Forum Post: What's the point again?
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 23, 2011, 4:09 a.m. EST by CombatVetForOccupy
(0)
from Oregon City, OR
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I'm for what I perceive the point of the movement, but I fear it's being hijacked by a few. After watching the movie "Inside Job" I became a believer. We need complete overhaul of everything that caused the last financial meltdown and immediate prosecution of all those that contributed to it. But NOW I'm supposed to link that to: US foreign policy, overturning nudity laws so OCCUPers can walk around naked, eating vegan, making my own clothes, smoking dope whenever/wherever we like, George Bush is the antichrist, etc. Come on! Can we please have only one (or at least only a few) main points! By the way, I'm not saying a lot of the protester aren't making some good points that should be addressed, but do we really expect to affect real change immediately when it's a free-for-all?
OWS fundamentals: Goal: commit treason How: destroying those who control them, yet in turn control they control Result: death of America Why: misconceptions on founding principles and basic monetary function
A single organization might have a goal which, if achieved, might mean that the organization had no more reason to exist. In the past a large-scale movement has usually been perceived as consisting of various organizations with related (but different) goals. Today, a large-scale movement consisting largely of individuals seeking a total overthrow of the power structure is not about to agree on a few goals which, if achieved, will mean they'll agree to roll over and disappear.
A century ago we were Wobblies, working-class, Socialists, Anarchists & muckrakers. Shot down by the 1%, we grew strong. In time, by allowing the graduated tax and social safety nets of Progressives & the New Deal, they convinced some of us we’d won. We grew weak, but had a bit more to spend as consumers, which also profited the 1%. Their economy grew. But now, unable to accept their victory, they undo reforms, hurting us & the economy. As 99%ers, we’ve learned: Reforms are fine, but don’t trust the 1% to say when we’ve won.
http://sites.google.com/site/reinventstuff/home/history2rs.pdf
I don't believe they plan on affecting change immediately. It's to be a gradual process. As the next few months go by, much of the riff-raff will fall away. By spring, expect to see a much more cohesive message. Big changes can't be expected to happen overnight, especially when you're coming up against the might of the US government and the very rich and very powerful status quo. As it stands now, though, it does seem like a bit of a cluster fuck.
+1 gnomunny you are right it is about the fundamental change required and it can actually take generations :)
Indeed. Small changes first. As our numbers grow into the millions, more changes will come, made easier by those early successes. In our "I want it yesterday" society it's easy for people to get frustrated when the wheel seems to be turning so damn slow. Whatever happens, expect 2012 to be a "history-making" year. One for the record books, I'll bet.
I like the way you think! hope we can find subjects in which we don't agree so we can actually have a conversation instead of a +1=+1. Have you by any chance joined any of nycga work groups? http://www.nycga.net/groups/ I belong to 6, from the opposite shore (live in Spain, belong to TTS http://takethesquare.net/2011/07/15/how-to-cook-a-pacific-revolution/).
No I haven't. Still just getting my feet wet. I've only been on this site about a week and a half so far. Still quite a bit to absorb. I came to it totally a skeptic but it's starting to win me over, I think. Kind of starting to like it.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/direct-democracy-via-the-internet/ and http://occupywallst.org/forum/direct-democracy/
I believe that Informed Direct Democracy is the point - it facilitates ALL the other points!
Informed Direct Democracy, the process by which the average well informed real public opinion is brought to the attention of all, directly, is now obviously made possible by the internet. Just as we have secure online banking, shopping, chat, forums, libraries, dictionaries, and many other types of large online services and gathering places of opinions and facts, we can have direct voting on ISSUES that affect everyone, accompanied by direct FACTUAL open sourced information available to all so we can KNOW what the issues are and how the issues affect people. The idea that most people are incapable of making direct decisions in their communities, governments, and international affairs because of lack of abilities, information, and lack of a practical method, is no longer tolerable. Most people on Earth, are perfectly capable of making sound decisions about any political, environmental, social issue, IF the people are provided with factual free open sourced information about the issues. Most people have enough common sense and reasoning abilities to understand and reach very reasonable solutions to all the issues we, the people of Earth, face today on local levels as well as global levels. Having poor education, as the 1% have turned our public education system into their consumer-worker brainwashing, is not the same as being stupid; and being trusting, as most people are, is not the same as being gullible, and is a virtue, not a weakness to be exploited by the greedy 1%. Most people should trust each other to share control over society together, not give up our liberties to a system of greed made by the 1% that's causing famine, wars financial desperation, poor education, and the destruction of our planet, all for MORE PROFIT FOR THE 1%. The internet already offers EVERYTHING that is needed to have Informed Direct Democratic voting on issues everywhere. All that is needed is for people to organize a system. This system should be started by the 99% Occupy International Movement right NOW, while there is still time. In a few short years, the PEOPLE OF EARTH could be voting on local politics and local issues, and on issues that affect their country, and global issues that affect everyone. Let's not allow the 1% to make us out to be a petty and shallow and selfish and cowardly poor VS rich movement. It's not about taking down rich people, it's about taking down GREED itself; most rich people have the same capacity for being reasonable as most poor people do. A real economic recovery is not accomplished by restoring the health of the financial institutions, because they measure their recovery in profit; we need to eliminate GREED from the financial system, because too-big-to-fail corporations reporting record profits does not equal healthy fair economy. The people can come up with MUCH better solutions together online NOW! It's time to stop handing over our control and trusting our representatives to make policies that reflect the will of the people, which they never do. We now have a system of greed running all governments and societies on Earth. Having the ability to vote AND BE INFORMED WITH THE FACTS about the issues directly as a people can FORCE our corrupt and greedy leaders to make the will of the people a reality. After all, in a Democratic society, the government's job is simply to administrate the process by which the will of the people is formulated into a body of laws and policies, which MOST people agree with, and then protect the peoples' rights to have such a Democracy. The government is sort of the secretary and the bodyguard of the people, not the authority for the people to be forced to follow even when most people disagree with its policies and decisions. In a true Democracy, the PEOPLE are the authority of the government. MOST PEOPLE ARE REASONABLE, give most people the power of direct voting on issues, and we will have very REASONABLE policies, everywhere. Remember, the key is the FREE OPEN SOURCED INFORMATION (kind of like wikipedia) accompanying the voting sites on the internet. So when reporters come to ask protesters on the streets what we are protesting for, what do we want, what are your demands (as if we were robbing a bank or something) we can say: "WE THE PEOPLE OF EARTH DEMAND DIRECT INFORMED DEMOCRACY ENABLED BY OUR CURRENT COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY, WE DEMAND VOTING ON ISSUES THAT AFFECT PEOPLE DIRECTLY THROUGH THE INTERNET AND WE DEMAND THAT WE HAVE AN OFFICIAL OPEN SOURCED ONLINE LIBRARY OF FACTS ABOUT ALL THE ISSUES WE ARE VOTING FOR."
love it
thanks