Forum Post: This is the CAUSE this protest should be focusing on:
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 3, 2011, 9:59 p.m. EST by allen80602
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REPEAL Gramm-Leach-Bliley. That's what started us down this path to begin with. Understand what that act did, be able to speak about it publicly, MAKE SOME SIGNS, and make repeal of that act the main focus of your protest. That will scare the living s#&^ out of them. How can I help in Denver?
An educated populous has the real power in a Democracy.
There are 310 million people in this country. Why would Congress bow to the demands of a few thousand?
An educated populous has the real power in a Democracy.
Indeed, but the protests aren't educating anybody about anything. There are 309.95 million Americans who have never set foot at an occupy protest. They are going about their lives--working, looking for work, taking care of their kids.
A great idea - yes. Impossible NO.
We can bring a strong voice in protest against Gramm-Leach-Bliley, and for re-implementation of Glass-Steagle. It costs us nothing at this point. The act of education for those who need to know the history of how we got here is paramount.. Those who understand have a chance to avoid a repeat of that history. Those who understand that we understand, should be afraid.
How can we return to mark-to-market?
this may be a great idea - but nearly impossible to do
We need to pick an issue that is simple - that is popular - how about an issue that 83% of Americans agree on - that 56% of TP agree on - that will cement the people in OWS with the people outside of OWS
Our only goal should be to pass a constitutional amendment to counter Supreme Court decisions Citizens United (2010) & Buckley v. Valeo (1976), that enable unlimited amounts of anonymous money to flood into our political system. It will be as short and concise as possible, a legally constructed “corporations and other organizations are not a persons and have no personhood rights” and “money is not free speech”.
We don’t have to persuade people to accept our position – we have to persuade them to ACT based on their own position. Pursuing this goal will prove to the world that we, at OWS, are a serious realistic Movement, with serious realistic goals. Achieving this goal will make virtually every other goal – from jobs, to taxes, to infrastructure , to Medicare – much easier to achieve – by disarming our greatest enemy – GREED.
THE SUCCESS STORY OF THE AMENDING PROCESS The Prohibition movement started as a disjointed effort by conservative teetotalers who thought the consumption of alcohol was immoral. They ransacked saloons and garnered press coverage here and there for a few years. Then they began to gain support from the liberals because many considered alcohol partially responsible for spousal and child abuse, among other social ills. This odd alliance, after many years of failing to influence change consistently across jurisdictions, decided to concentrate on one issue nationally—a constitutional amendment. They pressured all politicians on every level to sign a pledge to support the amendment. Any who did not, they defeated easily at the ballot box since they controlled a huge number of liberal, and conservative and independent swing votes in every election. By being a single-issue constituency attacking from all sides of the political spectrum, they very quickly amassed enough votes (2/3) to pass the amendment in Congress. And, using the same tactics, within just 17 months they were successful in getting ¾ of the state legislatures to ratify the constitutional amendment into law. (Other amendments were ratified even faster: Eight—the 7th, 12th, 13th, 15th, 17th, 20th, 21st and 26th—took less than a year. The 26th, granting 18-year-olds the right to vote, took just three months and eight days.)
If they could tie the left and right into success - WHY CAN'T WE??????????
We can bring a strong voice in protest against Gramm-Leach-Bliley, and for re-implementation of Glass-Steagle. It costs us nothing at this point. The act of education for those who need to know the history of how we got here is paramount.. Those who understand have a chance to avoid a repeat of that history. Those who understand that we understand, should be afraid.
Corporate Free Speech There needs to be better corporate representation. Money is speech. Every individual, even individual stockholders, "ownership," has a right to free speech. Free speech means no one can force or prevent an individual's speech. Ownership has the right to direct the corporation's speech and political contributions. Majority control of contributions may violate an individual's free speech. Corporate management can speech for the corporation, but ownership needs to authorize that speech. No speech or money spent on political contributions may be made without ownership authorization and such contributions must be taken from the individual's dividends. No dividends means there is no allowance for contributions. Corporate management must poll the ownership to determine the amount and placement of all individual stockholder directed contributions. The assignment of all corporate contributions must be made public so that ownership can verify the correct placement of their contributions. Management can not make contributions on the behalf of nonresponsive ownership and thus can only make contributions for which they have been directly authorized.
Money is speech. Corporations are people, because people get the money. Free speech means people are not forced to pay for someone else's speech. Corporations may not force to pay or deny dividends, to a person who does not approve of money spent on speech. Corporations may only spend money on speech that is taken, by approval, from the people who get the money. Every person who gets money, from the corporation, must approve the money spent on speech, in order to protect the right to free speech. Since the money spent on speech is identifiable with a person then that money is subject to caps associated with that person and must be reported. Also, tax consequences flow, to each person, for tax exempt contributions. If the corporation feels that the cost of polling and reporting the money spent on speech is prohibitive, then the corporation is prohibited from spending on speech. Corporations spend money on product ads and any political placement in a product ad must have unanimous consent of ownership.
"The world economy is doomed to spiral downwards until we do 2 things: outlaw government borrowing; 2. outlaw fractional reserve lending. Banks should only be allowed to lend out money they actually have and nations do not have to run up a "National Debt". Remember: It's not what backs the money, it's who controls its quantity."
-Quote from "The Secret of Oz" a great documentary on this topic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swkq2E8mswI
Another thing to fight for: Stock Transaction Tax. This has been brought up before - 2009 - but had no traction in the House. Unfortunately, the 'Republic' party can only bring that to the House for a vote now, but there is NO REASON not to bring it to the forefront in protest NOW.
I like your sentiments but it is too late for that to be a solution. Re-implementation of the act after a structured bankruptcy would do a lot of good though.
There are already over $1 quadrillion of derivatives in the market. All the banks are bankrupt. We can re-instate Glass-Steagle for new banks, but the ones we have now are broke and no amount of regulation will change that.
We can bring a strong voice in protest against Gramm-Leach-Bliley, and for re-implementation of Glass-Steagle. It costs us nothing at this point. The act of education for those who need to know the history of how we got here is paramount.. Those who understand have a chance to avoid a repeat of that history. Those who understand that we understand, should be afraid.
Check the link after the edit mark on this page for a working list of goals http://occupywallst.org/forum/first-official-release-from-occupy-wall-street/
and this Warning from the original Tea Party before it got hijacked http://occupywallst.org/forum/an-open-letter-and-warning-from-a-former-tea-party/
great. can you be bothered to link us?
Absolutely: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm-Leach-Bliley_Act
oh yah. i remember that now, so. now i can agree this is really important.
:)
Please pass this on if you agree. We are working on setting a date.
Force Change, Boycott Capitalism
We know what the problem is, let us fix it and move forward together.
When you look at a republican or democrat, congress or FDA official, Judges and Justice Department, you see criminals.
Our corruption dates back decades to when those, who in trying to preserve slavery, had to find new ways to preserve it and so created a scientific and advanced form of slavery.
Only two components were required -- the illusion of freedom & choice and the taking away of the freedom to live off the land.
How else would you get a person to submit themselves to mind numbing or degrading work unless you oppress them into it.
Our current system is rooted in corruption and every attempt in preserving it involves manipulating human thought and turning people against one another.
In America the population has been transformed into two major voting groups but they only have one choice.
They had been distracted up until now with television and American culture which prospered through the oppression of other nations.
Americans allowed themselves to be fooled into using their military and economic dominance to seize resources of other nations and create expanding markets for American profiteers.
Now that technology, competition and conscience have evolved Americans are realizing that our current system of government is damaging and unsustainable.
Our government officials have allowed private profits and personal benefits to influence decisions that affect the health and well-being of people all over the planet, not just in America... how much longer will we allow them to rule over us??
Occupy Washington and demand that government officials resign their posts.
We will setup new online elections with a verification system that will allow us to see our votes after we cast them, put our new officials in office and work toward rebuilding our country and our world.
Pass this message along to any and everyone, we already occupy the world, unite.
Occupy Washington, Boycott Capitalism, Force Change
http://wesower.org