Forum Post: A foreigners perspective
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 12, 2011, 4:54 a.m. EST by RentB
(1)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I'm not American. I don't know the full extent of your problems and issues although our news is saturated with the regular spin, so I am aware of it.
I am a military officer. I have seen some of the poorest places on the planet. Those wreaked by war, famine and natural disaster. From working closely with the people I understand their problems, or at the very least can empathize with them.
What I can't get my head around is the purpose of this protest. To me it looks like this:
- There are many social and economic issues in America that are as complex and difficult as any in the world.
- It is hard to find who or what is the source of the problems.
- In lou of having an easy out, some individual or group to blame this concept of the 99% has been formed, ostracizing the wealthy, in order to provide a focus for all and any problem within the US.
It seems to be a protest by a group of middle class college kids who feel cheated because their rich neighbor worked harder to get into a better financial position than they did.
From reading a few of these posts no one wants to put together a coherent list of demands/solutions. Instead it is a lot of blaming 'the man' and 'corporations' or the '1%'. You are consumers, you give the corporations power. You are the voters, you decide who is in government.
To compare yourselves to the Arab Spring, one of the most noteworthy achievements in the Middle East in modern history, is a travesty. When have you ever been shot at? When was your husband taken from your home in the middle of the night because he said to someone that he didn't like the government's stance on an issue? I'd guess never.
If you want to make a difference highlight some real social issues. Propose solutions to your problems on healthcare and public education. Address the government as a group of citizens.
Most of all, stop standing in the street yelling to the world how much you hate the wealthy because you are not. 99% is making the US look like a bunch of first world whiners.
I'm not a kid and I'm not poor by any means. What you don't know is that it's as if something has happened that never happened before. A kind of coup d'etat that happened right under our noses, or while we were asleep or so gradually that we didn't notice it happening. In fact I believe it is still not complete and it goes on. On the surface everything seems normal. But we have a government that has become completely unresponsive to the people it's supposed to represent. Legislation allowed business corporations to buy the government and now our representatives no longer represent people. They represent money instead. It's absolutely blatant. There's no hiding it or pretending. It affects both political parties but it may be my own bias to say that the republicans are pushing harder for the final capitulation. The economic situation that began in '08 pulled the rug out from under some people. Othes are not affected at all. The media has ceased reporting anything that could be considered real news. You know there's a problem when the news personalities announce that they have no idea what OWS wants. Wasn't it a journalist's JOB to know or to at least find out about current events not so long ago? But they don't want to know because the media is owned just like the government. Some people are beginning to feel a sense of urgency about their future. Our Congress is preoccupied with gamesmanship that seems to deliberately push the country closer to the edge. Lurking behind the smiling or grimacing elected officials is an unsavory lot of business leaders and christian religious fanatics. OWS released an official statement a week ago and it's on this website. The protesters want to end bought government. They want a complete separation of business from government. True capitalists as they claim to be should be able to stand on their own feet and survive on their merit without needing the advantage of owning the government. That's it. You'll see all sorts of diversions, dissent, chaos and confusion but there's one true goal which is to restore the government to its only real function which is to serve the people.
Thankyou. This is the clearest description of the movements goals I have read in any form.
And I agree with you. I am a capitalist but don't support a completely free market as I am of the opinion that the small business needs to be protected to remain competitive and without small business you loose diversity, an important tenant to our lifestyle.
What this movement needs is some perception management. People like yourself need to stand up and be heard, perhaps even remove yourself from the movement at large, else the whole thing will crumble under the weight of fashion.
I do make myself heard. You have to understand that just three months ago I was writing about the absence of dissent and the lack of any strategy that might bring relief to people who are suffering. Now we have this movement, if it is a movement. It can get by on the sheer impact of physical presence for a while. The amount of energy being released would be more effective if it had clear direction, but it seems like people need an unfocused outburst at least for a while.
Greetings!
I was born in the USA. I too I have seen some of the poorest places on the planet. Most people living in developed countries cannot see how fragile civilization--what we have of it--is.
I say to all:
Do you think they are actually going to do the right, logical, sensible, moral and feasible thing and let the “to big to fail” banks fail like they should?
Put a firewall between the JP Morgan Chase, Citibank, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and HSBC's $238 TRILLION dollars in derivative exposure, and normal banking functions, like your savings, business loans, etc. Let the casinos fail; they are already bankrupt many times over by rational accounting. We are all serving the insane casino system as it is now.
It could be done in, say, 5 days, during an imposed bank holiday.
That's the target. That is where the "Occupy Wall Street" movement worldwide has to go.
Doing this with Obama in residence is almost certainly impossible, so he has to get out.
So there you have it.
Personally, I think Nov 2012 (the next U.S. federal election) is a time marker that just serves denial of the real situation. Before that date we will experience transatlantic Weimar hyperinflation or financial system explosion/disintegration.
You,ve been away way too long!
I think that we have some ideas as to how to proceed but have not yet precisely streamlined our message which is a problem. I think that is due to the complex nature of the issues and all the different influences and contributing factors. It's a lot to go over. I think that two of the main things we can do to affect the change we want is to get the money out of the presidential election process and to re-configure the media so it actually serves the interests of the citizens, not the government or corporations. By the way, we are not just a bunch of college kids, we are a very diverse group of people from different backgrounds.
In addition, this may help in understanding some of these issues, please watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNRVRbpJMP0