Forum Post: Suggested Goals for the Group
Posted 13 years ago on Nov. 6, 2011, 1:21 p.m. EST by AmericanDreaming
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While the violence in Oakland has given me pause, I support the OWS organization shining a light on wall street practices that we are repeating every few years - S&L scandal, Enron, AIG, and now Jon Corzine's old company.
I think OWS should go after a few things: 1) Give American citizens referendum power over elected official salaries, at city, state and federal levels. 2) One voice, one vote, we seem to have lost our way since the 2000 election, we need to become a true democracy. 3) Term limits for all federal representatives. 4) An end to cushy pension and other deals for elected reps, while cities, states, and the fed govt are experiencing their worst deficits in ages. Let's cut those salaries in half while elected reps work together to fix the issue in a bipartisan way. 5) Perks - congressional gym, and a number of other perks are showered upon our elected reps who live like kings while a number of American citizens are unemployed. Let's fix that.
thanks for listening.
I agree. Lucrative pension and benefit schemes are anachronistic. They were put in place decades ago to help attract workers to public sector jobs that often paid much lower than similar jobs in the private sector. Pay rates have equalized since, but the defined-benefit pension schemes remain. Worst still, many public entities lack the political discipline to properly fund and manage those schemes. Leaders can use the promise of rich pension schemes to solve today's labor and political without solving the problem of how to pay for it. The result: an over-compensated public sector workforce that uses their political clout to hold onto their jobs, haphazardly managed pension schemes that threaten to sink the economy.
If Occupy cannot summon the discipline to arrive at a Vision Statement, Mission Statement and Values list, it will do little. Conversely, if it can put these together, it will become formidable. At this stage, anyone can be involved and contribute to the process, which will be transformational in itself, as well as exemplary of a new process.
The 99% Declaration is the legal process made available in the first Amendment. OWS should declare the occupation over on 11/11/11 and declare that they are taking it to the next level. Why? 1) Everyone breathes a huge sigh of relief and kudos go to the Movement, not the authorities for having to enforce the rule of law endangering everyone. No one has to freeze this winter (OWS may recommend that social services step in to help the homeless) OWS comes out "smelling like a rose". 2) Moving to the next level (forming the National General Assembly) puts TPTB on notice that the occupation was just a shot across the bow, a wake-up call. Some have taken it seriously some have not. Some will take the 99% Declaration seriously, some will not.
Wormholes you are right. Time is short Getting the NGA prepared for July 4th 2012 will be an enormous undertaking. It can't be done overnight but it can be done for Philadelphia. It will be Suffolk Resolves 2.0
OWS has VERY little time left to build this consensus. Fare well
https://sites.google.com/site/the99percentdeclaration/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffolk_Resolves
As for goals for the movement--I'd like to add "A cultural change in which we all hold business and government leaders accountable for conducting themselves responsibly, with the highest levels of ethics, and with honor."
The change I seek is one that is personal and cultural, rather than legal. We have too many laws and rulings now--we need a spiritual, personal shift of values. Ultimately, as employees, consumers, citizens, and shareholders, we get the corrupt and abusive behavior which we allow. We empower the leadership that we serve. Let's hold them to honorable conduct first, before all else.
The processes of setting forth a Vision Statement, a Mission Statement and a set of Core Values are not goals, per se. They are the tools for defining goals. There is a discipline involved. It will be challenging for such a universal movement as Occupy. But therein lies the hope....because if accomplished it will be a measure by which future action can be accomplished; it will be a guiding touchstone for future action and projects. It has been said that "All work becomes spiritual when rightly motivated, when wise discrimination is employed and soul power is added to the knowledge gained in the three worlds." The "knowledge" in this case is the knowledge of the power of the discipline of formulating a Vision Statement, a Mission Statement and Core Values. Only the UN has attempted such a global effort. But that was from the top down. This can be a global grassroots effort that brings "main street" to the effort of the discipline of defining V, MS, and Core Values. Elsewhere I made a post about the spirituality of both the OWS and the Arab Spring as being "effects" of the "cause" of the stirring of the soul of humanity.