Forum Post: How to broaden the movement and bring about lasting change

n my opinion, the most effective approach to achieve significant and lasting change would be to define the movement's purpose in terms of a small set of problems that the vast majority of the public can agree must be tackled and solved for the good of our society and democracy. The "demands" would be that the government enact legislation that addresses these problems without being specific about the details. This will encourage discussion concerning how these problems should be solved. It will make it easier for the media (and supporters) to explain the movement's agenda to the public and this, in turn, will reinforce the perception that the movement has a unified and coherent message. It will make the movement more attractive to members of both political parties because the necessity of solving these problems will already have broad public support. The public can use the positions of the political parties and individual members related to these problems to help determine who they should vote for and support financially. Finally, if our elected leaders do nothing to solve these problems, we can hold them accountable by voting them out of office.

Here are some of the problems that I think are drawing people to the protest and could have wide support among the movement and public in general. Whatever what one thinks of the particular problems that I am suggesting, I think framing the movement in terms of agreed upon problems deserves to be considered.

Inequality There is growing and substantial income inequality in our country. The middle class has seen its income stagnate in the last four decades and actually decrease by over 7% in the last decade. The top 1% have seen their income skyrocket by 271% in the the last three decades. The top 1 percent are taking in more of the nations income than at any other time since the 1920's.

Wall Street Greed and corruption on Wall Street have led to repeated market bubbles which have damaged our economy and lowered the standard of living for millions of Americans, The recent recession was in large part due to the excesses of Wall Street

Financial regulations in place prior to the most recent financial crisis were inadequate to prevent the crisis, Regulatory institutions have not been able to proactively identify bubbles to prevent harm to the economy

The public was forced to bail out Wall Street and have seen little payback in terms of lending and legal accountability. At the same these same institutions are seeing substantial profits and have provided generous bonuses to their employees

Taxes The wealthiest individuals in our society and large corporations are able to avoid paying their fair share of taxes by using special preferences and loop holes.

Jobs We have over 27 million people in our country that are either underemployed, unemployed, or have dropped out of the work force altogether. The private sector has been unable to create enough jobs to lower unemployment

Housing Due to high unemployment and falling home prices millions of Americans have lost their homes to foreclosure. Borrowers with relatively good credit records are having trouble getting loans.

Campaign Finance Our political process has been corrupted by wealthy special interests and large corporations. These large contributors use their large donations to have a disproportionate influence over our political representatives and, in the process, have drowned out the voices of the rest.