Forum Post: Keep the movement going, AVOID co-opt by the establishment...

How? By focusing demands on common ground that the 99% can get behind. Democrats, republicans, independents. Unions. Tea Partiers. What do we all have in common?

1. Restore Democracy. We all want real representative government. Get $ out of politics, as much as possible. We are tired of the broken 2 party system in US politics, where both parties are bought and paid for, 3rd party candidates ignored and not viable, super PACs can hide unlimited contributions ("free speech"), and where 99% of us essentially have taxation without representation.

2. End Corporate Welfare. We are all fed up with corporate bailouts, tax payer supported subsidies, and the corporate push to privatize profit while socializing risks. Corporate personhood should be overturned and the ridiculous patent system overhauled.

3. Reform Taxes. We all want an overhaul of our tax system, of some kind (we disagree about the details and end goals, but can't even have this conversation in our broken political climate).

4. Decrease Military Spending. Most Americans want to reduce military spending and bring troops home.

5. Increase American Competitiveness. In energy, industry, and education. We all agree with encouraging more energy production at home (decrease foreign oil dependence) and less outsourcing of American jobs. We know we need to really improve education. We may disagree about how.

There is likely more we have in common, but the first 2-3 I think are the most important. Especially the first point; without ending corporate control of our political system we have no chance of making progress in any other area, even if our chosen officials get elected. We most certainly won't have the opportunity to fight over the details of the things we don't agree on.

Once we have enough buy-in from the rest of the 99%, we can use the power of our numbers to tell our elected officials that if they refuse to meet our demands (specifically the first point above) we WILL vote them out of office--especially during the primaries.

The 1% (and political establishment) will be happy for us to remain divided. They will be happy to paint OWS as just a bunch of jobless hipsters/hippies. They will be happy to have the movement be co-opted by the political establishment (probably dems) like what happened with the Tea Party and republicans. The way we stop them from doing so is to make our main message so broad and so appealing to all Americans that they can't disagree with us, they can't demonize us. In fact, they may join us! We need to be inclusive and ask our fellow Americans to stand together with us, set aside our political differences for now, until we have the chance to use our political system properly, to have the more detailed debates.