Forum Post: A Peoples' Manifesto: frame the moral argument against greed - then make specific demands to remove financial interests from political control

To all the courageous demonstrators of Occupy Wall Street, and those who will join in soon -

You've lit the fuse - now it's crucial to decide where it's all going. Progressive movements tend to dissipate their energies without any meaningful result. Get specific - have the guts to take a stand, make specific demands! That means addressing the money-controlled political system that's ruining our country, exposing it and demanding changes.

At the heart of it all is the importance of attacking the amoral basis of greed, often euphemized as the 'profit motive' or 'economic incentive' while actually appealing to the darkest and most powerful and destructive of all human instincts. Greed doesn't care for people, it's not moral, and it's not controllable: let's put greed at the same level as racial bigotry. Why does America need billionaires? How long can we be ruled by an economic system that creates poverty and misery everywhere, while it devours every natural resource and destroys the planet?

Corporations must serve the populace, and not be allowed to rule over them. How are we to change this relationship? First, by framing the moral argument - by making it clear that we will not be enslaved by an economic system which benefits a tiny niche of ultra-rich people like Mitt Romney, who's worth 300 million dollars and made it by stripping companies and firing working people.

Let's abolish the false idolatry for "I did it myself" - every billionaire in America uses the vast infrastructure that working people have built and paid for. No one did it him or herself – that Ayn Rand nonsense has to be consigned to the trash heap of political ignorance which can't even pass the laugh test.

Having framed the moral argument, specific political demands are crucial:

First, demand the removal of financial interests from political control: that's not democratic. As long as Wall Street can buy votes with their control over Congress and the public media, nothing will change and the People of the United States will never have a chance - it's too easy to delude folks into voting against their real interests. Create a level playing field - demand public funding of elections! Our current system is nothing short of legalized bribery – and it is deeply corrupt. To see its effect, consider why Obama hired mega-bankers Summers and Geithner to “save” the financial system. Result: trillions for Wall Street while millions of American families are thrown out of their homes.

Banks and the financial system have to be brought under control with laws and regulations which will make the recent past a “never again” event.

Along with that we also need public, nonprofit institutions to compete with them – nonprofit public banks, such as North Dakota has, run for the public benefit, just as we need a Public Option to compete in the realm of medical insurance.

Bring back Glass-Steagall - fat cat gambling with leveraged bank deposits is what brought the financial meltdown (Bill Clinton is to blame in the Glass-Steagall reversal btw)

Make the Wall Street fat cats who destroyed the financial system accountable: where are the prosecutions? Where is the Department of Justice? Where is the accountability? Trillions vanish through fraud and deceit, and Obama's DOJ is sitting on its hands. Everyone should be outraged – and if you want to take a protest to Washington and the steps of the DOJ, this is a good place to start.

Finally, let's go after right-wing control of the public airwaves which have become a cesspool reactionary cant, hate speech, disinformation, and thinly-veiled racism. Meet the Press should be called “Meet the Republicans,” because that's all you hear on it, or on any of the so-called news shows on broadcast television. Talk radio is far worse, ever since Reagan got rid of the Fairness Doctrine and allowed the advent of Rush Limbaugh-type hate speech all over the country. Rush Limbaugh hate speech has to be exposed for what it is – a distraction and an excuse for the super-wealthy to continue their control, manipulating emotions in a sophisticated display of the subtle weapons of psychological warfare which will always find a way to deflect attention from the real issues: the abuse and exploitation of working people by Wall Street and a greedy profit system which is ruining our country and our planet.

Take to the streets – no change has ever come to the United States without massive public protest and concerted political movements which refuse to be co-opted by politicians or corporations. Our lives are at stake, and the lives of our children. Nothing is more important than demanding economic justice and our right to make a fair, just world, and the time to do it is now.