Forum Post: 6 reasons why not to give up on occupy

[-] 5 points by ARod1993 (2420) 12 years ago

I support the Occupy movement not because I agree with the more poorly targeted rhetoric on here that seeks to demonize anyone making over $250,000 per year, but because so far they're the only group I've found with enough anger and enough raw manpower to begin to push for change. I don't worry about the content of the more extreme rhetoric I see on here because given the sheer volume of people like you out there I can't see it gaining enough traction to ever be implemented.

I feel like given the current economic climate and the current strength of the ties between the government and private industry (especially Wall Street) the Occupy movement has enormous potential as a catalyst for change (if not the movement itself then one or more of its spinoffs) and it would grieve me greatly to see that potential go to waste. Your complaints are valid, and more often than not when it comes to this specific matter I agree with your position; I just find it easier to offer those criticisms as a concerned supporter (which I am) than a detractor or dissenter.

I say that because if everyone who disagrees with particular pieces of the movement's conduct or rhetoric decides not to support it, then the only ones left inside the movement will be a ragtag group of idiots and radicals and its capacity to push for change will be pretty much neutralized. If however, enough people choose to say "I support Occupy Wall Street" and then suggest rational, practical policy initiatives that are in the spirit of the movement but sans deliberately inflammatory rhetoric, then in time that is what Occupy Wall Street will become. The more reasonable and moderate the movement can become without compromising its principles, the more support it will gain, and instead of fizzling out on the fringe the movement will become a strong positive force in American politics.

I want Occupy Wall Street to become a positive force for the entire 99.9%, and I personally prefer getting on board early and attempting to influence them in that direction over waiting for them to become that before getting involved.

However, there has come a point where I'm starting to give up on this thing as far as policy initiatives are concerned; in terms of actual implementation of change I'm looking more toward the 99% Declaration (and on a personal level toward involvement in the political process through any avenue that presents itself to me). Anger is a bit of a necessary evil; only when we realize that something is wrong do we move to fix it, and often when we find out that something as central to our collective identity as our government and our economy is flawed there is a great deal of anger.

We've already identified a number of basic issues that cross damn near all social, economic, and philosophical lines, in particular the degree of corruption associated with our current system of campaign finance and lobbying. Now that we've identified these issues, it's time to start looking at how exactly we want to go about fixing them, and I really want OWS to get past the "Holy balls, it's broken!" stage and reach the "Alright, how can we rebuild it?" stage. Perhaps I'm holding out more hope than I should, but it would be such a waste if the movement fails to make that jump that I want to try to push for that jump from the inside to the end.

We've had our big moment in the sun to demonstrate to the world that we exist and now it's time to do something with that moment. The Tea Party was able to do what it did because of an incredibly disciplined multifaceted approach that involved a fair amount of popular hell-raising in the beginning to let people know that they existed and that they were mad as hell, but they hardly restrained themselves to just that.

These days if you look at where the Tea Party is, it's now in the House of Representatives to a very significant extent, in the Senate to a lesser extent, and in the halls of K Street to a rather disquieting extent. While I don't agree with a fair amount of the policies they're fond of, I have to admire their tactics and I would like to see OWS adopt those tactics.