Forum Post: We need to march on washington and get some real change through
Posted 13 years ago on Nov. 3, 2011, 4:16 a.m. EST by voicefromolddominion
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There needs to be a massive march on Washington with specific ideas, demands and even possibly a bill to support. At the very least I think a bill to get banks and corporations out of government can be passed. and by that I mean reducing or completely eliminating lobbying, donations and political action groups that have so much influence over our government. An example for all of you. You want to know why we didn't get a single payer option in the healthcare bill? because the insurance industry spent millions to make sure it didn't happen. Now they are gaurenteed business in the insurance exchanges to be set up in 2014, made mandatory by the insurance mandate. (not a completely bad idea, but definately an insurance supported idea because it assures they will get customers) This kind of influence needs to be eliminated. It would be wonderful for people to stop being greedy, but I'm afraid that has never happened in the history of humanity. There are always going to be a$$holes. But we can limit their influence to no more than our influence. Everyone is doing a great job at bringing awareness for all these different ideas and the general idea that the top down power structure is not tolerable anymore. now we have to translate that into tangable and doable change in the near future. and I'm not saying stop occupying if we get something through, but this is something completely doable. More doable than a complete re-organization of the entire political structure in this country. GET THE BUZZ GOING LETS MARCH ON CONGRESS AND GET SOMETHING PASSED AND GAIN AN UNDENIABLE VICTORY FOR ALL THE GOOD HARDWORKING PEOPLE OF THIS COUNTRY
seriously people comment on this. get some more of this intelligent constructive conversation i'm seeing from the only two that posted on this!
You're absolutely right to call for a mass mobilization on Washington, but I don't think it would be effective to call for such sweeping but unspecific demands as getting business out of the government. Maybe I'm too parochial in applying the experience of the antiwar Vietnam war movement 40 years later, but we had to win over the radical movement to keeping the mass mobilizations legal and peaceful and for a demand that millions could agree with ("Bring The Troops Home Now" and "Out Now").
I don't know exactly what demand(s) today could have the same power to mobilize and at the same time win something tangible. I think it's great that OWS is raising multiple demands against the whole system--and it's already working--but maybe there's something specific to fight around, like: a moratorium on foreclosures of the 99%; equal taxation of the 1%; an end to campaign contributions of more than X dollars; overturning corporate "personhood"; and one I'm particularly concerned with, passing an anti-age discrimination bill, which has languished for two years in Congress, to overturn the viciously ageist Supreme Court decision in 2009 (Gross v. FBL); the bill's called something like Protecting Older Workers Against Age Discrimination. (Overturning that bill would also directly help me in my age discrimination lawsuit.)
Thanks again, and your idea's fantastic.
Hi, thanks very much, and I want to direct you to Socialist Action, a group that was formed by members who were expelled in 1983 from the Socialist Workers Party (which has since self-destructed). I've been reading the recent articles on the Socialist Action website (it's great that their headquarters is in Oakland, so they'll be able to be very helpful to the movement), and they're exactly what I remember from the SWP. You've brought up a lot of very important issues, but I agree with Socialist Action and other Marxists that we can't win the freedoms we believe in under the capitalist system.
Reading your complaint that others aren't commenting on the idea of a march on Washington reminds me of how hard it was to direct the anti Vietnam war movement to hold mass mobilizations--after we won over the core activists of the antiwar movement, there were two at the same time, one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast. So we might be seeing exactly the same phenomenon--that people don't automatically understand the need for mass action--right here on this website. But the Oakland occupiers did call for a general strike, which is a powerful form of mass action.
Thanks again, and I think your post and the lack of response is extremely telling. But that's why we have to keep pushing for the right politics!
All the best.
Yes that's exactly what I'm saying. The larger portion of society isn't going to get on board with anything here unless we have more specific, targeted demands that are attainable. Ironically enough I believe it was John McCain and a democrat who tried to push legislation to get corporate money out of elections. unfortunately that was shot down by a supreme court decision that basically said limiting contributions is limiting free speech. I guess my point is that our system isn't built to change quickly, but it is built to be able to change. We can gain momentum and get laws passed to address these issues we are all talking about. It is washington and wall streets fault. Wall street is greedy, washington enables it. So if we are to curb the inevitable greed of the rich, we have to get legislation passed and political power. Equal taxation, fair contributions, limited lobbying, anti-descrimination. I'm not a liberal or a conservative but I think very differently from both. Its the governments' job to give us all the opportunity to succeed and live a decent life. I see an inherent problem in our system that superceeds any political party and it needs to be fixed. I'm just proposing that we give them a way to fix one of the problems, march for it, and get it done. It also saddens me that my comments have only two comments while other random incoherent rants have many comments. You people don't think marching on washington to protest the cohesion of corporate/bank greed and government is a good idea? The state of things is wall streets fault, enabled by government, as I stated earlier. Wall street knows we are pissed now lets go do something about it and actually change things!
Every word here kicks ass. Great ideas and great page.
and not one of those transparent "blame Washington not Wall Street" rants. This one acknowledges both are at fault.