Forum Post: Occupy and settle in but dont get too comfy. Time to progress. Please Share
Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 8, 2011, 1:04 a.m. EST by philosophicalranter
(6)
from Wandsworth, England
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Also posted within OWS research and http://bit.ly/rpmxJE
Dear Reader,
Please share this blog in its entirety, cut and copy, twitter, FB or scan off. Feel free to circulate my ideas to progress the Occupy movement with forward thinking people and movers and shakers. Thank you. Philosophicalranter@gmail.com
Having followed the Occupy movement with great interest, I have spent some time trawling through websites and blogs. I have to say I am blown away by the efforts and sacrifices by supporters having taken to the streets and 'occupying' the internet in an effort to change the system. Many are people who do not usually speak out, they cross political divides and who do not usually have a voice. Forget stereotyping by right wing opponents the supporters are truly diverse. This is not just an American movement but a global one. And yet I'm concerned for it's future. As admirable as the movement is there are problems that need observing and working out before it dies a death.
Firstly, there are numerous amounts of messages coming out, regarding a multiple of issues that supporters feel strongly about. All are shouting to end inequality and unfair practices, however the priority message differs towards - employment, social security, health, defence, poverty, debt, environment, climate, preservation or (to coin the phase of many a 'Miss World' contestant) "World peace". Without focus, supporters will move to a niche rather than a collective. Globally the Occupy movement needs more coverage too, otherwise the world will view this as an American protest and again it will tail off. The UK protests are very limited now.
Secondly, I am quickly lost in the maze of information and effort. It's clear that this movement is in its infancy and just getting comfortable in its skin. However, any movement needs organisation and leadership to succeed. So I wanted to seek out the mainframe but couldn't determine who that is. I settled on Occupy Wall St http://occupywallst.org/ as the front runner, although Occupy Washington DC http://october2011.org/ is equally as good. http://www.facebook.com/occupytheworld and http://www.facebook.com/occupyeverywhere are also excellent for collective information. It is easy to get overawed by the hundreds of occupy groups, but as yet no true representative location. I fear the quagmire will scare the average person away. Analysis of social networks suggest there are approximately 900 Occupy groups in the US and 350 in other parts of the world.
Thirdly, while it is truly amazing watching people organising themselves to collectively occupy a park or a building or a vacant property or a senator's office, my concern is that while the 'die hards' can and will dig in, others will lose focus, particularly whereby the focus is to stand or sit around for long periods of time in various locations facing hostility and risking arrest. To what ends - pneumonia? As much as I applaud the effort and hope things will change, no arrogant or corrupt power-monger will be changing their attitudes. Politicians and leaders of any group are in positions of power because they enjoy ruling. Even if they initially intended to serve you, over time they generally become tyrants. They may appease you, certainly when they want to be elected but real change will not happen. Not if your focus is to occupy for the next twenty years. This I say not to demotivate but to refocus and encourage effective strategies. You must progress or you risk stagnation. Make no demands but create change yourselves.
Below is an updated post, I hurriedly published on the OccupyWallSt. site a few days back. I have kept it simplistic as it needs much more thought and organisation beyond my own intelligence and time constraints. I would hope this would be read by those wanting progression and direction. Again as I don't know where the best brains of the Occupy movement are, so I would request that whoever is reading this would share my thoughts. Thank you.
Philosophical Ranter :)
You need a focal point and spokespeople to prioritise your message. You must show the issues transparently so that the people understand the fight and why they should join in (For me it is World Poverty and equalising third world nations to our own level of social structure, to someone else its the environment, to someone else it's local social security, to someone else its health...etc). Make no demands but PRIORITISE THE MESSAGES
You have lots of support but... Which site do I follow? Which Twitter page? Where do I discuss my points? Is it here where the movement formally took hold or should it be a national or global occupy website? I believe the movement really began with the Arab Spring and Egypt's martyrs. Therefore shouldn't we ensure that our brothers in the middle East are given a focal platform too. With no leadership there is no direction and the movement will continually go round in circles. This is why Vietnam opposition took 3 years before 50% of Americans got behind it. You need to grab the attention of all Occupy twitter, fb, Google+, Websites etc., have a common and centralised meeting ground where a negotiated message of direction is formulated. So COMMON FOCAL POINT
You need to fight fire with fire by getting onto the political stage. Attach other bodies that support the greater good (Global charities, civil liberty groups, selected media, environmentalist, philanthropist, humanist, unionist, disillusioned politicians, student unions - this list is endless) and get representation. You have a huge support base at the moment. Don't lose it by losing focus!!! Push for fair representation in government - globally if possible. In the very least you will break up the vote and other politicians will sway towards marginals to booster their own campaigns. Remember too how popular the Green Party became a number of years back throughout Europe. They even got elected. This could really work globally, if you can get professional. So make no demands but gain REPRESENTATION IN GOVERNMENT
- If you ran the country what would you do about the points you are fighting against? Would you cap profit? Cap the rich? And what is acceptable wealth? How would you manage change? Have you solutions while you are dismantling empires? Would you incriminate past exploitation and corruption on a global scale and how would those punishments take shape? What about issues like oil dumping, or mis-selling products or even conspiracies such as 9/11? So OPEN AND PROGRESSIVE MANIFESTO
5.You need financial backing. But you also need to be selective as to where the money comes from otherwise you will be slaughtered in the media, politicians and by social critics. The fat cat corporations will either throw weight to block your voice or to corrupt your basis. Be transparent with all funding and canvass hard from everywhere you can gain support ethically. So ETHICAL FUNDING
Transparency is key in ALL areas, particularly your manifesto and funding, leadership and supporters. But also in your 'Common Focal Point' you also need to be transparent towards who you oppose and to target specific businesses, banks and corporations who are damning the world by feeding themselves. Targeting a corporation or a particularly vile business on a monthly or even weekly basis is educational as long as it is honest. Share this focus with the world and suggest the actions. CLEAR AND FOCUSSED ACTION AGAINST GREED, INEQUALITY AND FAIRNESS, WORLDWIDE.
Transparency needs to be transparent! What I mean by this is the language you use, the formats, the displays, the layouts. They need to be very easily understood and accessible. Simplistic and clear. It's no good discussing issues using 'university English' or have a format website that resembles the FT or a minefield of information. If you want to grab the majority of the country and of the world, you MUST appeal to the mass audience. The masses did not go to college and NEED to understand what you are talking about before they switch off through boredom. TRANSPARENCY FROM TOP TO BOTTOM
Hold your hand up if you pursued the wrong direction or backing. Don't be embarrassed or ashamed to say ' We got this wrong' or We're no longer pursuing this direction because...'. Humility and honesty is admirable. Even a movement is 'human' and people respect that. And be careful who you ally with. They could be infiltrating and sabotaging your operation from within. So HUMILITY AND HONESTY
Finally, regarding tactics for progression from an Activist. 'Occupy' has done great job delivering awareness on so many levels. Even mainstream media are 'outting' corporations and banks through documentaries etc. But the Occupy tactics needs to progress. Highlight who they are, highlight why they are so vile and encourage the world to BOYCOTT that company. 'Outting' through a global-public watchdog would be amazing if you get it right. You can absolutely hammer a company and by doing so put fear into others. This could die a death or grow and grow like never before. If successful you will hit corrupt global banks and even the political parties. OUTTING AND BOYCOTTING
If you like this blog please also read http://philosophical-ranter.blogspot.com/2011/11/open-letter-to-enemy-of-progression.html Please now everybody go off and Occupy CNN and Fox. Make no demands, because that WONT make a change. I hope you will. I wish all of you who are actively involved in some way, the very best of luck in changing our globally corrupt social-economic structures which are based on debt and suffering for the betterment of a few. Power to the people and Good Luck.
I like the ideas posited above.
Especially that of transparency.
If we had a bit more transparency on this site - a way of indexing who posted what, it would be clear who was advocating nonsense and deliberately diluting the message, and we could then begin applying our own filters to weed out that nonsense.
What I am saying is that it appears the trolls have an unfair advantage with the current format.
People running around saying "we're not political! we're leaderless!" without understanding the meaning of the words or seeing the inherent inconsistency: leaderless according to ??? the leaders??? who say 'we' have no leaders??? And say we're not political when they presume the power to make a representative statement? The logical fallacy should be fairly obvious. Anyway,
Here's a simple test: Tell someone you heard that there was going to be a big announcement from OWS tonight then ask them where they think it will be made or where you should go to look for it. I think you'll find most people will answer Liberty Park, NYCGA. I know that's where I first tuned in to find out what was going on. You also confirm my observation in your post here. So it's a problem. Just because it is said over and over that we are leaderless doesn't make it true. While it is true that OWS does not have a figurehead single individual, the NYCGA is by default the leaders of the movement. Another tell-tale sign of course is that financial donations were primarily sent to New York.
What about 'we are not political'? I cannot accept this oft-repeated mantra either. In the first place, this concept is a barrier to progress for the movement. Anarchy is an interesting ideology but it is clear by now that the vast majority of people are seeking political solutions to problems created by bad laws. The politicians who refuse to re-write the laws simply need to be replaced and therefore the vast majority of people seek political solutions, not extremist ones. Secondly, I find it disturbing that these claims of being leaderless and non political were crafted by a handful of UNELECTED individuals (call them the 1% of protesters) and published in 'official' vision statements on 'official' websites. This to me is a clear contradiction in terms.
Whether accidental or deliberate, the situation is untenable. As you point out, it is obvious that the movement is in jeopardy. I might not be saying this were the occupations continuing, but they are only figuratively continuing. Failing to move into the political ring will render the movement impotent. The plan outlined in the 99% Declaration takes the movement to the next level just as the Suffolk Resolves took the 13 colonies to the next level in 1774.
The NYCGA privately removed the working group on the Declaration pages from this site just two weeks after it was publicly announced at the NYCGA on the evening of October 15th. I for one find this outrageous a mirror image of the problem we are trying to solve. In conclusion, not only is the National General Assembly a rational moderate effective direction for the movement to go, but in publicly endorsing it, the NYCGA shows true leadership and integrity to the 99%.
NGA NOW all roads lead to Philadelphia July 4 2012
https://sites.google.com/site/the99percentdeclaration/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffolk_Resolves
It's late, so i skimmed some of your post, but i appreciate the general sentiments of it, and will come back later to share my thoughts. Thanks for putting the effort into all of this though.
Here are some Occupy related links that may have potential that i've come across lately.
http://www.occupycafe.org/
http://interoccupy.org/
http://www.350.org/
viva la Occupy!
Isn't it ironic that the people (whose sovereign right it is to create credit, and have delegated corporations this right - in trust, to manage diligently) must find a budget (to be approved by politicians- financed by bankers) to pay an army of litigants to go after the bankers.
Bankers use the power to create credit WE gave them, to hire the best and brightest and most experienced legal minds in the nation to oppose the people, who wish to prosecute malfeasance, against the peoples TRUST. Bankers do this at no cost to themselves, simply by the expedient of honoring their own check.
Giving the power to create credit to private corporations was justified by the fear that politicians would, abuse our trust I have no doubt, politicians would abuse our trust, but am now faced with the criminal behaviour of those we had hoped, could be trusted. We must apply at new paradigm. I believe and suggest "the power to create credit" must be taken back by us, the people. To be called Democratic Credit, it shall be a right alongside "right to life, justice, health, religion, education, .."
Let us put together a Charter that will allow people, and not corporations or shareholders to own banks, but individual "depositors"
Let the power to create be in service to the people to meet all our basic needs such as health, education, shelter, work. Let us build our communities and finally let the nation come to me, in the most democratic form off all, to ask me for the finance to deliver services that I think are necessary.
Do the 'Chartered Banks of the People" wish to finance an undeclared war in a foreign country that is not a security threat, but has valuable oil reserves. NO
Does the "Chartered Banks of the People" wish to finance alternative energy programmes, projects that will create millions of jobs for its people that will provide security, stabilize its currency against foreign reserve depletion, and avoid the deaths of its young men. YES
It does not require the destruction of one system for another; it does not require the risky change back to the "gold reserve standard" advocated by the next likely President of the United States, Ron Lawl. (How will the Banksters deal with him?)
All it requires is enough honest individuals to get together to for the first Chartered Bank of America, apply honest regulation, and LOBBY the people of America to give you a " Commercial Bank Trading Licence", currently only issued by the FED, a private consortium of bankers who control the "power to create credit" for the United States of America, the most powerful empire the world has seen in all history. The power to create credit, the most powerful force on the planet, a power if diligently applied and directed, can mitigate the damage we as a species is causing it and ourselves.
We do not need to battle the incredibly entrenched forces, but simply offer a humane alternative to ourselves. The time is now; the voice is the Occupy Movement - Worldwide Peace Ian
Brilliant! I was on Occuppy London site for a while a made the observations you have made and got thrown off.
They have a site that is basically streaming news, which is fine, but they need a Bankof Ideas, which low and behold , they have, a building no less, and for moment , a banner link, that mysteriuosly disappeared.
I have waited for 30 years for such a movement, and so you could say I have peeled the onion somewhat and would like to share my thoughts on a particular issue, but this is difficult on any site, although I must say this site is way better than OLondon.
You could check out this wiki as a repository for ideas. It's a valuable and powerful tool that can serve us well if we'd all use it.
http://occupythiswiki.org/wiki/Main_Page
People should not get "thrown off a site" for differing opinions. The Movement is leaderless and non political. To my mind, we should avoid lobbying anyone, as this is politics, and by the way, very very expensive. There has been banks like you suggested. There is the First Women's Bank, where the customers have to be women, and all seniors, managers and executives are women. Men can only be taken on for "servile" roles but are banned from having viewpoints.
Thats interesting. Do these banks have "commercial trading licences"? Who are the shareholders of these Banks?
To make Democratic Credit work, there are some absolutes.
but ultimately, if you want to get rid of the FED, what are you going to replace it with - total deregulation and market forces What will that mean to main street. Back to an earlier time in history, when literaly thousand of Banks went bust and depositors lost hard cash.
Individual depositors(bank customers) have not lost cash since 1930's. Shareholders have lost but not deposiotrs, so there is some stability in the present system. The greatest crime is the mis direction of the credit that has been created, to worthless objectives. Choice :To a housing bubble or infrustructure of value.
The power to create credit has been high jacked by management of bank and financial services companies, to enrich themselves, with a bonus system that has no basis in effort, but by the simple fact of being in charge of the water reservoir. The water is only been served to themselves and their friends first.
Meanwhile China, India,Russia Brazil etc,etc...advance, whilst America regresses.