Forum Post: Do you want reform, or revolution?
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 9, 2011, 12:12 a.m. EST by BeCarefulForWahtYouWishFor
(46)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
If you want reform, then I'm with you. If you want revolution, then I do not want anything to do with you.
Our system is perfectly fine, it just needs to be fine tuned for modern times. It makes no sense to throw it out in favor of socialism or direct democracy.
The way I see it, we already had a revolution. The rich crooks took over, and the rest of us let them do it. I'm not sure what we do now, but criminals usually don't reform while they're still making money at it.
But are they criminals? Have they broken the law?
Some have. But all? No. Plenty of them worked hard to reach where they are. They stayed up long nights studying for law school or researching for that doctorate. Many of them started with nothing.
What gives YOU the right to take from them?
Some of them have broken the law. That's who I'm talking about. I pay lots of taxes. I'm sick of people who make a lot more money than I do paying less.
(I stayed up all night in graduate school, also, for what it's worth.)
Revolution? How about evolution? Do we really think capitalism is the greatest thing we humans can accomplish?
That's like living 600 years ago and thinking feudalism is the greatest thing we could accomplish.
I actually think about this kind of thing when people talk about evolution. It always is taken to mean literal, physical evolution. Why haven't we evolved away from needing such a strong government? Why haven't we evolved emotionally? I'd like to see some mental evolution.
Precisely. The idea of big government is predicated on the idea that people aren't capable of governing themselves.
There's a bit of wisdom in thinking of socialism as a "nanny-state" society. Welfare, for example, intrinsically provides the value that the individual receiving it is incapable, fallen behind, and worth less than someone who isn't on welfare.
Emotionally we need to get our society in a place where we can realize we don't need the best iPhone, the best computer, to see the new Hollywood blockbuster, to buy ten pairs of Nikes, etc. Or in a state of mind where we don't feel we NEED welfare. That's the evolution I hope for someday.
For then we wouldn't need big government because there wouldn't be big business. We'd all be responsible citizens who make educated and responsible purchases.
Right. A question I've been asking myself lately: Why does marketing exist? I define advertising as letting people know what you are promoting (our show is at this venue at this time), and marketing as persuading people to come to the show (come to our show and you'll get laid and have friends). I've come to the conclusion that marketing exists because people are unable to decide for themselves what they really want or need. Feeble minds have created an environment in which marketing can exist and have value.
Or listening to people talk about a candidate as being "electable". Electable? If you yourself are unwilling to vote for a candidate, they would appear 100% unelectable. It's just a vague gauge of what each person thinks each other person is going to do! What the hell?! Hardly a person willing to actually vote for somebody based on their merit. What a joke. It's a complete laugh to expect good people to get elected when we have a populace of voters who wouldn't vote for a good candidate, based on merit, even if they had the chance to. It's no wonder the result is stupid... the voters are stupid.
Have you ever read anything by Neil Postman? Amusing Ourselves to Death, Technopoly, and the Disappearance of Childhood are some of my favorite books.
Actually, I'm of the opinion that we're protesting the wrong people. I think the media empires are far more culpable for our economic disaster than the banks or the fed. Sure, the corrupt government gave the corrupt Wall Street banks the bailout, but wasn't it the corrupted media empires who convinced us that was the best, nay, only solution?
It's the media which convinces us we aren't smart enough unless we go to college. We aren't pretty enough unless we wear makeup. We aren't sexy enough unless we show this much skin. We aren't happy enough unless we eat at McDonald's. We aren't secure enough in our wallets unless we have a Chase credit card... etc...
Advertising preys on our human fears and thus enlarges them and diminishes our waking hours to mere moments of worry.
I'll have to look up Postman. Haven't even heard of him.
Let's do it. Rope up the media along with the rest. We're only speaking of culpability in very small degrees, they're all hand in hand (which is why I think it's silly to complain about big corporations, and not the govt, education, or the media).
But I still hold to the original point that with an internal revolution, all the others would go away. The ultimate solution.
You should hold to that original point because it's the only one that actually matters. The external revolutions are worldly, fleeting. Internal revolutions are eternal. That's the whole point about Buddhism's idea of enlightenment.
The one major factor in really inhibiting people from obtaining a responsible identity or conviction (as previously we've discussed) is the media and our education system (and our education system has been so influenced by our media system as to have almost made it worthless and supplanted it).
That's why I think we need to teach our children philosophy in school. Buddha, Jesus, Plato, Thoreau, Emerson, et al. That's also why we need to more seriously teach the arts (our current method of teaching the arts and literature is beyond a joke).
We currently teach in such a way that endorses competition. That endorses worldly things like money. It endorses meaningless concepts like grades and throws original and unique thoughts to the tracks. It endorses rote, but disenfranchises conviction.
Because the whole purpose of education, as it exists now, is to continue an atmosphere of power and control. If you can put somebody's mind and spirit in a wheelchair, you don't have to worry to much about their body, they'll spend all their time camping in a public park or clubbing or watching television all the time.
I don't have a problem with competition; the proper competition is you vs your potential. Like many other things, it's mis-applied. Grades are a huge problem also. The way the system is designed to take the dumbest students and raise them up to a bare level, but hold back the top students until you can beat any creativity, originality, and motivation out of them. It makes me laugh to hear about people talking about "fixing" education. The only way to fix it is to get rid of it.
I am also a big fan of Plato. Been meaning to give The Republic another read through as of late.
I'm also curious about the idea of "fixing" education. Since I've never gone through what I consider my ideal education to be, I don't know if that solution would be good either.
Another solution is: allow children to pursue what in their hearts they are guided towards. Our goal as educators and adults should be to help children realize what it is that they are capable of. We shouldn't guide them, but simply help them to find the road.
This would require a huge reform of society--but a worthy reform.
My problem with competition is this: we tell a Child A he is only good if he is better than Child B. We then define the parameters of what being good is: having a lucrative job, having employees underneath you, having a lot of sex, going to Harvard. Child A then seeks out these parameters of success, subverting his own potential and personal wants and needs (and spiritual wants and needs).
Competition also, by it's very nature, plays to the lowest possible goal. We are good enough simply by being better than the rest. Plato's Socrates asks us to search for "the best." He knew that "the best" wasn't possible, and that's why he asked us to aspire to that. In a competitive society, there is a point where we are good enough (so long as we've fulfilled enough of the parameters of what defines a success). In a Socratic society, we are constantly making ourselves better. We don't fall into foolish ideas of "successful." We simply ask the most out of ourselves that we can.
I personally have a problem with competition. I've never seen anything good arise out of competition that simple encouragement or personal conviction couldn't do better.
I feel ya. I agree, for the most part. Though I enjoy some aspects of competition. Maybe it's because I've lacked personal conviction for most of my life? I'm open to the idea. It's the law of diminishing returns, though. More and more and more doesn't necessarily get a better result. Often it leads a person negative.
I am on board, though. The real competition is you vs how good you could be. Race that.
I agree, capitalism is flawed. Evolution is what we need.
Easy to say when you don't have a system better than capitalism.
http://www.thevenusproject.com/
I have my own system I think would work better than what we have, but I'll save that for another time.
The discussion now is this: do you really think capitalism is perfect? Should we not aspire to something more evolved?
No. Whether capitalism is perfect or not doesn't matter. What matters is that it's a stable system. Never throw out a working stable system in favor of an untested system.
The Founding Fathers use democracy, so shall we. Monarchy wasn't a working system anymore.
Alright. Why not just realize we need a complete new social organization and leave its label for a latter time? That's what is crucial here.
I wouldn't say perfectly fine, but most of its theory is sound. Reforms which incorporate less orthodox ideas than those we have currently would go a long way. If we could stop thinking of this mutual exclusivity in socio-economic and political theories, we'd go even farther.
Yeah.... Direct Democracy in a country with over 300 million people. I've never heard of anything so childish. Absolutely impossible to implement. It is nothing but mob rule.
It's almost as childish as the way everyone in the crowd repeats everything that every speaker says. It's almost as childish as their finger wagging during their "General Assemblies".
I totally support your position. I would suggest that anything but reform would be seen as sedition or insurrection, or could be painted that way to scuttle the excellent aspects of the movement. For a fact the radical left, socialist aspects are really putting some Americans off that are committed to change
Article V of the US constitution is our first constitutional right. It is a specific goal that can include all issues. When 34 states apply for an article v convention, and congress fails to convene delegates, the military will step in and force government to be constitutional.
Yes, and it will take Article V to do that if that is going to be the way it goes. I think IF this movement can focus on the obviously dominant existing laws, and invoke them specific to be able to vet its many demands first, (see my page on revising the First Amendment in the beginning so we can share info and form opinion informally.) http://algoxy.com/poly/meaning_of_free_speech.html then educate ourselves and align our opinions with facts as well as we can between the peoples of each states, then the state, and WE HAVE JUST RATIFIED an amendment.
NOW, all government must change their act to become constitutional
Enforcing the existing laws will go quite away to meeting some demands. Ending laws that favor corporations that will not ever be sustainable will help. Seeing that war is never conducted outside the constitution. The federal reserve and economy obviously needs constitutional regulation, perhaps just enforcing what is there will do however from what I've learned. Corporate person hood can be dealt with. Everything we need done can be done through an article v convention.
I agree with your sentiment completely, as I think do most of the people protesting in the street. Dismantling the government is not the goal, purging the government of privatized money and interest groups must be the goal. Please read and consider, the more voices add to this message- the more powerful it can become.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/a-rally-cry-to-occupy-join-in-once-voice/
While I question the need to frame this question as an ultimatum, I agree that it is a valid question that OWS should realize is on the minds of a great many people who are no less angry than those in the streets today.
Revolution is an easily used word. Few understand what it truly asks of those who think they want it.
Reform is, at this point, in this era, not very attractive as a concept because it is also an abused term. There already, allegedly, were 'reforms' after 2008. But these weren't reforms. These were Nerf Darts shot at Goldman Sachs by the same people handing them their taxpayer backed bonus checks.
So what is to be done?
That does remain to be seen. What is constructive is what's happening on the streets. It's good for people, all people, not just Americans, to express their discontent with the crisis of leadership we face in the world today.
What is not constructive is to condemn the brave souls willing to struggle so as to awaken the rest.
Here's our situation as far as I'm concerned take the time to watch this and then tell me if you still thing the system is perfectly fine.... A PETE MCGRAIN FILM IN ASSOCIATION WITH MEDIA FOR ACTION: Hosted by WOODY HARRELSON This powerful documentary examines the flaws in our systems, the mechanisms that work against Democracy, the environment, and society as a whole: From conflicts of interest in politics, the abuses of corporate power, to a news media that serves the interests of the few, leading to the destruction of our ecosystems, over consumption and warfare. This controversial documentary is in post production. Watch it free online here: http://www.ethosthemovie.com/filmdownload.html
Imagine a Revolution
To every empire the end has come. To every paper currency failure has occurred. To every society there comes a turning point; in America we turn now. I ask you to imagine a once free America. Imagine an America which promoted individual liberty and personal responsibility, not a welfare state. Imagine an America where the Constitution applied to everyone and every case, no matter how bad the crime or criminal at suspect. Imagine an America restrained by the Constitution, due process and the rule of law. Imagine an America devoid of secret watch lists, secret prisons and secret assassinations.
Imagine a moral society which only engaged in just war and only as a last resort.
Imagine an America, where the decision to go to war, is actually one declared by congress. Imagine an America which never endorsed the use of preventive wars to promote peace. Imagine an America where torture was never acceptable, even if called "enhanced" interrogation techniques. Imagine an America in which a warrant was always required to search or seize persons or property. Imagine an America which respected the writ of habeas corpus and condemned indefinitely detaining individuals.
Imagine an America where prosperity wasn't derived from private printing presses, but from true wealth. Imagine an America not ravished by endlessly spending a fiat currency in pursuit of economic growth; all the while promoting the welfare and warfare state. Imagine an America which encouraged savings while destroying that very possibility by devaluing the currency through the deceitful act of controlled monetary inflation. Imagine an America where coins were still worth their weight. Imagine an American in which gold and silver were actually legal tender.
Imagine an America where children are not arrested for front yard lemonade stands. Imagine an America where you couldn’t be arrested and jailed for gardening on your property. Imagine an America without checkpoints where blood could be drawn without warrant, against one's will. I ask you to imagine an America where citizens could make the simple decision to drink raw milk. Imagine an America which valued personal choice and responsibility above dictating morality through law. Imagine an America which allowed companies to actually protect their property and customers. Imagine an America where individuals actually had the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as long as they didn’t endanger others.
Imagine if rights were derived from creation, and not from government.
Imagine now an America in which citizens understood and respected the experiment of liberty began by their forefathers. Imagine now an America which still embraces the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Imagine now an America where the wretched refuse, the homeless, those searching for the New Colossus could venture to experience liberty. Imagine America no longer safeguarded the liberty they sought, but only the security and secrecy of the state. Imagine an America where ignorance isn’t sold as wisdom and tolerance not delivered by force. Imagine an America where politicians stood behind American principles. Imagine an America where oath to the Constitution was taken seriously and always upheld. Imagine an America of resounding liberty; not one of ever incrementally increasing tyranny. Imagine America as she once was: free and prosperous.
Now try to imagine an idea. Imagine an idea so powerful, so strong in it conviction, no army or government could stop it. Imagine a return of the respect of the Constitution. Imagine a return to due process and the rule of law. Imagine a return to sound currency and sound monetary policy. Imagine the abolishment of our partaking down the dangerous path of legislating morality. Imagine a return to a foreign policy of freedom and not of preemptive wars and nation building. Imagine the return to the ideals of extending friendship to all, and having entangling alliances with no one. Above all else, Imagine liberty and understand the responsibility having it demands from each of us. Imagine America not as an Empire but as a Republic.
Imagine if we had the chance to Restore America Now.
Imagine a Revolution.
Revolution isn't going to happen. They said stuff like this in the 60s. Not going to happen.
1.) National Wi-Fi (Access to information, it will also circulate the millions paid for the service into the economy.) 2.) Green Energy, Water and Resource Act. ( Aimed at reducing water, and electricity bills to Free. A one time product purchase to power houses ) 3.) High Speed Rail System (To connect the cities and create jobs) 4.) Technology Grant (For every person over 18 only redeemable to purchase computer device made by an American company) 5.) Electric Car Act (Mass production of a single electric car standard) Model T... 6.) Land Act. (Owner laws of unoccupied land must be examined in aim of selling land to people for reasonable prices to develop green communities that grow their own food) 7.) Wholistic Healthcare Reform Act (approach medicine from all angles including preventive and natural remedies while also focusing on reducing cost. ) 8.) Education Reform (School Age Change, Three Year Old Pre K Four Year Old School Age. Early Focus on Math and Sciences.) 9.) Small Business Investment Act (Give small business a chance to rebuild the nation, big business has seemed to fail) 10.) Increase In Global PR (Let us stop spending more money on war than we do on humanitarian campaigns)
Here is a list of demands that will change our economy, our lives, and the world. More details into these Acts and demands coming soon but for now this is what we need, not what we want.
Some of those demands sound too invasive of private industry. Whether you like it or not, mega industry is needed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy
how is corporate oligarchy perfectly fine? Your question is a false dillemma. A revolution is a nasty noisy event which ends in some form of oligarchy probably worse than the system we have now. We are talking about an evolutionary event, which is long over due, and something more like reform but transcending either term. Your idea that the system is perfectly fine is simply not aligned with the absolute facts. In fact the system is in dynamic decline and there are any one of 20 doomsday clocks ticking because of how bad things are. If civilization does not change course and drastically and immediately, everyone on this planet will probably die. This is not an excuse for rash or sudden decisions, and we need to think through the changes very carefully and very diplomatically.
to get serious requires a few things they don't have. like chat admins who aren't ego serving propaganda tools, a wiki, 1001 sub forums, an actual game plan, a straight up political platform... you know.. basic organizational things sane people do BEFORE protesting.. like figure out a diplomacy and logic centered metaprocess to give their chatadmins so that they don't really just drive out even more people than the trolls. Adminatrolla. trollaAdmin. Whats the difference to somebody whos got the truth facing a propaganda tool abusing admin powers to push their agenda? how can you prevent such a thing? Metaprocess. did i mention metaprocess? and science diplomacy science psychology science sociology and all those textbooks to read B4 protesting?
you can't have capitalism without a free(SLAVE) market. but you can have a free market without capitalism. And thats strangely the only way it CAN work.
Marketing 101 was fascinating. I admit thats a lot less than a bachelors but its sure more than enough to see whats really going on given the other things I know. Capitalism is not the problem since it does not exist. corporate oligarchy is the problem. capitalism has never been tried. I am a democracy guy. in order for real democracy to function a free market system is required. Thats not capitalism. thats a free market system. there is a subtle difference there which most people would miss. I will again repeat. Neither capitalism nor marxism nor communism nor socialism has ever existed. All of those governments were oligarchy pretending to be something as a con scam. Telling that simple truth gets one banned out of the Chat by either a capitalist or a socialist whos pissed you just said their pet ideology isn't real. It isn't. anybody who thinks that it is is accidentally playing for team corporate oligarchy as a tool. the ONLY system worth talking about is DEMOCRACY. how democracy HANDLES a FREE MARKET system is dynamic and interesting and NOT capitalism.
o. yes. no. yes. what? making change is not reliant on changing the money system one tenth as much as it is on changing the informational ecology. Going to a gold standard as an idea is a proof of ignorance, not a solution. Really the end game is we evolve out of money. To do that we evolve first new currencies and new economic strategies. this leads to economic singularity in about 50 years. If everyone is a millionaire how much you get depends on exactly the material valuation of that money. Which is to say that by the time money becomes obsolete everyone will live like the current millionaire. Tangible items to other tangible items? the real economy is about ideas, change the ideas and everything changes. the problem with the tangible economy is it does not change; its a static reality. you can't make a meaningful gold standard with only enough gold to represent on millionth of the economy. You can make a purely imaginal money system work; but it has to be subject to moral and ethical laws. This is about pinning down those moral and ethical laws and implementing them in new currencies; not trying to imagine a control freak impossible non solution because of the simplicity with which you go about thinking over the problem.
once again. there has never been a socialist or capitalist economy. in all instances such nations were oligarchies. using a mask and a con scam and telling their dupes and pwns that they were something other than oligarchy. the big hump to get over is that the USA oligarchy and the Soviet oligarchy are in on this lie against the rest of us TOGETHER. Neither of them was ever anything other than an oligarchy. both claimed some other system in order to have US fight over the ideals of THAT system while they secretly shafted us all playing a completely different game.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/stop-playing-the-devils-games/
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150343790359248&set=a.10150264906064248.348293.511989247&type=1&theater
America has running water, an electrical grid, indoor plumbing, etc. Our roads are paved, there is public education which allows a high rate of literacy, etc. There are BILLIONS of people on earth who do not have access to these things. You really think our system is SO BAD that it requires a revolution?? Does anybody here think this group of protestors can even challenge the effectiveness of our top-of-the-world military in fighting such a civil war??
The Occupation has not advocated socialism or direct democracy. I encourage you to join the Occupation, as I believe that nearly everyone wants reform. I believe that the vast number of Occupiers believe that corporations have taken powers that belong to the people - that is that our elected politicians are owned by monied interests and that they no longer work for us. We want to change that.
revolution is dangerous and would very likely make things unstable and worse. I'm not against free markets, just gross unfairness and inequality.
Kindly asking for your money and country back traitors, will not yield the result you espouse to obtain.
perhaps what the world needs is another french revolution. The rich were living in complete bliss and ignorance until the french commoners overthrew their regime. Can there be progress from reformation?
Too extreme. Cutting peoples heads off and falling into complete anarchy is not ideal.
yea, i want to continue to make my living and move forward in my just beginning career. I just want to know that im not being fucked over by the banks and the government and have trust in the currency that i am collecting.
Well, there are better ways to handle it.
I'm agreeing with you.
The thing is, how much are the government and the banks going to fight you for those things? Its not like they will easily give these freedoms.
i merely say this to show that i dont want to tear down the system, I want to repair it. I agree that shit needs to change but i dont think drastic measures are called for. I'd start by electing politicians with sound economic policies and who don't take money from Wall Street.
Who are those sound politicians? It seems like every time a politician promises something its just to get a vote and then those promises are forgotten. And I agree, repair the system. but sometimes a broken computer needs a repair technician - not its own self - in order to be fixed.
well there is one who qualifies but i dare not utter his name here.
who?
id recommend that you research the policies you believe in and then try to find candidates that support them. That is all.
Just get rid of the real evil fuckers who are in government and business and life that are fucking things up for the 99% of the people and that will do, but they have to be the real evil ones who are the ones who are really fucking things up for everybody.
Have you ever thought that the 99% might be part of the problem as well?
I think that the 100% are part of the problem.
I agree.
Most of the protesters are not smart enough to understand the difference.
Our system is not fine else we would not be having these problems.
The FEDs policies on lending the government money at interest must be removed. Debit is causing the financial crisis, debit is created out of our current system.
Straight up.
I can get behind a movement for reform. Revolution? Not so much.
I want reformolution.
If those in power no longer represent the ideals or needs of the people why not revolution? That is their very reason for being in power. If they don't want to listen why shouldn't we demand they step down or be removed?
Elaborate?
Reform is not a promising option.
"Practically speaking, the opponents to a reform in Massachusetts are not a hundred thousand politicians at the South, but a hundred thousand merchants and farmers here, who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to the slave and to Mexico, cost what it may. I quarrel not with far-off foes, but with those who, near at home, co-operate with, and do the bidding of those far away, and without whom the latter would be harmless. We are accustomed to say, that the mass of men are unprepared; but improvement is slow, because the few are not materially wiser or better than the many. It is not so important that many should be as good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump.(15) There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing; who even postpone the question of freedom to the question of free-trade, and quietly read the prices-current along with the latest advices from Mexico, after dinner, and, it may be, fall asleep over them both. What is the price-current of an honest man and patriot to-day? They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in earnest and with effect. They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to regret. At most, they give only a cheap vote, and a feeble countenance and Godspeed, to the right, as it goes by them. There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man" http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil1.html
So, people who agree with this sentiment are the only people who are good? Everyone else are the bad guys?
It has nothing to do with agreeing with this sentiment.
Who's the bad guy? The guy who pulls the trigger, or the guy who bought the gun and told him where to shoot?
Seems pretty basic to me. The ones not participating at all in wrongdoing would be the good ones.
Both are criminals. One gave him the means to kill and told him what to kill, and the other executed the order.
Following your logic both the "1%" and the "99%" are to blame.
Actually, that was your logic.
and I agree.
What is alright with our current system? The fact that a small fraction of interests are given the whole voice. We have veered so far from the basic concept of democracy, not to mention a fine tuning of democracy to modern times explicitly means a complete change to its appearance and operating mechanisms. Lets get methodical on this, I completely agree. What is a government supposed to do?
If it stands to serve its people, as ours is claimed then it should be dedicated to that agenda. If it isn't, The Declaration of Independence is our reset button, written by our forefathers as an exact layout for when a government has stepped outside its boundaries. That is revolution, but not for its namesake, but because it is a call to our highest nature. Not as a choice, but as an obligation. We deserve freedom.
See, quite simply a one sentence post cannot cover the breadth of what we are talking about. Reform would be nice, but aside from that document, America has no previous save state to return to.
I'm perfectly happy with our current system. It's easily the best out there.
We just need to solve the hiccup which is our economic problem. After that we should be just fine.
"It is easily the best out there."
Same could be said about monarchies 1,000 years ago.
Second
thats what needs to be reformed or more accurately fixed.