the OWS' people to block those roads or isolate those businesses.; that was done by the City.
And I'd wager heavily that there are businesses in the Zuccotti Park area that have experienced increased income, as a result of all the spectators stopping by the Park, who otherwise wouldn't have..
Let responsibility for decisions rest where it belongs.
Cause and affect. Occupy Wall Street took place (cause) and the barricades were put up (affect). Occupy Oakland shut down a port causing lost wages for those who were employed there and other places.
Sales have dropped about 20 percent since the protests began last month and the 103 jobs created by the cafe’s opening in June are now at risk, said Epstein, who is not alone. Caroline Anderson, general manager of Boutique Tourbillon, a Wall Street jewelry store, said customer traffic is down about 20 percent, and Vincent Alessi, a managing partner at Bobby Van’s Steakhouse on Broad Street, said his lunch business has been cut in half. http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-02/occupy-wall-street-knows-not-what-it-does-hurting-local-jobs.html
You're directly implyig that the barricades were legitimate and/or necessary responses; they were the decision of the authorities, nothing more and nothing less, and they were not required by OWS.
In other words, you are still laying the City's decisions at the feet of OWS, despite the barricades being an ARBITRARY CHOICE made by the City's NYPD..
Again, put the the responsibility where it belongs. 'Cause and affect,' indeed.
And yes, I'm sure some of the more affluent shops have lost some income. Some have seen increased income, as well. I'd also bet that the subways have seen a boost in patronage.
BTW, you don't suppose that Business Week has a 'dog in this fight,' or a 'golden ox' to shield, do you??
Awwww. Cry me a river. If it were in front of a hospital or something I might be impressed, but I have little sympathy for jewelers. Perhaps if they feel squeezed like everyone else does they understand how it feels now...
Turtle...no, I'm not implying anything. Those barricades - whether an over reach or not - were put in place because of Occupy Wall Street. Those barricades caused the loss of jobs. Occupy Wall Street chose to occupy rather than assemble, disburse and reassemble. That choice of how to protest resulted in barricades being put in place which resulted in a loss of jobs. You can try to place all the blame on the police and the Mayor but it doesn't absolve OWS for their share of the reason those barricades went up...
MadProfit...you reference the jeweler only and ignore the cafe where more than one employee lost their income. That shows how compassionate you are....just saying.
I must admit, I get so tired of people thinking that change is an easy thing that will simply happen invisibly under their noses instead of being an "inconvenience" or an "annoyance" that I grow a rather thick skin to such things. And no, my compassion ends where peaceful protesting is made to be something it's not by those who support business concerns. If you own a business there and are so concerned, then tell your Mayor to let up on barricades and police in riot gear, support the movement's concerns, and when those concerns are taken care of I assure you the protesters will go away.
So sorry Women's Voting and Civil rights were such an "inconvenience".
Did those who protested for voting and other civil rights set up tents on public land and use guerrilla gardening?
And you are assuming that everyone who is not a part of the 1% fully supports OWS and its agenda (which is really quite unclear) and how OWS has chosen to take action to achieve their goals or that they should because you all say that the way you are doing it is the right way...the only way. Many of us don't happen to agree with you.
You all claim to represent the rest of us - which should include those who run small businesses in competition with corporate business, yet you casually dismiss anything said by those who point out a loss of jobs which came about as a direct result of that choice in how to achieve the "agenda".
To me, the lack of concern about those in the 99% you are affecting adversely by the choice of occupying the park equates pretty well to the belief that injuring innocents in the cause of war is simply unfortunate casualties of war.
I appreciate your sentiments. If you DO support it and have other methods of protest/change please do make them heard - do not be silent! Otherwise - I am not trying to be unconcerned, I am trying to get people who think this is a matter of going quietly into that good night to realise that it IS a war. Maybe not one of bullets and blood (though the police seem to have other ideas) but one in which the middle class is being wiped out. If you are not part of that middle-class you might not feel the effects of being squeezed, but let me assure you - the lackeys of those in the 1% want these issues buried, and they NEED to be in the public's faces, for this country has a very short memory.
Oh we are feeling squeezed believe me. We paid off several bills in December of 2010 - we now have only our mortgage, utilities, insurance (car, home, health) and groceries. We should have had a nice little cushion each month...yet, we don't. But its not the corporations who are totally responsible for this.
Food prices have increased by 6% - much of that increase is the result of ethanol subsidies which have increased the cost of food world wide. Who put those subsidies in place? The government. Who refuses to eliminate them? Mostly the Democrats because ethanol was supposed to be the "green" salvation of the gas issue - yet, its failed. Less than 10% is found in our gasoline after a decade of subsidies. It has actually caused additional harm to the environment by the rezoning of land and so on. Brazil does it better than the US but the politicians won't change directions. Part of the tax we pay on every gallon of gas goes to fund those subsidies.
Gas has gone up 67% under Obama - a direct result of the stated desire to force us into the hybrid vehicles. Yet, how many of us can afford $30,000 to $60,000 for a "green" vehicle in this economy? So gas prices are squeezing those of us who don't live in cities with mass transit.
22 - 31% of our utility bills are taxes and fees placed there by the government who told the businesses that they were on "their business" but that they could pass through those taxes directly onto the consumer. And that's just the ones we can see when we actually take the time to look at our monthly statement rather than simply pay what they say we owe that month.
Our insurance policies have 18% or more in visible taxes and fees and who knows how many "hidden" taxes and fees are in those premiums.
The true "unfairness" is that for every credit and deduction the government gives to the public, a new tax or fee is added (either visibly or hidden in the cost) of every good or service we obtain.
Fight that. And I'll join you.
Concerned - So, you say police barricades were blocking and effecting the local businesses?
Re-read that article,. you failed to see the point. change is inevitable, humanity sheds social structures that are no longer functional, and have become counter productive. The corporate state is over,. a new world is birthing,. opposing the inevitable is futile, embrace the change it is the way of the universe.
Resistance is futile....hmmm. That sounds familiar.
Yeah, it is not that the Borg are taking over, the point is that change is happening, like it or not. The point of the article, to me anyway, is that clinging to a sinking ship may not be the best response.
Then give up your iphone and ipod. Stop using twitter and facebook. All those are corporations.
no phones are not corporations,. they are phones. I personally do not have one. there are sooooooo many opensource projects that is boggles the mind,. communities of people coming together to build complex things with no profits involved,. It is a bald-faced lie that people will only work or achieve greatness for personal monetary gain. A lie maintained by corporate media,. humm,. why could that be??
jph - no one is stopping those who want to form a community with worker run/owned production sources - no one wants commune style living is stopped from finding and making that a reality. The issue that so many have with this movement is that it appears to want to force a collapse of the economic system (which is what they are claiming the 1% has done) and thereby force the 99% into this movements idea of utopia.
Despite their claims of wanting open debate, all you have to do is spend some time here and see how anyone who has a difference of opinion is called a troll and accused of being "paid" to be here. I know many folks who've been here to see if they could get behind this who've seen the ideas being floated around and gotten out as fast as they can.
Occupy Wall Street has been donated $500,000 according to some sources. Why not go and buy as much land as that can afford and begin to work toward their vision of society. If it succeeds, more like minded folks would go join them...by choice. Not by the forced collapse of the system through massive defaults on mortgages, student loans etc. Document that new society - send it out over the internet.
But that is not what is really at the heart of this movement - and the emails and the forums all point to this - they claim to represent the 99% and believe they know what is best for everyone - despite their claims of wanting real freedom, they wish to force a change......
They do not represent the real 99%, not by a long shot.
I don't know if you have noticed, but the dominating system on this planet, the corporate bankster run private greed mill of profits over all else,. is devastating the living systems that sustains all life here,. running off to a commune will facilitate some happy living for a while,. while the greedy egos full of fear continue to wipe out the systems that sustain human life. This corporate greed system maintained by the 1% will end one of two ways,. it will deplete the resources to the point of a massive eco-collapse (most likely) or the people who it lives on,. yes the corporate system is the parasite here,. bring the dominator culture to an end. we can do this peacefully, as we are now, by making progressive changes to the human devised systems that we control,. . and we can begin to regenerate some of what has been lost to the greedy few,. Search; Permaculture, Degrowth,. Slowmoney,. . and so on.
Well put.
We are not heading towards eco-collapse. Stop fear mongering.
Fearmongering is a tool of the right-wing. I do not believe that eco-collapse is imminent - but I DO WHOLEHEARTEDLY believe that if we continue down the path we are right now with particular corporations exhibiting behaviours they do now that we will find eco-collpase waiting for us. I will fight with my bare-hands or any other way I can against anyone who dreams of going to school and learning to make big money at the expense of our planet. That is foolish and pure idiocy. The operative there is "at the expense of the planet" mind you...
Modern civilizations produce less pollution than less advanced ones. Look at automobiles. Since 1970 the amount of pollution that comes from an automobile has dropped by orders of magnitude. We have scrubbers on smoke stacks, plastic lined waste dumps, clean water discharge rules . . the list goes on and on. The key to minimizing impacts to the planet are to modernize the third world, not to pillory the leading nations for their alleged sins against mother earth.
The only reason advances have been made is because of those that have fought the ones who have an almost pathological need to maintain their status quo. As rapid change becomes more and more neccesary, the ones who hold back the future should indeed be subject to fines. Your money and profit is useless to me if my kids are drinking poisoned water. Make all the money you want - leave MY future the f^$k alone.
Sleeping, are you?
Look around, the rate of destruction of systems we depend on to live is accelerating. The rate of extinctions also. The flooding and droughts the freak weather events, the dying fish, the dying birds, and bees, and so on and so forth.
Oh, please. Stop feeding on that swill from the left. "Freak" weather, warming and cooling, and species die-offs are NORMAL for this planet.
Actually, it's not swill, so it just sounds like you're brainwashed from the other side. As usual, the truth lies somewhere in between. The extinctions of species caused by man is indeed accelerating - and it IS due to US no matter how much you want to stick your head in the sand. As for weather conditions, I have to agree with you there - climate change is not to be seen from mere weather change, and it is not what scientists look to when describing climate change. The melting and refreezing rate of the arctic ocean is NOT natural - in terms of natural being: would it happen if man were not here? The general melting changes the isostatic pressure of tectonic plates, which tilt and cause flooding in areas that did not recieve flooding before. If this were natural, it would still be happening at a much slower rate. The attempt to slow these processes down is simply a hope that we can plan ahead to adapt to these changes instead of denying them until they get out of hand and we are unprepared. Also, less pollution is better than more regardless of whether there is long term climate change or not. Enacting laws can only help the planet. So if it all DID turn out to be a lie, why wouldn't we want to have a better planet anyways? It just seems like a bunch of stupid businessmen are just complaining that their "hard earned" profits have to go to ecological safety projects instead of in their coffers and lawyers' hands where they can try to defeat more consumer protection laws. So sorry if the price of doing business is not what you thought it was.
Enacting laws does not automatically "help the planet". You should know that I'm a physicist: I find the left's sanctimonious wrapping of themselves in "science" to be truly offensive: They wear it like gift wrap around a rotten medieval core. Look at the ethanol boondoggle - deforestation and skyrocketing food prices for the world's poorest, along with lower fuel efficiency for the rest of us. Nice. But at least the narcissist environmentalists feel good about themselves. Let's eliminate malaria in OUR country so we can sit around drinking designer wine and arrange to stop funding its use in Africa: So what if a few million babies die a horrible death? So what if most of the environmental damage was a myth. Let's make everyone replace their AC refrigerant because we leapt to the conclusion that it was causing a "hole in the ozone": Who cares that it was later disproven: It's a nice liberal myth. Lets generate a huge load of heavy metal contamination making batteries for hybrid cars, and making solar panels. While we're at it,. lets push electric cars out on a nation that burns COAL to make electricity, and call them "zero emission". Need I go on. I like the term CONSERVATIONIST - which is someone who actually cares about outcomes that affect the environment, as opposed to environmentalist, which has been hijacked by the neoNarcissists. You seem to be bright enough, and you seem to have the right intentions, so I urge you to look into the actual OUTCOMEs rather than the INTENTIONS of these fools.
Hmmm...I prefer the term preservationist to either. There are always extremists on either side of the political fence and sometimes it takes that extremism to define a center. As for the ethanol, yes - Bush financed all of this wasteful pork, because Iowa has an early primary, giving it an outsized influence in selecting presidential candidates, and has two crucial Senate seats as well and with Obama the ethanol program not only lives on, it is prospering. What does this have to do with enacting environmental protection laws? There were an estimated 225 million cases of malaria worldwide in 2009. An estimated 781,000 people died from malaria in 2009 according to the World Health Organization's 2010 World Malaria Report, accounting for 2.23% of deaths worldwide. Ninety percent of malaria-related deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa, with the majority of deaths being young children. Malaria is commonly associated with poverty, and can indeed be a cause of poverty and a major hindrance to economic development. Several notable attempts are being made to eliminate the parasite from sections of the world, or to eradicate it worldwide. In 2006, the organization Malaria No More set a public goal of eliminating malaria from Africa by 2015, and the organization plans to dissolve if that goal is accomplished. the U.S.-based Clinton Foundation has reduced the cost of drugs to treat malaria by 60%, and is working to further reduce the spread of the disease. Again - what does this have to do with enacting environmental protection laws? Your quotations around "hole in the ozone" make me wonder about your credentials as a physicist as this is no conspiracy theory but something that has been proven.
keep your head in the sand,. that leaves your ass in the open air. good luck with THAT.
Try building an open source phone without a Texas Instruments (or similar) processor and get back to me. . .
As you normally do, you miss the point entirely. Corporations are not the only way people can organize to build technology. Corporations may be the dominant force in the marketplace now, but this is changing already.
By the way; http://opencores.org/
Good luck with that.
we must have an order based on ABSOLUTE EQUALITY so we must immediately reject subversive hierarchies manifesting as benign influences. we must not underestimate the enemy and its agents among us. the obvious three external hierarchies are freemasons, christians and muslims. freemasons are rebranded knights templar a barbaric medieval male only hierachy. freemasons control the police and the banking system so they are the obvious enemy. they organised the massive selling of subprime mortgages, the creation of the worthless derivatives, the AAA credit rating and the rapid global selling of this worthless and fraudulent stock. they know where our money is. as for christians, fishers of men are PREDATORS of men. they are here to recruit followers to their imaginary friend through emotional BULLYING of our vulnerable people. their external hierarchies go up to the fascist tyrant, the whore of babylon, the queen of england and the pope, hitler youth and fascist dictator of belief and practise. the atheist dogma equally teaches we have just this one life. the TRUTH is we are reincarnating spirits. life is lived by changing places. we are the sick being denied free health care. we are the unemployed being denied a realistic honest living allowance. we are the soldiers being sent to our deaths to make money for this fascist war machine. we are the youth being denied free education. we are the homeless. we are the PROTESTORS marching to introduce democracy. we are the people being brutalised by their fascist police. we are the poor and hungry all over the world. the DNA evidence is WE ARE ALL ONE PEOPLE.
Have you tried anti-depressants?
that is another fascist misuse to KILL THE IMAGINATION of suffering humans. medication does not work and is addictive. the ENEMY manufactures that crap so you support the drug companies and are therefore an enemy of humanity. and an enemy of our community. free your imagination.
Excessive re-uptake of Serotonin is real. It's called "science", and does not involve fascists in any way. Selective Serotonin Re-Uptake Inhibitors (SSRI's) can therefore help people like you to lead a normal life. Please talk to your doctor.
Dr Mengele, I presume!
The worshippers of science (and believe me, as acuurate as pure science is, applied science is all mercenary and full of what is functionally equivalent to clergy - please don't think I'm putting science down, because I'm not - some people just don't want to see the truth that lay outside of their own personal reality tunnel) who make money from big pharma and find it cheaper to proscribe drugs than to actually speak with a trained psychiatrist - they all think that the brain is a computer. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Small functions of the brain can be modelled AS a computer, but to start treating the brain as if it IS a computer is the height of arrogance amongst chip designers/neuro-psycholgists. it's idiocy. You don't proscribe medicine unless you know PRECISLEY how it works. You don't stick something in your car unless you know exactly how it works - and no smartasses, I'm not talking about food like gasoline, I'm talking about engine additives. WE. DO. NOT. KNOW. ENOUGH. ABOUT. HOW. THE . BRAIN. WORKS. and any who say we do are just overly optimistic about new technology and getting grants and money to continue their research. Look up statistics of how effective treatments are. It would make it appear that we live in an entire nation of the depressed, while I posit that only a small percentage of these people actually require the drugs. The rest of them are depressed BECAUSE THERE IS CLEARLY SOMETHING WRONG IN THE WORLD AND THEY FEEL HELPLESS TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. Please - I beg of you to put aside your arrogance and egos and greed and have some compassion and not be afraid to look at yourselves and see through yourselves. We can ALL fight the things that are wrong with this world TOGETHER.
excellent! our minds have been brutalised by these barbarians. the way they mentally cripple the mentally troubled is worse than the concentration camps. the body is a divine creation and we mess with its fine workings at our peril. but the way these fascists force medication on our vulnerable people to make money for the drug companies is unspeakable. its just another attempt to shut us up!
Thanks so much for your contribution. Very good points and very well written!
Please read my contributions as well:
The ”Free Ride” Society
http://occupywallst.org/forum/the-free-ride-society/
Replace Capitalism with Democracy
http://occupywallst.org/forum/replace-capitalism-with-democracy/
Strategies and Expectations
http://occupywallst.org/forum/strategies-and-expectations/
The Society We Should Strive For
http://occupywallst.org/forum/the-society-we-should-strive-for/
Keep up the good work. Keep on fighting, keep on growing.
Solidarity and greetings from Norway. sff
Thanks, Is so nice to see all of the people weigh in from so many countries. I think this is because people are people regardless of where they are from and most people know what is right and what is wrong. Peace and Love to all the OWS members and supporters. Power to the People!!
I finally get it. We are a constitutional republic and you want to overthrow the government to become a parliamentary democracy. You might want to use fewer words so you can reach more people. Our educational bureaucracy has really dumbed down our citizens and I fear many of the 99% you claim to represent can't take the time to read all of them.
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COLLATERAL DAMAGE AT OCCUPY OAKLAND
Do not think that this general strike only cut into business activities in Oakland for one day. Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce head Joseph Haraburda has seen the lasting damage these actions have inflicted on Oakland's reputation as a place to do business. He counts three commercial tenant cancellations, including one for an operation that would have hired 100 employees.
The Chamber of Commerce.... now there's a "reputable" source.
Yes, it usually is. Made up of the members of small businesses in a community, the Chamber is a true 99% organization.
FreeMarkets, don't be drug into that conversation. To the majority of the posters here, the Chamber of Commerce is a tool of the "right", the "conservatives" and the "Koch Brothers" ....says a great deal about their representing the 99% doesn't it?
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So far there have been 151 incidents of reported violence across OWS. Winning.
I read today that OWS is using children to block access to the DC convention center. Nice.
This movement is done. Killed by narcissism. There are a few idealists left - those who wanted to build consensus with the 99%. But they are overrun by radicals who would rather burn the movement to the ground. We are now aligned with unions, democrats, unrelated events in other countries, and a whole host of peripheral elements who are not part of the core consensus. Wild-eyed anarchists are just certain that they can hijack the movement and, this time at last!, finally win the day. Violence, lawlessness. It's disgusting how something that started so pure has been soiled so quickly by greed and selfishness. I'm done. This has FAILED. I regret supporting it, and hope that the police DO shut it down before it further damages the greater cause.
I don't believe you ever did support it.
Yes, I don't believe you ever supported it or you would realise that all of it is related, which is the whole point of why there are so many grievances. We exist in a web of dependence, and if you pull or cut some strings it affects people in other parts of the web.
Your injection of negativity towards OWS on this thread will not stop the movement. Posting small isolated incidences by a select few with their violent behavior do not represent the majority of peaceful protesters that have a right to assemble and voice their opposition. Your comments tells me you represent corporations and are part of the 1%. You don't belong here.
What would u expect 99% to look like troll. Angry. Fed up.
Hmm. I'm seeing more and more messages just like this one. I also just perused a number of major news sites. Almost nothing on OWS, other than general tittering over your rioting and violence in Oakland. Trouble in paradise, I wonder . .?
Blah blah blah. You write too much
OWS protestor goes nuts in McDonalds after being refused free food
A Zuccotti Park protester threw a violent fit in a McDonald's yesterday after employees refused to give him free food. Fisika Bezabeh, 27, ripped a credit-card reader from a counter and threw it at workers at about 2:30 a.m. at the Mickey D's at 160 Broadway, a bathroom spot for protesters.
The direct democratic majority in Libya seems to be moving towards Sharia Law. Discussion topic: Should OWS give their support to this movement?
... any supportive links from at least two unrelated media outlets?
What form of Sharia Law? There are many different forms... If Libyans decide to pick one, which one? As long as propaganda is not used to persuade the choice, and the citizens are informed, then if it is chosen, I can support them.
I think the citizens will be informed by the Muslim Brotherhood that they have chosen Sharia Law; the citizens who do not agree with the consensus will be dead.
So they did not choose it, is what you are saying... then I cant support that.
If it is a consensus, then by definition the citizens agree... so no one will be dead.
Even if people disagreed, it is doubtful that the Libyan leaders would want to immediately start killing people off. They have to look legitimate in the eyes of the world, and appear to have stability, less we Americans want to go on another humanitarian mission.
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Let me know when he is convicted.... innocent until proven guilty.
Okey dokey. Have you heard the phrase "whistling past the grave yard"?
Not until now. It appears to mean I do not know the consequence or am negligent of what is to come....
Similar to unintended consequences, or "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." I guess in this regard I am going to play the optimist, and you can play the pessimist. We'll see how it goes.
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/29683079/detail.html
Thanks! There's another dollar for Occupy Wall Street. Trolldom has been monetized. This is fun :) http://occupywallst.org/forum/we-have-monetized-trolldom-for-the-benefit-of-the-/#comment-223231 . Care to donate? Just visit homepage at www.occupywallst.org .
Occupy Vancouver death dooms protest camp
The death of a woman taking part in the Occupy Vancouver protest at the city's art gallery has led the city's mayor to announce the protest movement's tent city will be cleared.
You fail to mention how opponents to the Tea Party protests, ones who were there in person, were kicked and beaten by malicious Tea Party protesters.... one who are disabled even.
Sure.
City hall will b occupied. Mayor against 99% =illegitimate. Put the cronies out of work.
FreeMarket is manipulating the point system "market." Thanks for demonstrating why markets need to be regulated.
Wish I were that clever. You can't change your own points - at least I can't. I think I just have some fans.
They're going to magically disappear.
I'm sure you and your friends can gang up on me and drive my points down. Oppression is standard operating procedure in "mob rule" environments. Or are you one of the "chosen" with administrative privileges who can just delete my points?
You know why it's obvious to everyone that you're lying? Because it's not just your posts, all throughout the forum, jumping up, but also all your opponents being pushed waay down. Obvious asshole is obvious. Expect us.
Please explain how I would accomplish this feat. You, who can make words appear in italics, seem to be the one who could do something like that.
"To the primitive mind, any sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic."
Umad? Please kindly rot in hell now, and have a nice day.
Pardon, me, a simple physicist, from intruding on your greatness.
Fans. You been drinkin croneykoolaid with bloomhindenberg again
NYC RESIDENTS FED UP WITH OWS
A growing number of residents, politicians and newspapers are complaining to Bloomberg about cleaning up the park. They believe the abundance of tents has sparked sexual assaults, drug dealing and crime.
The New York Post ran a front page editorial with the headline "ENOUGH! Mr. Mayor, it is time to reclaim Zuccotti Park -- and New York City's dignity."
The backlash against the protest is growing and The Post, along with other newspapers, have urged Bloomberg to get rid of the protestors.
Your injection of negativity towards OWS on this thread will not stop the movement. Posting small isolated incidences by a select few with their violent behavior do not represent the majority of peaceful protesters that have a right to assemble and voice their opposition. Your freemarkets tells me you represent corporations and are part of the 1%. You don't belong here.
What - you want to cast me out? How hateful of you. I'm just posting what I find in the news. You seem to agree that it happened, so what is the problem? I think we all agree that the one or two people who carried racist placards at Tea Party rallies made the case that the entire Tea Party movement is racist. Ergo, it would seem that the entire OWS movement is violent to women.
Democracy now!
" I'm just posting what I find in the news." Correction: You're just repeating crap you found in the Post. This paper is an opposition parrot, and a tool of R Murdoch. Wise the fuck up.
So you deny what they printed?
I will say that I reject their perception of events, and actually despise them as not worthy of notice. I couldn't care less about what the Post prints
you cannot generalize a movement by its members, only through its policies. From what the front page of this site says, the movement is peaceful and always reports and hand overs people who brake the law...
If you want to generalize the tea party in that manner, go for it... I am not, and most of the people here will not either.
151 incidents of recorded violence thus far, and counting. By your actions we shall know you . . .
Thanks! There's another dollar for Occupy Wall Street. Trolldom has been monetized. This is fun :) http://occupywallst.org/forum/we-have-monetized-trolldom-for-the-benefit-of-the-/#comment-223231 . Care to donate? Just visit homepage at www.occupywallst.org .
Happy to drain your bank account
Thanks! There's another dollar for Occupy Wall Street. Trolldom has been monetized. This is fun :) http://occupywallst.org/forum/we-have-monetized-trolldom-for-the-benefit-of-the-/#comment-223231 . Care to donate? Just visit homepage at www.occupywallst.org .
I have to admit this IS fun. I get to reach out and actually steal a dollar from you right over the internet. Can I have another one now?
Thanks! There's another dollar for Occupy Wall Street. Trolldom has been monetized. This is fun :) http://occupywallst.org/forum/we-have-monetized-trolldom-for-the-benefit-of-the-/#comment-223231 . Care to donate? Just visit homepage at www.occupywallst.org .
I think this makes $5, or is it $6 that I have now donated through this forum. I encourage other "trolls" to join in and take advantage of therising's generosity.
Funny I wasn't a troll when I sent in $500, and when I didn't disagree with the mob here. This movement is in its death rattle.
Thanks! There's another dollar for Occupy Wall Street. Trolldom has been monetized. This is fun :) http://occupywallst.org/forum/we-have-monetized-trolldom-for-the-benefit-of-the-/#comment-223231 . Care to donate? Just visit homepage at www.occupywallst.org .
how were they recorded... oh yeah, because the people of the movement turned them over to the police.
By a single persons actions you shall know that single person... please let me know when OWS publicly states it is pro-violence.
Who cares what they "state"? They are a menace to everyone around them. Intentions do not matter; outcomes matter.
I agree outcomes do matter... but it was not an outcome of OWS for any violent acts, it was an outcome of individual actions. If it happens there is no reason at all for the movement to be tarnished, especially when the crimes are not only reported, but the perps are directly handed over to the police...
Even if they are a menace, how is being a menace imply a group of disenfranchised people get their right to assemble and protest denied... Outcomes matter, people complained about the cleanliness of the park, they cleaned it, people complain about crimes, they initiate their own policing force, people complain about loss of business, they form a committee to see how to alleviate the problem.... and so on... if a problem arises they try to change it for a better outcome.
FreeMarket is manipulating the point system "market." Thanks for demonstrating why markets need to be regulated.
FreeMarkets is manipulating the point system "market." Thanks for demonstrating why markets need to be regulated.
anOn is spamming the same post every where. Shame, shame, shame
FreeMarket is manipulating the point system "market." Thanks for demonstrating why markets need to be regulated.