Forum Post: The 1% has gathered power gradually and by careful design. How do we build a long-term opposition?
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 13, 2011, 1:38 p.m. EST by cmt
(1195)
from Tolland, CT
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
The 1% has been working for a very long time to take over political power in this country.
First example: gradually packing the federal judiciary system with judges who support the 1% agenda, leading gradually to our current Supreme Court. Citizens United - corporations are persons and money is free speech - I still have trouble believing they did that.
Second example: buying huge numbers of attack ads so that their supporters control state legislatures. This is now leading to redistricting that keeps those same people in power.
I don't see that the 99% have similar long-term planning in place. What can we do? How should we do it?
Exactly, which is why what we most immediately need is a comprehensive strategy, and related candidate, that implements all our demands at the same time, and although I'm all in favor of taking down today's ineffective and inefficient Top 10% Management System of Business & Government, there's only one way to do it – by fighting bankers as bankers ourselves at $500 apiece. Consequently, I have posted a 1-page Summary of the Strategic Legal Policies, Organizational Operating Structures, and Tactical Investment Procedures necessary to do this at:
http://getsatisfaction.com/americanselect/topics/on_strategic_legal_policy_organizational_operational_structures_tactical_investment_procedures
Join
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/StrategicInternationalSystems/
if you want to be 1 of 100,000 people needed to support a Presidential Candidate – such as myself or another you'd like to draft – at AmericansElect.org in support of the above bank-focused platform.
Start with not rewarding those you criticize. That handles the marketplace.
Then establish a standard for electoral conduct (both candidates and supporters) that can gather widespread support to handle the government.
If those standards cannot be established formally due to legal restraints and the powers that be, enforce them through the vote and support of candidates who will uphold the standards.
Start with not rewarding those you criticize. That handles the marketplace.
Then establish a standard for electoral conduct (both candidates and supporters) that can gather widespread support to handle the government.
If those standards cannot be established formally due to legal restraints and the powers that be, enforce them through the vote and support of candidates who will uphold the standards.
Robust democratically run organizations like a democratically run (because they are so much harder to corrupt that hierarchical organizations) public broadcasting organization and some similar think-tanks, are a reasonable start.
We'll hit them as hard as possible now to drive them way back, then leave in place these types of organizations. Running them could be almost like jury duty with people randomly selected and asked - not required - and paid a small but reasonably sum to operate them for several months at a time (through the internet, probably only takes an hour or two in the evenings).
And by hit them hard we go straight to the fundamental problems -spray at base of flame. Public broadcasting by and for the people to counter propaganda. Transparency rules, extensively, so we can keep an eye on things easily. Ensure real people from the 99% can compete equally well when it comes to elections etc.(because it is not like the abilities etc are really any different)
Oh and change these stupid laws that are currently being used to prevent people from peacefully assembling. We could also teach direct democracy organizational models in high school, etc. so people know how to use them when they need them.
Also we can thoroughly document what exactly has gone wrong here and what methods the 1% use, and make sure this information is widely disseminated so the 1% are forced to start again to develop their methods of corrupting things. Everybody knows about echo chambers these days for example because of what happened with tobacco, and that helps a lot.
I like the sound of that.
We need to set out a grand vision of an America far different then the rapidly evolving Plutocracy we are now beginning to experience. We need to go BIG and not believe the bad advice that incrementalism will work for us. They ( the 1%) had plenty of money and the time to do their plan, we have neither. What they did was slowly by steps drag us back a century or more and we have to play catch up and push the whole country back into the 21st century. We are REVOLUTIONARIES and we shouldn't forget it! Nothing less then a REVOLUTION is going to change the present situation. Thinking other wise is defeatist.
I've writing on this topic all year. I wondered why we don't have a plan because the imminent takeover by the 1% sure as hell didn't happen by itself. They have a robust comprehensive plan and think tanks to provide continuity. But most of all, they have a clear definite picture of where they want to go. We started as the 99% which was a reference to income or wealth and an ideal that could unite as many of our brothers as sisters as possible. We have to be honest with ourselves. The 1% has always known it couldn't get far with just 1%. There's a sizable chunk of Americans who have been thoroughly brainwashed by years of listening to talk radio sponsored by the 1%. There's a sizable chunk of Americans who have been brainwashed by evangelical dogma closely allied with the 1%. Both of these groups are suffering from a mass psychosis. They imagine themselves as victims. Their rank in society is important to them and they see it being attacked on all sides. Their minds have been poisoned. I don't know the percentage of our population affected by this condition. I do think they are much more motivated and activist than the broader population. They yell louder.
So start by being honest. Recognize that there is a percentage that will never consent to the notion that its interests overlap with OWS in any way. There's a percentage that would welcome the slavery that could be in store. Would you face that fact and throw them overboard or try to engage with people who aren't living in a rational world?
By carefully crafting a serious list of demands and a strategy to actually put the power back in the hands of the 99%.
Tactics are so much easier than strategy, because thinking long term is so much harder. I think we've been poor at it, and I don't have a detailed strategy to offer. I'm just hoping that if the idea gets mentioned to enough people, concrete ideas will start to percolate.
However one characterizes it, they have been successful at communicating in a way that has gotten them what they want, and they have planned it step by step, including think tanks and media outlets. That may not be the way we should go, but brain storming is probably the place we start.
18-40 year olds represent $2.3 Trillion in buying power per year. Let's replace current corporations and pay ourselves.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/dont-change-the-system-use-the-system-against-itse/
I guess I'm an incrementalist. Want to shift the entire conversation in subtle ways as well as grand approaches...until our system serves us all better.
oops, put that in the wrong place - intended it as a response to gawdoftruth
need a wiki, need 1001 forums... need a science centered paradigm shift. need an article 5 convention, need a new third party, need a complete and total political platform for it. etc. i have assorted links up but due to a virus can't open any documents at this moment to link you... should be easy to find them tho.. posted all over... follow the trail of bread crumbs.. its a winning game plan.
The thing is this: a lot of folks are increasingly suspicious of what they see from media and even academe-and with good reason.
One of the first things I would like is for folks to better educate themselves and just what the range of political opinion is in the US today. Many of us-left, right and independent tend to only hang around folks with political sensibilities similar to ourselves. In particular, poor whites and poor non-whites are often pitted against each other politically.
If we really want to speak for the 99% or even the 80%, we need to understand the range of what those folks are actually saying-not just the folks that show up to demonstrations.
I used to work at the National Opinion Research Center. Polling is a labor intensive task. Most polls are funded by rich folks for various purposes-but it is in the realm of plausibility that OWS could conduct polls for its political purposes. All that is needed is a few folks that understand polling-and volunteers willing to make phone calls.
Right now, about 54% of Americans have a favorable view of OWS. With a little work, that can easily be 60%-which is a land slide in American politics.
Creating a new political consensus is going to really mean taking a hard look at what people really want-and what they are saying. We need to look real hard at where those areas of potential consensus are.
Yes. There is no long-term plan to turn this around. We need strategies, not just tactics, to address this.
Here's my idea.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/dont-change-the-system-use-the-system-against-itse/
The thing is: most polls are done with the idea of getting 51% in an election. Consensus building is a little different. OWS needs to look for issues where most Americans agree-but are divided by other issues. For example, poor whites and non-whites are largely in other parties. The thing is, wealthy interests now control both major political parties. So we need to look carefully at where the non-wealthy disagree with the wealthy interests controlling major parties.
That is very insightful. I will give that serious thought.
http://www.people-press.org/2011/05/04/beyond-red-vs-blue-the-political-typology/
This is a good place to start looking. The problem with this analysis, it is looking for what divides groups-and decides elections in a two party system dominated by corporate media and corporate campaign donations.
Yes. And that is exactly what we want to get away from. I will definitely look at the site you recommend.
There is still some good analyis there. Basically we need to understand we need to look beyond these points of division-and try to find stuff that unites folks outside the very rich.
It doesn't cost that much to do random phone call polling. A lot of OWS folks have cell phones-a all you can eat cell phone plan these days is $45/month.
Just start calling folks nationwide and seeing just how Americans react to what OWS is doing-and work to find the most inclusive language and approaches possible would go a long ways here.
Grass-roots polling: what a great idea.
thank you. I think if folks in the sticks see the folks in OWS listening to them, it will scare the hell of the top 1%
Time for us to wake up and smack down socialism again