Forum Post: #OccuPAC aims to help elect occupiers
Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 10, 2011, 8:46 p.m. EST by samwohns
(7)
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Help fight back against K Street with an #OccupyPAC to fund the campaigns of occupiers. http://www.bitly.com/occupypac
If we don't raise $15,000 by midnight on December 25, we'll refund your contribution. Pledge your support today and help #occupythevote in 2012.
This is honestly a great idea; however what I would like for you to do is for you to make your bio and info publicly avaliable to the people you solicit from as an expression of good faith.
This is great. As leader of OWS I am running for president my name is Chest Rockwell.
My name is Sam Wohns and I'm a sophomore at Harvard University. I can be reached at sam [dot] wohns [at] gmail [dot] com.
I've been an #OWS supporter since the beginning. I helped organize a group of my peers to participate in the beginning of Occupy DC at Freedom Plaza and I was one of the initial organizers of the still ongoing Occupy Harvard. I continue to play an active role in the Occupy movement.
I see the #OccupyPAC as one tactic that the movement can employ to achieve structural change. It should not replace what we all continue to do at our occupations across the country, but it could serve as a complementary tactic.
What happened to "get money out of politics"? LOL Next you'll be hiring lobbyists! There is no end to OWS hypocrisy.
Wow! If there is anything that could destroy the occupy movement it's an idea like this.
So if you don't want a (potential) voice in the government, what do you want?? You are all so confused. You can't beat the people your after outside their walls, y'know.
If you actually read the theoretical material and (few) manifestos actually coming out of OWS (as opposed to bogus stuff like the 99% Declaration) I think it is pretty clear that what OWS wants has nothing to do with electoral politics as popularly understood. What OWS wants is a total transformation of the entire society, world wide, democratically from below. You don't have to go very far to figure that out if you just actually pay attention to where you are. Just look at the top of this page. Do you see what it says? It says "The revolution continues world wide." Do you think that's hyperbole? The people who put it there don't. They were as serious as a heart attack. And they were the people who started OWS.
Of course OWS realizes that most Americans are not revolutionaries. That is why most of us acknowledge that our project will take years, probably decades and possibly several lifetimes. Patience is a revolutionary virtue. It is the liberals among us with their silly nostrums about campaign finance reform and such who are impatient, not the radicals.
You can't read "theoretical" material: the·o·ret·i·cal [thee-uh-ret-i-kuhl] Show IPA adjective 1. of, pertaining to, or consisting in theory; not practical ( distinguished from applied). 2. existing only in theory; hypothetical. 3. given to, forming, or dealing with theories; speculative. Most Americans don't give a shit. I'm willing to bet when winter really hits, the bulk of your people will be out of it.
If you want to start a "New World Order" stand in line. There are people with real power working on it.
I still don't know what you are talking about, so, I expect, from the point of view of building OWS, it's not really all that important.
The site messed up my format. So, I'll try this again
2 If you want a New World Order, you're (as a group, not the individuals0 going to have to make more positive impact. I've talked to many people about this, because I am genuinely interested in this whole "movement", and they either don't care, don't know a whole lot, or hate. Me, I am neutral. I watch and ask questions.
3 While it may be a worldwide event, what governmental changes in any other countries have happened?? Has anyone stepped down due to your influence(seriously)?
4 Most Americans aren't revolutionaries, because the bulk of them no longer care. Your going to have to get you message out in a way that won't be ignored(back to the whole government thing above). If you want this to last more than through the winter, how are you going to go about it?? And if my questions are not important(because I'm not one of the Rich guys your after) then how are you supposed to be listened to by someone who feels the opposite way??
Just because the news media is fixated on the up coming elections is no reason why OWS should be. Historically social movements have never run on the same tempo as the electoral cycle. What is more, a crucial aspect of OWS theory is that we live in a corporate state. That the major corporations so dominate the whole electoral process that engagement in it is not simply futile but actually counter productive as it sows the illusion (as more radical OWSers would see it) that it is actually possible to change this corporate state from within.
There is a lot of cognitive dissonance within the general public in America between what they believe, what they say they believe, what they think they believe and how they act. Most Americans, when questioned generally view themselves as moderate or even conservative. However, when questioned on an issue by issue basis, it turns out that people have views that are not simply liberal but often quite radical. Most people, given the opportunity, would belong to a union if they could. Most people are for some kind of national health care more or less similar to medicare for all. Most people are really opposed to America's military adventures abroad.
Beyond that the movement has done an exceptional job in reaching out to broader constituencies. From its earliest days it has built an alliance between sections of organized labor and the radical intelligentcia not seen in America since the 1940s. Most recently, with the occupations of foreclosed and vacant housing it has begun to build an alliance with the homeless and people who have been evicted due to being under water on their mortgages.
While it is true that most Americans are not revolutionaries, the radicals in OWS are perfectly aware of this to the extent that they are much more patient with regard to how long it will take the movement to succeed than are liberals in the movement. Most see the movement taking years to succeed, probably decades, possibly several lifetimes. Patience is a revolutionary virtue.
The movement will last for many many reasons. For one thing the crises that it is addressing appear not to be merely cyclical but rather systemic. If the crises don't go away, but in fact get worse, then it is also unlikely that the movement will disappear. Also, this is a genuinely international movement facing genuinely international crises. If it gets shut down in one place it will undoubtedly gain energy elsewhere.
Elections aren't happening for a while. And most of your "radicals" get paid to "protest". Yes there are systemic problems, but if you don't try to change things from the inside out, nothing will happen.
I don't know where the notion of getting paid to protest comes from. About the only place I have seen that is in organized labor, and there it is only a minority tendency. And labor hardly constitutes a major factor in the protest movements of recent decades.
It is true that labor unions have immense paid staffs and they are often typically required to show up at picket lines and other types of protests as a condition of employment. In many instances they are responsible for organizing such events. It is there job. It is what they are paid to do, but it still only represents a tiny fraction of the protests that have existed in the US in the last several decades.
Occasionally striking workers are expected to show up on picket lines as a condition of getting strike pay to see them through a strike without a regular pay check. But again these instances are inconsequential in comparison to the many protest movements of recent decades.
I personally have been involved in every social movement in this nation since 1964 and I've never been paid a dime for it, neither has anyone I know with the exception of a handful of union organizers I know. So I don't know where this notion of radicals getting paid to protest comes from. I've never seen it in 50 years of going to demonstrations, rallies and picket lines.
Labor unions protest for themselves.I'm not talking about strikes. I am talking about the "Occupiers". Check out my post about people getting paid to protest:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/how-many-protestors-are-being-paid/#comment-493324
It is a slanderous lie to say that OWS occupiers are being paid. If you actually look at the top of the thread you where that particular slander originates you will see it is about an ad for employment with Working America, the community affiliate of the AFL-CIO. While SOME labor unions have a good relationship with OWS, not all do, and even those that do are separate entities. That is labor unions and OWS are two separate entities. Some labor unions in some localities do have some of their professional staffs acting as liasons with OWS, but that is not the same as being OWS. Labor organizers and OWS activists are two separate things. While a labor organizer may be acting as a liason between their organization and OWS they are not occupiers and I don't know of a single occupier being paid to occupy.
Not slander, fact. If they are flying the flag of fighting for the "99%", who do you think that sounds like?? And how do you think some of these people can protest for months without losing their jobs or houses?
I have met dozens of occupiers from all over the nation. I have yet to meet a single occupier who is being paid to occupy. One can yet "fact" until they are blue in the face, but that does not make it so. Ultimately it is such a silly boundless charge that there is not much point in responding to it since nobody who has had any actual contact with OWS could possibly take it seriously. About 14% of the occupiers in New York are actually unemployed. As for the employed occupiers, many are independent professionals with flexible work schedules. Many work a full day and then spend 8 hours or more doing volunteer work for OWS. That is certainly my personal situation and that of other occupiers I know.