Forum Post: Ramp Up The Politics!
Posted 12 years ago on Jan. 4, 2012, 10:19 p.m. EST by Toynbee
(656)
from Savannah, GA
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
The OWS movement is grass roots.
The OWS movement is finally tackling the big problems / big issues.
Nothing good will happen without politics.
That's what DEMOCRACY is all about!
2012 is a crossroads for OWS.
If we fail to make our voices heard to those who profess that they want to represent us -- shame on us! We get the government we deserve!
I believe that at this critical crossroads in the direction of America, it is vital that OWS supporters attend all political meetings.
Ask the tough questions to all candidates.
With billions of anonymous dollars now pouring into the campaigns, it is vital that the middle class, the students, the poor, the minorities, the people who are being marginalized by the big-money-steamroller turn out and ask the tough questions. Keep asking. Ask and ask. Do not settle for vague slogans and limp responses.
"As former President Truman said when a supporter said to "Give 'em Hell, Harry!". Truman replied, "I don't give them Hell. I just tell the truth about them and they think it's Hell."
The US is not a Democratic country.
Ramp up the politics. You have got to be kidding! Will you believe their lies too? If you think the kind of change we need can happen by just voting for the 'right person' you are wrong. They are going to tell you what you want to hear,and then in the end answer to the big moneyed interests.
I don't mind being in the streets to affect positive change, as at this point it is the most honorable place to be, but I will not get in the gutter with any of the politicians. Until we shake the foundation of our crappy corrupt system and we have them scared, we should have no part in politics, and that will only happen when we have a plurality of people that support us, and have tens of thousands of people out in the streets Until then we have to keep raising awareness of how this corrupt system has affected all of us negatively in one way or another.
What exactly is OWS doing to "Tackle the big problems/big issues." ?I have heard them raise there issues but have seen them do nothing in the area of tackling them.
We aren't really doing much yet in the political sphere; we may be making a fuss and raising awareness, but when it comes to politics all of that fuss and awareness has to be organized, disciplined, and targeted. Essentially this post is a call to the very kind of action that would constitute "tackling the big issues" in the real world: focused political activism.
Here's what I consider some low-hanging fruit, or what may better be described as a relatively easy, targeted campaign that could really get something bigger rolling. I'll try to explain and let others mold it to fit occupy. :
I've heard rumblings of an Aritcle V convention, but there is an easier path to getting the point accross, and that is for any single state legislature to repudiate the 17th amendment by selecting new Senators to the national government.
Advocacy for reform
Due to the controversy over the impact of the Seventeenth Amendment, there has been advocacy for both reform and repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment. With the commencement of the Obama Administration in 2009, four sitting Democratic senators left the Senate for executive branch positions: Barack Obama (President), Joe Biden (Vice President), Hillary Rodham Clinton (Secretary of State), and Ken Salazar (Secretary of the Interior). Controversies developed about the successor appointments made by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and New York Governor David Paterson. This created interest in abolishing Senate appointment by the governor.[54] Accordingly, Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Representative David Dreier of California proposed an amendment to remove this power; Senators John McCain and Dick Durbin became co-sponsors, as did Representative John Conyers.[54]
/wikileaks bit...
The most straightforward way would be for a state legislature to take their power back to pick senators. Much easier to occupy a state legislature than to occupy a vote at large.
Yet occupying a vote at large should be towards efforts to monitor for any sort of election fraud and demand that elections be as open and transparent as possible to effect. Simply to ensure that peoples' votes are being counted properly is a huge step forwards with regards to corruption.
State legislatures also retained the theoretical right to "instruct" their senators to vote for or against proposals, giving them both direct and indirect representation in the Federal government.[9]
We lost that direct representation when we let go of that direct oversight of senators by our popularly-elected state legislatures. Now we just give them a pat on the head and ship them off to the pit of corruption with no recourse for six years.
Santorum is seeming to get some heat about his activities while he was a senator, so the iron might still be hot with this one. Occupy a state legislature to re-assert our Article V guaranteed right:
Section Three of Article I is one of a handful of clauses on which Article Five places special restrictions to be amended; in this case, Article Five provides that "no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate." Thus, no individual state may have its representation in the Senate adjusted without its consent unless all other states have an identical change./wiki snip
So as soon as one state removes its consent, the 17th is out of business, and we suddenly have 50 state legislatures breathing down the senates neck.
The big action is going on in Iowa and NYC of course with it's New years occupy. If you had noticed watching TV with the ball dropping, the crowd dispersed rather quickly because police were afraid that a riot might happen along with OWS supports. They also dumb down the ball drop in NYC on T.V by having most of the celebration be networked over to Hollywood CA.
Iowa is bullshit though, mostly paid Obama demonstrators using OWS name to propagate the Democratic election the people you see on the news are the Obama supporters which receive all the media air time their. A friend told me they leave the crowd once the news anchors leave.