Forum Post: Jeffrey Sachs should be one of the spokespeople for movement. Watch what he said in front of CNN cameras yesterday in Zucotti Park
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 10, 2011, 8:30 a.m. EST by aswewalk
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If you look at what he has to say when he spoke in front of world media cameras when he spoke yesterday in Liberty Park, I think you'll agree. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8svbm4WYmU&feature=youtube_gdata_player . Wow!
We don't have spokespeople. And we won't. Once we have a single name and face, the media can easily win. Right now they are afraid of our group, so lets keep it a group
Actually, what you're saying makes sense. I've been hearing that over and over again from a few people (resist identifying leader and resist zeroing innon demands). I've been resistant to that because: a) I though the movement would miss out on important voices and ideas and b) I thought the movement wouldn't grow or be taken seriously until leaders and demands were specified. I was clearly wrong on both counts. Great speakers like the one referenced above and great articles like the one in today's New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/opinion/panic-of-the-plutocrats.html?_r=1 are getting the message out to millions and it's a fantastic message.
I was previously resistant to this leaderless demandless approach. But now I realize the following (and please tell me if I'm wrong): You and those that agree with you do want great messages getting to Americans. You just don't want to "bless" the speaker or author as "official" because then the oligarchs and their minions can go into their practiced battle mode to destroy credibility of the speaker or author. So, you might actually agree with certain demands, articles and speakers and you might secretly hope they spread like wildfire. But, if I have this right, you and others feel it will actually undermine the power of those messages if they're called official or cited as speaking for the movement.
If I'm hearing you right, what is really happening here is very simple (alluded to in the excellent NYTimes piece above: the 99% of the people who have been getting the shaft are finally waking up to the fact that they have the power. And I suppose your thought is that once that idea becomes somewhat settled in the consciousness of the 99%, the great leaders and the great demands will rise on their own because they capture the imagination of the 99%.
There are details I worry about here, of course, if this succeeds. The great leaders and demands must have an open forum and must have the ability to not just report on referendum votes but to help shape what the votes are. Great leaders (and they're out there) could help mold consensus and I believe that is a much better situation than everyone just clicking on an online survey of ten or hundred possibilities and the one with the most clicks win. Jeffrey Sachs makes that point near the end of the video.
Anyway, do I have the general gist of why you and others think leaderless and demandless is best for now?
You have it mostly right, but leaders also divide things. Plus there is the fact that it is an ideal thing. We have come so far without a leader, why start now to apease the media?
I do agree though that a few "powerful speakers" could "lead discussion" But they wouldn't be the face of the group.
I totally agree with aswewalk, and I really liked Paul Krugman's article in the NYT. But, I also think there is a timing issue with getting a good spokesperson (or spokes_committee) and a well thought out list of (I use the term loosely) Demands. GandhiKingMindset - "PROPOSED LIST OF DEMANDS" is really well thought out and probably should be at the top of any final list. Besides a good list might: 1) help some people understand why people are demonstratingon Wall Street, 2) help interested people start their research in the right direction to what is really wrong with Wall Street, and 3) help others to stay focus on what the important issues are.
Note: OWL is getting a lot of crazies on their forum, and it is becoming harder-and-harder to figure out who are planted to piss people of.
I suggest Matt Taibbi (RollingStones) because I think he has done the best job of making a difficult subject as clear as possible:
Matt Taibbi (RollingStone) Interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waL5UxScgUw
Matt Taibbi (RollingStone) "The Great American Bubble Machine" set to video (this is great): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEhQrnKTQk0
The Great American Bubble Machine (article): http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405
Matt Taibbi Explains How Wall Street Works (TALF) [8:15]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9etlLzuMfM
The Real Housewives of Wall Street (article): http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-real-housewives-of-wall-street-look-whos-cashing-in-on-the-bailout-20110411
For more (listed all in one place): http://just-gov.com/heroes-whistle-blowers/
I think it's important for eloquent speakers with credentials to lend "validity" to the movement. I say this with a chuckle because we all know that there doesn't seem to be a grain of validity these days in any of the news sources we rely on to get our information...save J Stewart and Colbert. But I agree with Anonymous...to have a spokesperson is to have a stationary target. To remain leaderless is to breathe life into a new "process". It didn't take just one leader to bring the people to the streets. And now public intellectuals have the opportunity to help win favorable media coverage for the movement. This is perhaps enough. One person may be discredited...but thousands upon thousands may not be. If there's one thing that's going to shake the foundations of power in this country.........I digress....there isn't one thing...there are 309,144,585(the 99%) of them! Power to the people!
Do you have any idea what this piece of neo-liberal shit did to the people of Russia and Eastern Europe? According to the Lancet medical journal, the hardline neo-liberal capitalist policies advocated by Sachs when he was advisor to Russian president Boris Yeltsin led to the preventable deaths of OVER A MILLION adult men in the decade following the collapse of the USSR. In five years(1991-96), the average life expectancy in Russia dropped from 68 to 58 years. 72 million Russians were plunged into poverty.
These policies were so unpopular that the Russian parliament tried to fire Yeltsin, to which Yeltsin responded by SHELLING THE PARLIAMENT WITH TANKS. Sachs supported Yeltsin's actions. How's that for democracy?
Is that what you want? Why should we take anything this man takes seriously, after all the misery he and people like him have caused? This man is an enemy of the workers, not a friend.