Forum Post: Egypt and Libya were not successful revolutions...
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 6, 2011, 8:13 a.m. EST by thomasmiller
(163)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I 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...
The former ruler of Egypt and Libya are liable for the present condition in there. They did not allow minimum democratic right to express the opinion of people. As there were no way to be organized before overthrowing the former ruler, so they did it.
People of Egypt and Libya learned through their struggle that, peoples common desire is achievable through the path of struggle. The people of Egypt and Libya will rebuilt their own life on their own way. Let them fight to be free from corporate looters of EU & USA.
But ours (ows) will be different.
They made a trade. A profound trade. Of course there will be economic shock - hopefully, they will be healing their wounds and moving along.
There are so many demands out there but we need to pick an issue that is simple - that is popular - how about an issue - that gets to the root cause - the primary corruption - that 83% of Americans agree on -
that 56% of TP agree on -
that will bring together the people in OWS with the people outside of OWS
Our only goal should be to pass a constitutional amendment to counter Supreme Court decisions Citizens United (2010) & Buckley v. Valeo (1976), that enable unlimited amounts of anonymous money to flood into our political system.
It will be as short and concise as possible, a legally constructed
“corporations and other organizations are not a persons and have no personhood rights”
and
“money is not free speech”.
We don’t have to explain or persuade people to accept our position – we have to persuade them to ACT based on their own position. Pursuing this goal will prove to the world that we, at OWS, are a serious realistic Movement, with serious realistic goals. Achieving this goal will make virtually every other goal – from jobs, to taxes, to infrastructure , to Medicare – much easier to achieve –
by disarming our greatest enemy – GREED.
THE SUCCESS STORY OF THE AMENDING PROCESS The Prohibition movement started as a disjointed effort by conservative teetotalers who thought the consumption of alcohol was immoral. They ransacked saloons and garnered press coverage here and there for a few years. Then they began to gain support from the liberals because many considered alcohol partially responsible for spousal and child abuse, among other social ills. This odd alliance, after many years of failing to influence change consistently across jurisdictions, decided to concentrate on one issue nationally—a constitutional amendment. They pressured all politicians on every level to sign a pledge to support the amendment. Any who did not, they defeated easily at the ballot box since they controlled a huge number of liberal, and conservative and independent swing votes in every election. By being a single-issue constituency attacking from all sides of the political spectrum, they very quickly amassed enough votes (2/3) to pass the amendment in Congress. And, using the same tactics, within just 17 months they were successful in getting ¾ of the state legislatures to ratify the constitutional amendment into law. (Other amendments were ratified even faster: Eight—the 7th, 12th, 13th, 15th, 17th, 20th, 21st and 26th—took less than a year. The 26th, granting 18-year-olds the right to vote, took just three months and eight days.)
If they could tie the left and right into a success -
WHY CAN'T WE??????????
I feel that we should stay with this simple text to overturn CU:
”corporations are not people” and “money is not free speech”
for four simple reasons and one – not so simple:
1
83% of Americans have already opposed CU in the ABC/Washington post poll and the above
IS THEIR POSITION ALREADY.
2
We don’t have to work to convince people on the validity of our position.
3
Simple is almost always better.
4
This simple Amendment is REQUIRED to overturn CU.
And all other electoral reform can be passed through the normal legislative process.
5
OWS and these pages are chock full of ( mostly ) excellent ideas to improve our country.
All of them have strong advocates – and some have strong opposition.
None of them has been “pre-approved” by 83% of Americans !
Pursuing this goal – without additional specifics is exactly what Americans want.
What do we want? Look at that almost endless list of demands – goals - aims.
Tax the rich. End the Fed. Jobs for all, Medicare for all. So easy to state! Can you imagine how hard it would be to formulate a “sales pitch” for any of these to convince your Republican friends to vote for any of them?
83% of Americans have ALREADY “voted” against CU. And 76% of the Rs did too.
All we have to do ask Americans is to pressure their representatives – by letters - emails – petitions.
Wanna take your family on vacation?
Convince the 7 year old and the 10 year old to go to Mt Rushmore.
Then try to convince them to go to Disneyland.
Prioritizing this goal will introduce us to the world – not as a bunch of hippie radical anarchist socialist commie rabblerousers – but as a responsible, mature movement that is fighting for what America wants.
I feel that using the tactics of the NRA, the AARP an the TP – who all represent a minority – who have successfully used their voting power to achieve their minority goals - plus the Prohibition Amendment tactics – bringing all sides together - is a straight path for us to success that cannot fail to enable us to create and complete one MAJORITY task.
No kidding. That part of the world has demanded dictatorship since the beginning.
allah will make it better for them.
This is exactly why we need to put in place a reliable internet voting system so we can make a smooth and non-violent move to direct democracy. We don't need or want violence. It isn't any fun.
But we do need to withhold taxes and cooperation until we get the voting, laws that force government to follow the vote and the books! We absolutely gotta get audits and the books and start directing spending with the popular vote. If we don't control this we will end up worse than the middle east. We absolutely must control the spending.
direct democracy, lulz
http://uponlocal.com/up-on-local-media/content/operation-occupy-communications-center
"a reliable internet voting system " LOL. You'll never be able to do it. The Internet is the most unsecured mass electronic system on the planet.You think the present electronic voting systems are reliable? LOL, if you do your a fool. Now amp up the level of unreliability a million times and you have the Internet. Anyone who has ever worked on a big system and especially worked in security on them knows how easily hacked they are. We need just the opposite a return to a truly "secure" paper ballot. No machines. Canada and India both use such systems and it works.
I have seen your point many times, so I say use the internet for speed, but back it up with a paper system, also. Whatever it takes to make it secure. If votes are shown later to be false, we can do the vote again; and prosecute those who tampered.
Tampering with the vote can be a mandatory life in prison, if need be. Whatever it takes. We must have the people voting on issues in a democracy. There can be no democracy without timely and consistent voting. Issue voting cards like credit cadrs, use fingerprint ID, use DNA ID, use 10 different passwords, do cross indexing on addresses, etc. It can be done.
Trillions of dollars are moved everyday on the internet and the Military uses it constantly as well, so secure, encrypted communication is going on all the time. The military and establishment just don't like e-voting cause they know where it going. Us over them!
Look the real reason I'm against such a so called "instant voting" system is no matter how you say it will be secured and a system will be devised to make sure its tamper proof the same thieves that have destroyed our economy by gaming every system and every regulator and every pol, the courts etc. will get control and turn this so called secure system on its head and then they'll have the ultimate form of control an instantly rigged so called secure voting system. On top of that democracy is NOT about speed friend. Your confusing commerce with State power. Issues need to be mulled over and the voters need time to digest and judge tjem before voting on them. Paper is safer and time is NOT of the essence. Look for example at the Human Mic in these GA's in the occupies. They're slow, some say even tortuously slow, but they allow people time to think. Speed and too much of it lends itself IMO to easy manipulation. The thing that's terribly wrong with our present system isn't that its too slow . Its corrupted by huge amounts of Corp. cash from top to bottom. We the People are no longer Represented by it. The pols do what their funding base wants not We the People. The top 5% of our society rules , we have a Plutocracy. Better for us to amend the Constitution to reverse some awful SCOTUS rulings the 1st says that Money is speech, its NOT.. The 2nd. is that Corps. are people, they're not . Voting no matter how fast or secure is worthless if your vote means nothing.
They will certainly try to game the system what ever it is, but they have already gamed the current system so we have to dump it. And at least try something new. We should back it up with paper, but they will game that too. There is so much money at stake here and the 1% have untold wealth to begin with.
I'm leaning towards granting month or two for all important votes so people can research and decide as they find time. And all American do is vote on major stuff like balanced budget and health care and defense spending and whether we go to war. And once they set principal they are done voting until something else comes up. We gotta work it out by consensus. The rest of your post I also agree with.
We have a Representative form of Gov't I doubt that will change. We need to get the Corps. out from between us and our Reps. is the problem. The PTB have made it so expensive to run only candidates they support can even bother and then unless they are Independently wealthy they are in hock to the money people, no matter what their beliefs are.
First you say the rep gov wont change, then you give me good reasons to change it?
Let's just bypass it with good old fashioned internet voting backed up with some major strikes on taxes and business.
We can't fix a broken wheel.
Easier said then done. Unless your going to shit can the present Constitution and that will probably bring on a 2nd Civil War that isn't going to happen.
Nobody wants to can the constitution, just remarry its original intent with modern technology. Nothing lost; much gained
Dont forget the song "We Won't Get Fooled Again". Lets say you get your direct democracy internet system then it will get corrupted eventually.
I see you use the words "force government". Let me tell you something. This government was elected by the people. There were people who went to voting booths and polling places...they placed their vote and this is what they got. There will be elections held again in a year and the people will get something different. So when you say "force government" you really mean "force the people". Right now, OWS is a minority group of thousands amongst 350 million people. You have to respect the 350 million people that are here and you have no right to "force" them to do anything.
Direct action like with-holding taxes and cooperation is one step away from terrorism as you choose to make this not a land of law and order. Honestly, is that the way you want to go?
I disagree that this government was elected by the people. The people never intended to elect the mess that has come to them. They were tricked and lied to. So the election is another scam perpetrated by the 1%.
We cannot trust them now and they force us to take back control before we are bankrupt. Our movement is necessary self defense.
Perhaps our biggest issue is this...
The Electoral College.
http://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/electoral-college.htm
"Most of the time, electors cast their votes for the candidate who has received the most votes in that particular state. However, there have been times when electors have voted contrary to the people's decision, which is entirely legal."
We have never had anything close to a democratic republic when you get right down to it.
Yes, and this has got to change. We need an educated democracy, but right now we have a hyped and dysfunctional democracy. We need to first get the voting set up, and then let people vote to fix all the other problems which number in the thousands really. But we probably can't even do this until the 1% are screened out for awhile.
If you believed that Obama would solve all our problems then I have news for you...no one individual is going to be "cure all" to all your problems. I saw this in 2008 when people gave Obama a lot of credit. It was really your fault if you truly believed one individual would solve your problems.
No system is 100% perfect. Is your life which you have direct control of perfect? I know what you are going to say...you are going to blame someone else for the problems in your own life.
In thousands of years, there has been no perfect system and what you imagine is a Utopia. Marx, Lenin, Mao, etc. dreamed of a Utopia and might I ask is it all Utopia in North Korea today?
The point is now that we can get to a higher system with direct democracy over the Internet. So this must be tried and honed and perfected. Any centralization of power will be corrupted. This is the lesson of history, over and over. So we must decentralize. I did not vote last time because I knew whoever got in would be an Illuminati candidate and I did not want that on my conscience.
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I will give you my opinion on your reply. I do not want you replying to me. It seems like all you do is post up this same youtube link to the same thing over and over again. That is not useful in our discussion. Im not sure why you are doing it.
he ran out of arguments.