Forum Post: OWS, LETS STOP THE BS. The Occupy Movement means nothing without Campaign Finance Reform.
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 21, 2011, 2:43 p.m. EST by Endgame
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As an Occupier myself I have to admit that unless we bring all of our messages together and have our prime objective and message be for Campaign Finance Reform and getting all outside money out of the election process all of this will be for nothing.
The polling is already beginning to turn on OWS. The many messages at once worked at first but now I fear it will just become noise to the people we are trying to connect with.
Can we please stop the BS and see what the core issue is and deal with it?
EDIT: And yes I know that getting all outside money out of our elections will not end ALL corruption but it WILL diminish it greatly. We HAVE to start there for all of the other issues to be debated based on facts and fairness.
Amen. We can talk about all our individual issues as much as we want, but we need to stand together on this key one or none of the others will ever get addressed. This is THE 99% issue. Let's focus on that!!
http://www.acrreform.org/
This is a good website. It's Americans for Campaign Reform. This is so your congressman or president can't be bought. During a presidential campaign, corporations give money to the future president. Once he's president, he does the corporations favors.
Already a member of that link lol. But thanks for posting that and bringing more attention to it.
Here are two more links people should be aware of that are all about getting money out of our politics.
http://unitedrepublic.org/
http://www.getmoneyout.com/
Getmoneyout.com is now apart of Unitedrepublic.org. Please join and get involved. :)
Well said. And yes that is a great site. Im already a member. :)
Love the energy! One or none lol. Love it. Spread the word. THIS should become OWS main objective. Thanks for the response.
It's a good of itself, but as you noted, without patronage reform, the job is less than half done.
WatTyler, what do you mean by patronage reform?
Campaign financing is the means by which politicians get elected to office. Patronage is the means by which they enrich themselves once they get there. In its crudest form, I give you or a relative, or friend a job, and you give a friend or relative of mine a job, or me a job, once I leave office. I.e., the Clintons are big proponents of “free” trade with China while in office, and Hillary gets appointed to the board of directors of Wal-Mart once he leaves office.
Both patronage and the need for campaign financing serve to affect office holders’ actions contrary to the publics’ interest while in office.
Oh thats what Patronage Reform is referring to. I thought Patronage Reform and Campaign reform were one in the same. I assumed that if we get real Campaign Finance Reform that all of those shady corrupt dealings and self enriching schemes would quickly be made illegal. But you're absolutely right. Patronage Reform is also needed. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.
I agree. Corporations should not have more influence on our legisaltive process than American citizens. The 1% should not be able to use their wealth to purchase greater access than ordinary Americans.
I also agree that this is fundamental to further reform. We will not be able to address health care, education, sustainability, etc. as long as multi-national corporations own Congress.
Corporations are not people and money is not speach!
Absolutely. Until this core issue is addressed all other sub issues will either eventually be slightly tweeked but not actually fixed or completely be ignored indefinitely or possibly made worse.
Thanks for replying.
seriously, there need to be focused agendas. not just camping and protesting. as much as you hate it, you gotta get some political power behind it for it to mean anything.
Well said. And thanks for commenting.
This really is the central piece. Just reading former Reaganite Lawrence Lessig's "Republic Lost" and recommend it to anyone wanting more insight to how bad it's gotten.
Im definitely going to check it out. Thanks.
Thank you this is exciting to hear the whole country will be with you. A lot of people are not clear about the OWS message. Getting the money out of politics should be simple enough for people to grasp, for those out there not interested in reading. This should be bribery 101 for them. I've learned the masses like to keep it simple so this should do it for them. Thank you Endgame I (we) are with you 100%!!! Thank you.
Thank you again! Don't forget to spread the message. :)
OMG YES!!!!!! Please continue to repost your message over and over, I beg you and I urge you. It has to start with getting the money out of politics that is the root of the problem. I don't think anyone on this forum would disagree with that message. Www.getmoneyout.com. please Occupy let your message be campaign campaign finance reform. Thank you.
Thank you Skyeskye1. And yes I plan on talking about getting the outside money out of politics and OWS adopting that as their main goal. Fix that and like a domino effect everything else will eventually fall into place and all of those other issues will finally be addressed.
Just saw the interview on CNN with the two Governors from LA and Philly. They were two DEMOCRATS. Something felt wrong about that. BUT like i've been saying it is time for the Occupy movement to move beyond what they have been doing and into phase two with a more core message.
However, under the law of our Constitution, lobbying and such are treasonous acts.
Too bad that's all been signed away, huh?
lol agreed.
+1 though the language could be tamed for the sake of mass consumption outside of the core group.
Amen and thank you. This should be the core issue that OWS is about and I am glad to see you and others taking up that cause. Demands should be simple, easy to understand and effective.This is an issue that everyone can get behind and that is important. If The general public agrees with what were about we will succeed. Currently the general public doesn't know what the movement is demanding. Everyone should show their support by signing the petition that "Get money out" is circulating. Find it here http://www.getmoneyout.com/ Endgame, this is an excellent post, your well spoken and I am with you. We have a web site up since March that calls for 3 reforms. 1.Campaign finance reform, 2. Ending the electoral college and 3.Term limits.for everyone in congress. http://uws1.weebly.com/
Lets all get involved and make this happen, before its too late for our country. This is the best chance we will ever have to make this happen.
Thank you nullapars. And I signed the getmoneyout.com petition literally the first day it was created lol. And that website you guys have is awesome. Sweet and right to the point. In plain English.
I also agree that this is the best chance we have to achieve this. Maybe the best chance in our lifetimes. Time to get the ball rolling. :)
Get real, many people do not like Obamacare but there are only five appeals to try to stop it. Obviously the powers in each state support this law except 5 states. On the other the masses don't seem to be very happy about it. We don't have the money, the position of power, to change anything into laws.
That is a very depressed way of thinking Barb. If you believe that you can't achieve anything then you're creating a self fulfilling prophecy.
And im not going to get into the argument of "Obamacare". No one stopped the other side from coming up with real legitimate ways to fix our healthcare system. Instead we had politicians that chose to side with special interests. That is just another reason why we need to stop squabbling over these marginal partisan political battles and deal with the core issue so we can have debates about healthcare only based on FACTS.
barb, remember together we are stronger than any special interests or corporation. You want to have a real debate about healthcare and everything else, lets come together to get the corporate money out of our political process. ;)
Today on the Dylan Ratigan show there was this Occupier talking about the Occupy movement and the ridiculous rising cost of tuition. I loved that fact that she tied the need to Occupy campuses with getting corporate money out of politics as being the main goal.
If phase two actually does end up concentrating all of the messages with the core message of getting the money out, OWS will explode in popularity and power.
"By treating money as an analog for speech, the court's post-Buckley jurisprudence has figuratively allowed the rich to speak through microphones while the poor can barely whisper, and tolerates a situation in which the voices of contributors are amplified to the point that they drown out the opinions of mere voters.
** I have never understood how permitting the wealthy so much greater influence over the political process can be squared with the vision of equality on which the country was founded."
Scott Turow
More of what he said here: http://occupywallst.org/forum/heres-what-might-be-next-for-ows-award-winning-bes/#comment-403888
Here's one method we could use to occupy Capitol Hill and win: http://occupywallst.org/forum/proposed-list-of-demands-please-help-editadd-so-th/
The STARRED PARAGRAPH below really gets to the heart of it and will resonate with Americans from all backgrounds:
"By treating money as an analog for speech, the court's post-Buckley jurisprudence has figuratively allowed the rich to speak through microphones while the poor can barely whisper, and tolerates a situation in which the voices of contributors are amplified to the point that they drown out the opinions of mere voters.
** I have never understood how permitting the wealthy so much greater influence over the political process can be squared with the vision of equality on which the country was founded."
Scott Turow
More of what he said here: http://occupywallst.org/forum/heres-what-might-be-next-for-ows-award-winning-bes/#comment-403888
Here's one way we could accomplish this (TACTICS FOR DC)
Take away the unbelievable advantage of the top one thousandth of one percent: take away the privilege of creating money out of thin air and receiving interest on the newly created money. Take away fractional reserve lending from privately owned institutions,
Won't happen until we get the outside money out. But I agree with everything you said. We can't get honest people to do the honest things while in office unless we make our political process honest.
http://grannyd.com/speeches/sub-speeches/doris-dearborn.htm
read this... I was is the room when this speech was written. I walked a month with her. If you don't know about her you need to take an hour and read.
I love this. Thanks for posting that speech.
If you guys in the tea party and us here in Occupy got together on the core issues we would be unstoppable. Thanks for that.
this is the ONLY issue you guys seem to have a clue about....
I really disagree with that but im glad we can agree on something. In a weird way you've actually proved my point about Campaign Finance Reform being the single most important unifying issue of the Occupy movement.
Thanks for replying. Im interested in the opinions of everyone including Tea Partiers. So thanks for your input and feel free to post more.
We won't get campaign finance reform as long as the people who benefit from the corruption remain in office. So we need to assertively use the current system in different ways that they do not control in order to get them out. Then we can have our chosen representatives fight for campaign finance reform.
Liberate American democracy from the two party duopoly.
So we need to do a couple or three things.
Stop thinking inside the two party game box. That is their game and we cannot succeed while we lock ourselves inside their game rules.
Organize to electorally empower all of this great OWS energy. That means convincing a lot of politically disaffected OWS people that they can actually make a difference if they organize politically.
We need to make a new game plan that by-passes the corrupt two party system. This means finding new ways of engaging the ballot box that do not require submitting to the rules and subversions designed by the two parties, at the state level, to keep people from voting outside the two party system.
I believe that we can get at least a few OWS Congressional seats if we put our minds to it. Many Congressional districts are won with fewer than one hundred thousand votes. It won't take us winning many seats for the parties then to come to our people for compromise if they want our votes for their legislation. After all the tea party only has 29 seats and not really all of them are real tea party people but rather Republicans who claim to be tea party to get the TP attention and votes.
I firmly believe that we can do this without the billions of dollars that today flood into the two parties each election. And in spite of those dollars. I have the framework of a blog that I have posted for talking about liberating American democracy and if folks want to start talking about these issues I will start posting more on it.
Liberate American democracy blog http://liberate-american-democracy.blogspot.com/
Yes, turning OWS into a force at the ballot is very important. Thanks for replying.
We can and we can do it in spite of the billions of duopoly dollars that Wall Street pumps into the two dominance parties.
Write-In is free and easy. And it bypasses the unfair corrupt ballot access hurtles imposed by the parties at the state level.
Right on.
But don't you think that the way we get Occupiers into Congress is by having them run primarily on the bipartisan core issue of Campaign Finance Reform?
Absolutely! Along with job creation and economic equity issues. Fair taxes and fair trade.
Agreed. You notice how all of these politicians keep talking about overhauling the tax system to make it more fair and simple are just...talking about it? I doubt a lot of them actually want to fix our messed up tax system. They would be more than happy to rig it even more for their corporate special interests though.
Absolutely!
Politicians have long since rigged the tax system for the 1% against the rest of us.
Absolutely! This is what I put as my 9th demand on the 9 demands of the 99%
Nice. Keep it up!
This is definitely the tap root of corruption in the governmental tree. It's not the only root, but yeah... Wonder why "campaign finance reform" never actually reforms anything? Hmmmm.... Because the legislation is bought and sold before the politicians even get elected.
lol true. That is why a movement with so much energy behind it like Occupy shouldn't just be listing Campaign Finance Reform off like its just another demand. It is THE demand that ties all of their other demands together. And if it was Occupy's core demand then the movement would grow exponentially due to it being a core complaint of Americans from all walks of life and political persuasions.
Political pressure is everything. And united we are stronger than anything.
Of course, Endgame, you're absolutely right. Campaign Finance Reform is key to everything OWS is about. If we have a Congress sold out to the 1%, how can the 99% ever get represented?
But there's a catch. A classic Catch 22. We the 99% can't get anywhere without campaign reform. But any campaign reform bill has to be passed by members of congress, and members can't get elected unless they take corporate money (93% of elections are won by the candidate who spends the most).
There's only one way to break out of this dilemma, and you can read about it at: www.breakcorporatepower.org
Check it out and see for yourselves!
I like the pledge in the link you posted and I will indeed spread it around. But...
I do believe that if you get the large majority of the public behind getting the money out of politics it WILL succeed. Even if along the way there are road blocks. When the American people are united against the corruption and bribery in our system we won't and can't be stopped for long. Political pressure is EVERYTHING. Everyone that is against a fair and honest system will pay the price politically and publicly.
So we are not powerless by any means. Together we hold ALL of the power. Don't forget that. Thanks for your replay and the link. :)
While I agree that is a critical element, we all know that the solution to this piece of the problem will take a long time (Constitutional amendment). But there are other very important pieces as well. If it gets narrowed to just this piece we will have failed.
I have heard several TV newscasters and pundits say that the issues are centered around the fact that "the system is rigged against the 99%". That is a fact, but there are many facets, dimensions, aspects to this rigging. I won't try to enumerate them, as we should not because we invariably leave some out. Every day I hear more of them identified and articulated. Campaign finance reform is necessary but not sufficient. What about lobbying and influence peddling during the legislative process? What about the issue ads on initiatives, referenda, bond issues, taxes? These issues go to state and local levels but are just as nefarious and must be addressed.
We are getting credit for the super committee outcome because they would not agree to yet another tax break for the rich. You can never say it has been for nothing.
I am tired of hearing our friends and our enemies give us conflicting advice that if we fail to do as they demand the whole effort will be an abject failure. I am not lumping you in with them but you have seen what I am talking about.
This is a different movement. It has never been done this way before. But it is working. It will be studied for decades to come. Sure many of us are impatient, some are even desperate. There are some aspects of the solutions that just can't come fast enough to minimize the damage to some very good human beings. I can't fix it and you can't fix it in time to rescue everyone and I regret that as much as you do.
There are those who don't identify with us who still feel the need to address issues that they can except as legitimate and can, and are, starting to think about what might solve them. I want that process to continue. There are things that can be done quickly that are important and there are things that can't be done quickly that are urgent. We need to get as many of them going as possible as soon as possible. Fortunately, there are about 300 million of us and that means a lot of things can be done at the same time.
Some of us are acting in ways that bring us credibility, others are playing into the narratives of our critics. We can't control either of them. But we can praise constructive actions and condemn criminal or disgusting acts. We should do both, as appropriate. The pepper spray incident showed the true heros among us. There are many more that will never be on TV.
I admire your call to cut to the chase. We need a rallying cry. Maybe we have one that I just haven't heard yet. So "rallying cry", (to be replaced by the real one ASAP).
I agree with a lot of what you said. But with all do respect I think a lot of Occupiers are confusing the growing media coverage with growing popularity. At first that was the case but now polling shows otherwise.
I completely agree that horrible incidents like the policeman pepper spraying peaceful protesters brings even more attention to the Occupy movement which can eventually turn into a good thing. BUT once we have those peoples attention they try to see what we are protesting and what exactly we are about. Then they hear ALL of these messages. And some of these messages under this political climate are not considered bipartisan. And that causes alot of people to hear the protesters then retreat back into their political corners instead of looking at the broader picture. That is why im saying that the main goal should be what deals with the core problem that ties all of their other problems together.
But I want to make this clear. I don't think that Occupiers should stop bring forth all of the wide range of legitimate grievances that they have. BUT I do think all of the grievances should be in the context of what ties all of the grievances together. Getting the outside money out of politics.
Examples
--.We need real financial sector reform but the only way to get it is to end the corruption of outside money from the debate. And to do that we need Campaign Finance Reform.
--I've done everything i've suppose to do to achieve the American dream but I know owe over $90,000 in college debt. Education in this country is to expensive and we need to fix that problem. But the only way to do it is to have a system where politicians will tackle the problem instead of looking out for special interests. The way we do that is to get the outside money out of politics.
-- The wealth gap in this country is larger than it has been in decades and the only way we are going to come close to even fixing that is if politicians work for the American people and not the corporations and entities that are bribing them and paying them off. We need Campaign Finance Reform.
But I also agree that Campaign Finance Reform isn't the only extremely important thing we need to fix. And all of the examples you gave do indeed needs to be addressed. But I continue to believe its the core problem and it needs to be the first thing we fix.
Thank you for the thoughtful response.
I draw attention to the fact that given the Citizens United decision it will take a Constitutional amendment. "There are things that can be done quickly that are important and there are things that can't be done quickly that are urgent. We need to get as many of them going as possible as soon as possible. "
Since the amendment is a long process (absent Article V, which may not happen) there are a lot of other things that are either urgent, important or both that some fraction of 312 million people can initiate, support and carry forward. We are a multitasking society, are we not?
Let's just fix everything and why wait until tomorrow to start?
Yeah I agree. But what im saying is why not continue to fight for all of those things while under the main context of Campaign Finance Reform? When I say that I don't mean to stop talking about and fighting for all of those other important issues. Just lead with the most important thing and have that become the main focus especially for future supporters to grasp onto. But continue to fight for all the other grievances.
I think we agree for the most part. Just slightly disagree on the tactics. I also thank you for your thoughtful responses. And thanks for bringing your knowledge on this subject into this discussion.
I believe we do as well. I have a couple more thoughts on tactics and may start a new thread with them.
I have argued vigorously against lists of demands and believe that there is real power in leaving it open to those outside of the movement to ""visualize" demands that they could agree were valid and possibly would support some form of solution. At the same time, I believe that there will be proposals of solutions that people will want to know whether, if they were implemented, would satisfy the majority of the movement. It would be useful to provide an answer so that real implementation could begin.
That said, (being a marketing guy, I thought, "Is there a single easy to remember umbrella demand that captures the essence but is broad enough to encompass all that people who consider themselves members of the movement would embrace?" I hope so because believing that you are inside the ten is what gives us the power of numbers. If it is hard to challenge as being unreasonable, it takes away the power of those who are trying to defeat us.
This may not be it, but I think it meets the criteria that I (admittedly arbitrarily set).
We want a government "of the people, by the people and for the people."
Is it original? Of course not. But it is completely, familiar to every American. It is completely reasonable and I think it is as broad as all of the "demands" I have heard articulated. You don't have to get into details of how it achieved. It is like beauty or sexy. You know it when you see it and you know whether a specific example is what you like. Simple.
Now to tactics. Looking at all of the forums I realized that we are a mass of interest groups A Venn diagram of the movement would have an almost infinite number of overlapping circles. Each of us has a set of interests that are held in common with a set of other people. If each of these issues had a forum that everyone could join and everyone could choose the fora that they would like to join the number of members of each forum would be a measure of breadth of interest. If the number of visits or cumulative length of time spent in each forum were logged it would be an indication of the relative importance to each individual. So, if I spent my time in a forum working on moving a constitutional amendment forward ( which had 1 million members spending an average of 2 hours per week,) rather than spending my time arguing with an anarchist forum with 10,000 members spending 5 hours each per week, we would know that my group is working on something more generally viewed as important than the other group. But, we don't draw that conclusion, just report the data. We don't need a spokesperson. Everyone can interpret the data for themselves.
I don't have to feel responsible for groups I don't subscribe to. I am just responsible for myself. What do you think about these?
I think those are some excellent ideas. Especially some of the Occupy forum format ideas.
I hope you ended up starting your own thread based off of this post. I feel it deserves it.
I haven't done it yet, but thanks, I will.
Without a stable economy and control of the debt.. we will have no country... start hear? nowadays things are so complicated theres many problems... so address the top 5 issues? If all can agree on the top five I say in the spring bring Occupy to DC meanwile occupy in every city we can... It is spreading huge now between Newt and the pepperspray at UC Davis a whole lot more people are really angry I have hundreds of e-mails wanting to know about Occupy
When you start talking about debt we are now getting into an ideology battle. A lot of people feel that investing in our economy and infrastructure is the way to fix the debt, like we did during the great recession. By creating demand. A lot of conservatives feel that austerity and a wide range of cuts to most Americans and government programs while giving tax cuts to the richest of the rich is the way to go because they see them as the job creators. That is another example of dealing with partisan politics instead of dealing with the core issue.
And like i've stated earlier I think alot of Occupiers are confusing growing media coverage with growing popularity. The popularity of Occupy has grown in a huge way in the last few months but now polling is showing the movement to be on a slight decline because of lack of message.
The things that Newt said were idiotic in my opinion. And the pepper spray incident at UC Davis was horrible. Yes, these incidents do bring a lot of attention to the Occupy movement. And the potential for this attention to be positive for the movement is pretty big. But since the movement has grown and now people are paying attention to it the messages are scattered and turns some people off to the movement. Im not saying that the Occupiers should stop complaining about all of the wide range of serious issues that plague this country. But they should do it under the context of a message that ties all of their other messages together; Campaign Finance Reform. It doesn't hurt that CFR (and Patronage Reform) are the most important and bipartisan issue of this country. Fix those and everything else will fall into place.
I agree. This is THE core problem in America today, and everything else follows from it. One way to fix it is to put limits on who can finance a campaign and how much they can donate. Another approach is to start moving toward electronic voting via secure Internet connection, which would increase voter 'turnout' and hence representation of the people as opposed to special interest groups.
I completely agree with limits on campaign donations. And all donations should be public with no outside money.
But I think the first stage is starting a core movement to getting the outside money out. THEN we can talk about all of the great ideas and specific details of just how exactly we will do that. We don't want to get bogged down by the specifics in the first stage. First stage, agree to get the money out. Second stage, gathering the best ideas of how to handle the specifics.
Great ideas MrModerate. Thanks for posting.
I am not just a Consumer. I am a Citizen. I will no longer be labeled Left or Right, Liberal or Conservative, Demopublican or Republocrat. I will no longer follow Puppets labeled Left or Right, Liberal or Conservative, Demopublican or Republocrat. I am the People. And I am coming for the Puppet masters. I am part of the 99 Percent. And I demand the following:
As long as Campaign Finance Reform is your core goal I think you are on the right path to getting all of those other important demands debated in a honest manner. :)
I think we are all in agreement we have all been saying this from the beginning. So lets focus the next round of sign making on campaign finance reform. It is a hard sell and not too sexy of a banner slogan but we need to find an interesting creative angle perhaps leaking some inside info about shady campaign contributions or something dramatic enough to make the news. As for the support of OWS it is greater than ever with over a third of a million facebook friends on the site alone and record numbers coming out on the 17th (32,500 according to NYPD so prob more) So lets stop with the rumor spreading about support dwindling when all numbers show the exact opposite
Yes more people are coming out for large planned rallies but public polling shows its popularity going down. Not drastically but enough to know that its time for this movement to evolve.
And don't underestimate the sexiness of Campaign Finance Reform lol. When Occupy talks about CFR they don't even need to call it that. Just have the message of getting the outside money of our politics and ending the corruption as much as possible. And tie it into all of the real and extremely serious problems this country face. Talk about if we had taken the outside money out years ago how we would not of had a financial crash because all of the measures would of been put in place to stop it long before all of the crap Wall Street pulled got out of hand. But because Wall Street were able to bribe politicians and politicians were allowed to be bribed everything went to hell and no one had to answer for what they've done, and/or what they let happen on their watch while turning a blind eye.
There are many other more clever ways to talk about why we need to get outside money out of our politics. But it doesn't even need to be to overly clever to stick with people. Its something that goes across party lines and is universally wanted. Plug into that and this thing takes off. Thanks to Occupy there is a real energy for it to grow but Occupy needs to focus that message. :)
Agreed, It really is a topic that can unite left and right. Every side wants more of a voice in their politics. It is not a true democracy if only those withe the most money get heard. Lets focus on topics like this that unite rather than wasting time and energy on topics that divide and can not be overcome by arguing.
"It is not a true democracy if only those withe the most money get heard. Lets focus on topics like this that unite rather than wasting time and energy on topics that divide and can not be overcome by arguing."
Truer words have never been spoken. Well said.
I wrote about this in October. October 14rth to be exact. Here's a link to it...
http://www.yankeesdaily.com/post/32860
Wall Street Protesters need their movement to be about Campaign Reform
Hell yeah SeanSerritella! Nice article. Continue to spread the word. It is indeed the most important message out of Occupy by far.
I feel that the Occupy Wall Street Movement should start the Middle Class Lobby. A lobby of their own so they can lobby congress on their own needs. I mean, there's enough people to do it. The thing is, it cost money.
Yeah that would cost A LOT of money. And I don't think people would rather fix a corrupt process rather than being apart of it. But I understand where you're coming from. I can tell you really want the corruption out of our political system
I love that there are so many ideas being floated around here.
In the thread of getting money out of politics, I would strongly suggest advocating sites like www.OccupyGovernment.org . Really, as long as we pick some and make them heard, I think everyone will benefit and we will pick up our momentum again. With election year coming up, every second counts. If you are in the position to, open this up in GA, or just general discussion. OWS can't do it all on it's own.
Perhaps I'll do my part and make a thread specifically for my favored organization, I would love others to do the same and see what's out there.
There is no problem with all of the individuals in the Occupy movement present and future advocating for their individual factually based agendas and organizations that addresses those agendas. But all of these things should be in the context of getting outside money out of politics.
Example: "After going to school and getting a degree my college debt is $90,000. The price of education is way to high in this country. But I know to even begin to deal with this issue we need real Campaign Finance Reform so we can fix the core problem of money, bribery and corruption in our politics. Only then can we have an honest discussion about education without outside money interfering in the process"
Keep up the good fight. Thanks for posting.
Yall should go Occupy Somolia.
....
Got to start at home first. :)
Campaign finance reform? Find what Don Hewitt had to say about how he saved the Clinton campaign on 60 Minutes. Campaign finance reform is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Look at who prints the money. Who controls the money supply? How much whitewash does it take Huck Finn to whitewash a fence?
Rearranging the deck? You don't think the deck hasn't been rearranged in the complete favor of special interests and corporations?
I don't care if it was a Republican, Independent, Democrat (including President Obama himself) who made that comment, I think that is an extremely short sighted statement.
And for the sake of the argument, lets say it did rearrange the deck. I would rather the deck be rearranged so that the system is more fair rather than just letting a completely unfair system go unchallenged and unchanged. Our political system will NEVER be perfect. But it can be a lot more closer to perfect with corporate money taken out the equation. There are many good ideas on how to go about public financing of campaigns. All public, a combination of federal and public, etc. ALL options being light years better than what we have now and what Citizen's United(among other rulings) unleashed upon us.
What part of "deck chairs" did you miss? How do you take corporate money out. Banning it. It comes back in the form of the "New Jersey Garden Club". Ask Cynthia McKinney, Step one: kill the Fed. Step two: free your mind an your ass will follow!
Thank your for paying attention.
Okay...
Thats like saying you might as well not brush your teeth because the plaque is going to come back anyway...
However outside money comes back into the equation there is a way to fix it. I rather be in a place where we've taken out most of the outside money with laws and dealing with how it creeps back in accordingly; rather than what we are dealing with now and what we are on a course to deal with in the near future.
Thank you for posting.
Do you understand that the entire revenue collected by the IRS in the form of income tax goes to finance the debt? You are trying to seal the fishpond while a raging flood is coming to wash away the house.
Who are the American Drug Lords?
Where does money come from?
Who killed John O'Neill? http://wkjo.com
The Campaign Finance Reform Movement means nothing without Article 5 of the US constitution.-
We must get congress out of the picture with states ratifying the best amendment first. Do we know the difference?
Yes im aware of this. The first step is getting the majority of America united under this one core issue. Then after that the details would be easier to implement.
Well described first step. Would you say it would be okay to use emotional reasoning to do so?
Yes, all of the other details, grievances can be completely dealt with under the functions of the Article 5 convention.
As long as its not violent then any means of getting it done is a good way lol.
Thanks for the reply.
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OWS is a revolutionary movement. What's revolutionary about campaign finance reform? Sounds pretty paltry to me. Incremental at best and I never heard of a revolution coming in increments.
Campaign finance reform would be revolutionary because this is a problem that has been around for decades and is deeply ingrained in our system. Gaining a foothold here would pave the way for further changes.
This state, this government is owned lock, stock and barrel by the 1% and no matter what you do, no matter what legislation is passed, no matter who is put in public office it will still be the government of the 1%.
Our job, the job of our movement, as one slogan said, is to Occupy Everything and Demand Nothing. If you are too far away from an occupation to participate in it regularly, the best thing you can do to support the movement is not chase smoke dreams about cure all legislation. The best thing you can do is start a GA in your community and work toward and occupation there. If that is too difficult then start a GA in your neighborhood or on your block and start an occupation there. These are the building blocs of a truely just, democratic, loving and peaceful society.
"This state, this government is owned lock, stock and barrel by the 1% and no matter what you do, no matter what legislation is passed, no matter who is put in public office it will still be the government of the 1%."
If that is your view then why are you apart of the Occupy movement in the first place. You sound like there is nothing that can be done. Kind of a depressing attitude to take.
But like i've said earlier political pressure is everything! There will without a doubt be road blocks in the way of getting real Campaign Finance Reform but the more people that join Occupy under this being their main goal will achieve that goal. Together we are to powerful to be ignored by any elected official or plutocrat.
"Our job, the job of our movement, as one slogan said, is to Occupy Everything and Demand Nothing."
Demand nothing?! Its been the exact opposite of that lol. The demands have now become to broad. Also like i've already said, the problem isn't that there are to many demands the problem is that Occupiers don't bring forth all of these grievances with the core grievances that ties them all together. Campaign Finance Reform. Without CFR nothing will truly get solved. Because like you said as of now out government is completely bought off. We have to fix the core problem to even begin to deal with all of the other important problems in this country.
Thanks for replying. We may disagree but I can feel that you want change. But don't think we can't fix this together because we can. :)
On the contrary not only is it my view that there is nothing to be done to reform this corporate dominated state. That is the position of the people who initiated OWS in the first place. That is specifically why they don't make any demands. I've talked to dozens of occupiers at several occupations. Almost universally they will tell you: they are not for legislation, they are not for running people for office, they are not for supporting one candidate over another, they are not for or against any Constitutional amendment.
What they (we) are for is a total social transformation, an entirely new society in which people develop there own institutions to govern themselves in a peaceful, loving, just and democratic way. One of the major points of the occupations is that they form communities that are the model of the kind of society we want to build and live in.
OWS officially has not made a single demand. It has produced only one official political document, the Declaration of the Occupation of New York City, which is available on this website and elsewhere on the web. It contains not a single demand. Many individuals make signs with all kinds of demands and anybody is free to do that, but the NYC GA has not raised a single demand and is resistant to any effort to get it to do so.
Speaking of signs, my favorite sign said: "Demands put somebody else in charge of your happiness."
How is dealing with the core problem of this country paltry or even incremental? Incremental would be like having a core objective of creating a third party. Because instead of dealing with the real problem we would be creating another. Since the core of our political system is corrupt that new party would soon just be another corrupt party.
The difference between now and in the past when people have been calling for Campaign Finance Reform is that NOW there is more energy behind getting money out of politics than there ever has been by far. Mainly because of the Occupy movement. But since their messaging is so scattered and unfocused its not getting the majority of the attention it should be getting.
There is more outside (and anonymous) money corrupting our politics right now than there ever has been. So again, why is dealing with the core issue paltry or incremental? If anything it cuts right through the BS and deals with the problem directly.
Thanks for replying. With debating disagreements comes answers.
Electing new people to office, passing legislation (any legislation), or even passing Constitutional amendments. I see so much of this reformist stuff on this forum that I really needed to check out exactly what the movement was really about, the real movement, the occupations, not people kibbitzing on the internet.
The first thing to understand is that despite what you may hear on the news the movement is not being "taken over" by anarchists. Far from being taken over by anarchists, it was anarchists who initiated the movement and they remain its dominant intellectual current. They didn't take it over. They've been here since before the beginning and they still are.
If you want any evidence of this just go to any occupation, I spent a day at an occupation intent on testing this out and I asked everyone I met if they were a reformer or a revolutionary. Universally they all said they were revolutionaries. When I asked them what they meant by that they said that it was not about electing new people to public office or passing legislation. They said it was about ordinary people creating entirely new institutions to govern themselves and society and completely reorganizing society from below.
Not only is getting the money out of politics fundamental to further reform, it is unifying and popular. That is what really scares the plutocrats. The discovery of common ground between ordinary Americans on the left and the right.
The plutocrats love hearing talk of revolution, because they know ordinary Americans will not come together on such a thing.
In this day and age, finding common ground between ordinary Americans of all political stripes is what is truly revolutionary.
Couldn't have said it better myself. If its the one thing plutocrats fear is the left and right working together. And what scares them even more is the left and right and everyone inbetween working together on the core issue. Campaign Finance Reform.
Heaven forbid we all are truly equal and have an equal say of what the future of this country should be. ;)
You also need to call out the anarchists and marxists running the show that want to kill the economy and bring down the government. Reject supporters like Van Jones and Angela Davis, and Saul Alinsky. You can't expect normal Americans to side with anyone who embraces radical marxists.
I would be the first to say OWS is unorganized but "anarchists and marxists running the show"? Lets try to keep the talking points out of this and come up with real solutions.