Forum Post: Three Points: One Demand

Three Points

If there is one criticism I have heard about the occupy movement, it is against the lack of specific purpose and organization. As such, I would like to humbly present this document before the general assembly for consideration and amendment according to the democratic method that we all practice and defend. That being said, this is not the voice of Occupy Nashville, in which I do participate, but is instead, the expressed opinion of me, as an individual, sharing what I have found to be incredibly useful to us so far while gathered in general assembly. Please keep this in mind as you read, and be active in your consideration, discussion, amendment, and possible adoption of this statement, in part or whole, into the general declarations of the occupy movement. Having had the opportunity to speak briefly before the general assembly, I found the following statements to be helpful in maintaining unity and organization.

Point One: On Focus: General Assembly of Occupy Together, it is for many reasons that we are gathered here, but if we are to have any effect, we must focus on the one cause of these many reasons. We must have unity, otherwise we are nothing more than an unorganized crowd on the streets. I think we can all agree that a people’s government should do only one thing: it should use our tax money to benefit us as we choose. But instead we have a government that is using our money, and money that we don’t have, to do things that we do not want, and do not need. It has grown corrupt and separate, and instead of serving to the benefit of the people as a whole, is serving the interests of a select few who have bought it out from under us. If we are to have any effect, we must remember to focus on what brings us together. We must leave our individual agendas and political endorsements out of the general assembly, and focus on what we have in common, not on the things in which our opinions differ. The individual ways in which we have been provoked to be here are what gives us our passion, and what gives us our aim, but if we do not use that passion and aim as a unified body with one cause, we are nothing more than a mob. A thousand reasons, but one cause. We want back the one thing we do not have, which if we get it, will in time dissolve all of the other issues we face. We want a government that is by, for and of the common people. We want a government that is nothing more than our collective resources pulled together to accomplish our collective goals. Any government that calls itself a democracy should do no other thing. Let it be known that any government that does not serve to the benefit of the people will eventually not be benefited by the service of the people, and will cease to be. It is with great patience that we have bourne on our shoulders the burdens of taxes that do not aid us, and fed a system that does not nourish us in return. It is with great reluctance and consideration that we take our constitutional rights to even propose the dissolution of such government. But when unconstitutional laws have been stacked so high, and corruption seeped so far into our political system that it is beyond the correction and repeal of the common man, and holds itself beyond amendment and repair, there remains little choice but to abandon it, unless it is willing to return to the one thing that a government should be. If our government is not us the people serving us the people as we see fit through our own provision and according to our own decision, than it is not our government. We want back a government of, for and by the people. All of our demands, all of our issues, all of our reasons come down to this one boiling point. It is the trunk of the tree at which we aim our axe. The roots are corruption and greed in the current political and economic system. The branches are the many manifestations of manufactured poverty, war, injustice and abuse against the people of the world caused by the hand of those in control, the 1% in whose hands the power and wealth have been concentrated enough to allow dominance over the policies and lifestyles that restrain the remaining 99% into the unwilling support of a system that controls them to their hurt while providing benefit to the few on top. If we are to succeed we need this focus and aim, this one demand. We the people, demand a government that is a true people’s government. We demand a government that does one thing and one thing only: Use our taxes to benefit us as we choose. This is what a democracy looks like.