Forum Post: What are your goals and priorities?
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 11, 2011, 8:51 p.m. EST by occupycommunity
(119)
from Rockville, MD
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I'm curios to find our which goals are most important to you. It would be good for our goals to be decided democratically, so if you have a goal or a priority to propose, please visit : http://occupycommunity.org/propose-a-goal/ and submit your goal. Also, once you've posted a goal, please also post it as a reply here so that others will know what goals have been added. Once we have a representative sample we can vote at http://occupycommunity.org/vote/ to allow participants to vote on which issues are the most important for them.
A reasonable objective and I would like to know this as well, but, 1. the trolls will distort the voting to disrupt our effort, 2. this only will work if you have a vetting process or at the least a way to limit everyone to one submission. You can see how difficult this can get.
You can try this as an exercise, but I think there are many sincere participants who, worried about the above, will decide not to participate or not give it their best effort.
Plus, if you envision using this in crafting a list of demands. I don't think that is the best tactic for us.
I have posted my ideas on this several times and I am tired of typing them. Others are also starting to come up with similar tactics.
We need a spokes person, not a leader. We don't need a negotiator. People will vote with their feet when they are satisfied. No way to change this. We will act like a free people, when we are free.
I completely agree with you that the trolls can distort voting, and I'm working on a few ideas to get around that (such as ip logging), but remember that we aren't trying to come up with a list of demands we're just trying to propose goals and this isn't official. I'm just trying to get some data to mine. Earlier I took a poll (in person, not online) of the goals some of the protesters were supporting. The methodology was far from scientific, but I published the results here : http://occupycommunity.org/category/goals/
Your results were very interesting and nothing in them appears implausible.
Propose goals? I don't get that. To whom? For what purpose, exactly?
Here is a scenario. Our numbers continue to grow and get "big" whatever big is. To me "big" is say 20% of the number of voters in a general election. They won't be that many actual active voters, but I think that would have both parties and ALL of the 1%, quaking in their boots. They all know what is wrong. They bought and paid for the changes and they will start scrambling over each other to gain the support of the 99%. Proposals will be made that can't be delivered. The 99% yawn and shake their heads. Then they get serious. Then, they make proposals that they really wouldn't like to give up but they make a more convincing case that they can deliver. Back and forth and they start moving the needle. We can't delivery an agreement to their package because we are a direct democracy in 99%. When the start delivering, we start losing those who are satisfied by each cookie. When they have pealed off enough of us to feel comfortable, they will start renegging on the rest of the package.
If they miscalculate, the 99% (or 78%?)) rise again. if not, we will have gotten something but not what we hoped for and the erosion of what we got will start immediately. What is wrong with scenario?
Well our little group from upstate NY will be proposing this declaration and plan of action at the GA in NYC on 10-15, See you there!
Declaration: https://sites.google.com/site/the99percentdeclaration/
Plan of Action: https://sites.google.com/site/the99percentdeclaration/home/the-steps-to-non-violent-revolution
Excellent ideas, all. While some might disagree on specific points, I think this is a great set of steps that will lead us in the direction of much-needed fairness & equality.
Fire the Federal Reserve Board.
Hold a recall election with campaign finance reform.
Enforce a limit to lobbying campaigns
Develop a sustainable economy.
We need a 28th amendment to the Constitution permanently establishing purely public financing of all elections throughout the entire country — from the President and Congress right on down to the local Dogcatcher. When privately held money no longer controls what ideas can be heard in our elections, we will have taken the greatest and most urgently-needed step in the direction of restoring our democracy.
Furthermore, this amendment must also set forth simple, fair and uniform criteria for how potential candidates can obtain a place on the ballot, and it must open voting rights in all primary elections to all qualified voters in any given electoral district, regardless of party affiliation. The corrupt party system has long rigged the rules in favor of its own machine candidates, but the parties do not now represent the people and probably never did. If we the people cannot represent ourselves, directly, in fair elections free of private money, we will never have anything other than oligarchy, no matter what brand names the various parties carry. And if all the potential candidates do not have equal rights and equal access to be heard in the marketplace of political ideas, then we the people will never have real democracy.
Our political system has never before prevented the access of private money, and just look at what has become of us! Today, we in the 99% stand absolutely stunned before the results of 222 years of continuous occupation of Washington, DC and our local governments by the wealthy elite. We do not deny that our country was made great by our many freedoms – freedoms that also enabled some of our citizens to become very wealthy. Unfortunately, our country’s ideals were simultaneously being destroyed by unequal access to the political process on the part of those same wealthy citizens, who now imagine themselves to be our ruling class. And why shouldn’t they think that way under the present system? Have we the people ever before demanded that our elections – the lifeblood of our democracy – be absolutely free and fair? Have we ever before required that all ideas and all the candidates representing those ideas be given absolutely equal access and equal airtime before the voting public??
There are a lot of wonderful ideas being proposed here and elsewhere (end of wars, flat tax, fair labor rules, balanced budget, end of corporate personhood, etc), but I ask all of you who read this to consider the following: If we do not wrest control of the current corrupt political process from the 1%, we will never achieve any of our other goals in the long or short run. Only by re-making our electoral process as a sacred public trust can we establish and maintain a functioning democracy that answers to all the people, equally. If we cannot do this, all is lost to the oligarchs on Wall Street and elsewhere. We must begin to treat elections like any other essential public good: if we want them to be healthy and strong, we absolutely must be willing to pay for them – and pay for them publicly.
great ideas, I'm not sure if we need all elections to be publicly financed, but it would certainly add some consistency and it's a solution I hadn't heard proposed before. If you haven't already done so, can you cut and paste your ideas here : http://occupycommunity.org/propose-a-goal/
Our technical issue has been resolved.
This was sent to our webpage: https://sites.google.com/site/the99percentdeclaration/
My name is ------------.
I am a 40 year old business owner and mother of three. I have things to say to the organizers of the Occupy Wallstreet Protests to keep the momentum going but I don't know how or who to contact. If you find the following of interest, please do what you can to spread the word. Thanks.
MY WORRY: when it gets cold, this important protest will fizzle. MY IDEA: that we organize via facebook/twitter and choose a date where we completely evacuate wall street....in otherwords, one day we are there, the next we're not...all over country, the protests stop on purpose. that would make a serious impact. THEN: we stage targeted "boycotts" that are announced, again, via facebook/twitter. for instance, the entire 99% does not shop for only one day at a different place and this place changes every single day. (after all we are not trying to put anyone out of business or do harm but make a point and show our power.) for instance, monday no amazon NOT ONE DIME...tuesday no starbucks...wednesday no arco...etc. Again, the company does not matter. All companies are culpable, even the good ones, because they are all part of the Wallstreet Machine. Our goal is not to shut down the country, after all we want to employ people. But we will no longer feel like helpless consumers that have no choice but to buy the "company stores" product no matter what the price. We have a choice...let’s choose! AND THEN, TO EXPLAIN OUR PURPOSE: we will calculate the amount of money a company lost by losing this business and say... "hey, that's a lot of money in just one day." Now let's compare that to the modest and FAIR amount of tax we'd like you to pay...or “how much is that compared to the insane bonuses you give your CEO” etc etc etc. BECAUSE: we are not trying to screw anyone, we just demand fairness. AND: the best way to achieve fairness is to REGULATE Wallstreet and modify the tax code (i.e. add a tax bracket for millionaires, scrap overseas tax havens, introduce a modest financial transaction tax, revamp the estate tax, end preferential treatment on capital gains tax) AND IN THE END: this is a relatively painless thing for all. the rich will still be rich. the free market will still be free (just not allowed to be as corrupt) and ALL OF US will enjoy our American citizenry without so much contempt for each other. AND TO END WITH A SLOGAN THAT MATTERS: "when we all do better, we all do better."
PS If you think this could work please forward to as many people necessary and feel free to use any or all of my ideas to make this protest lead to positive policy change.
Thanks for creating this thread ... I have posted concise set of goals earlier today at http://occupycommunity.org/propose-a-goal/
Here's net of what I proposed:
THE Goal - "Fairness for all"
Key Reforms to support THE Goal: 1) Election Reform
2) Tax Reform
3) Corporate Personhood Reform
I think we should focus on outlawing plastic bags.
Yes I agree. Definitely needs to be one of the goals. They sit in landfills for thousands of years and choke birds and stuff. I hear they are still finding them from the Ancient Egyptian version of Wal Mart.
I think it is a very achievable goal as well, unlike the useless calls to "End greed". Is there really ever an end to greed? No.
Plastic bags, on the other hand, we can definitely eliminate. I would propose new legislation making the possession of a plastic bag la misdemeanor, with a penalty of a 50$ fine for the first offense. The second offense I would make a felony, with an associated 5 year jail term. Three strikes, you are out!! (for good)
We could ball up the plastic bags and make the rich plastic bag sellers eat them. See how they like being all filled up with plastic for a change. Poor birds.
Actually, I was thinking that we execute the bag manufacturers for high treason. If thats too much, maybe we could just have the EPA shut down their factories, forcing them to take their dirty bags, factories, jobs, and money overseas to people who don't give a crap about birds. Here in America, WE CARE!
Damn straight.
"At least I give a shit, about the stuff I eat, yeah I care about NUTRITION!" - The Dead Milkmen.
Now that is old school. I was always more of a DKs fan - Kinky sex makes the world go round
Now we know there's an alarmingly high number of young people roaming around in your country with nothing to do but stir up trouble for the police and damage private property. It doesn't look like they'll ever get a job It's about time we did something constructive with these people
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9hYAQQFsoc
"Mom says if I eat all my food I get to go down the the hardcore show and watch F.O.D.!"
a clear and concise outline is listed at www.lemonparty.org
I didn't click on it. I know better that to click on that. But you're still a terrible person for posting that.