Forum Post: Occupy Wall Street---But How Exactly?
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 10, 2011, 1:37 a.m. EST by Achinette
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Let's take a break from the usual kibbitzing. This movement to Occupy Wall Street sounds interesting (and because I live under a rock the size of oh, maybe China, I just found out about it this morning). Unfortunately, unless it grows bigger fangs, this'll only be the cultural equivalent of a temper tantrum. Sure, it makes for interesting news and right now, it's picking up more steam, what with celebrity endorsements and mounting donations (these have reached a million, I read). But right now, it remains toothless.
Let's not get me wrong. I'm not knocking down the value of this movement. This resistance has the potential to inspire very serious reforms and hopefully it will, but to do that, it’ll have to evolve beyond an unfocused expression of socio-economic frustration. For instance, what are the demands exactly? These vary depending on who you ask, and that's just too confusing. If protests remain defined as an attack on the capitalist system, gains would hardly be measurable. On the other hand, if they're defined as a call for reforms and these reforms are specified, there would be better chances of success. Demands could include:
The capping of offensively huge executive compensations. Their salaries should be regulated, and even better, tied to their respective companies' profitability.
Highly solvent banks and corporations lending money to entrepreneurs, who remain America's backbone.
Federal monitoring on police departments, especially in major cities, to put brakes on abuses. The NYPD kicking the shit out of anybody might be a necessary cliche in the movies, but it's unacceptable in real life.
You get what I'm getting at, yes? Passion is good and yes, passion inspires; but for this resistance to really change systems, it'll need solid direction and maybe too a charismatic poster girl or boy. More importantly, it would have to grow teeth. And a rock-hard spine. Meanwhile, at least 15 million Americans remain jobless. Call me when they've rolled out the guillotine and investment bankers are fleeing the country in exile. Until then, I shall sit here, happily attacking my chikkin.
-- Achinette Villamor http://thenevergirl.com/
How about pulling any and all of our investment funds out of the markets and start investing in global citizens like ourselves using microloans?
Right now we are still organizing and building momentum. The thing is this is a true grassroots movement that is as American as apple pie, which sadly is not made in America anymore( probably). As i try to explain it to the masses on boards across cyberspace.... We have no leader, we speak as the people. Everyone can speak and everyone is heard. Not having a leader does have it benefits. Leaders can be corrupted. It's much harder to corrupt a group of people. I think this may be one major reason why we dont have a unified leader yet.
As far as demands, we represent the people. The 99%. So we have a long list of suggested demands. This problem has affected people in different ways so you get a lot of different suggestions on what should be done or what we would like to accomplish. I believe this is being sorted out. We want to make sure we represent at least a majority of the population, something your elected officials should be doing not us. But someone has to do their job while they golf and sip tea with CEOs.
At some point this will all come together. The media can spin it however they want, we are not going to go away. We are just getting started and when we are done and we all go home and start our lives over because of the mess the corps have put us in, the tea party will seem like just that, a tea party, in comparison.
This movement is growing like the plague and it is going worldwide. It cannot be bought off and it cannot be stopped. The rich and politicians are about to reap what they sewed for so many years and i dont think they are going to like how it taste.