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Forum Post: Your Brothers and Sisters in India Are Winning!

Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 31, 2011, 4:38 p.m. EST by HitGirl (2263)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

Thanks to the efforts of Anna Huzare India's 99% has risen up against corruption. Even India's new prosperous middle-class has joined the protest out of enough-is-enough principle. They are affecting real political change. So can OWS. Hang in there!

28 Comments

28 Comments


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[-] 2 points by navin (4) 12 years ago

" Hazare has also called for an amendment to the election laws to require that voters always be offered the option of “None of the Above.” When it prevails, parties would have to come up with better candidates."

New York Times, October 30, 2011, Beyond Occupy By BILL KELLER

Now here's a marvelous idea worth importing from India that will fit nicely into American culture of bumper stickers and Twits to get the message across very effectively. The timing is ideal as close to 90% of people disapprove of Congress and there are no viable third party candidates running for office. Just imagine the election night coverage and the headlines next morning announcing the election results - Republican 20%, Democrat 20% , 'None of the Above' 60%. No party will be able to claim a mandate and go on to serving their own special interests. The power will still remain with the people. I am not sure if our constitution or election laws will allow to put 'None of the above" on the ballot to officially tally that. But, our ballots already have a space for a "write in" candidate and exit polls will give a good enough count of "None of the above". 2008 Senate race in Alaska proved that enough people will exercise the "write in" option if energized enough. This is the best way to frustrate the politicians and special interests who bankroll billions to get them above the magic 50% mark. It will show that after spending millions of dollars our politician-emperors have no clothes.

Here's a nice poster:

REPUBLICANS - NO DEMOCRATS - NO NONE OF THE ABOVE - YES

[-] 1 points by SSJHilscher (75) from Madison, WI 12 years ago

This would work marvelously with instant-runoff voting. Without it, no one will ever choose it. Instant Runoff Voting is a mandatory step towards restoring democracy to the people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting

[-] 0 points by HitGirl (2263) 12 years ago

Thanks for that. We need to end the two-party monopoly on our government!

[-] 1 points by SirPoeticJustice (628) from New York, NY 12 years ago

Are We Talking About MAOISTS in India??????????????????????????

The Communist Party of India (Maoist) is a Maoist political party in India which aims to overthrow the government of India.[40] It was founded on September 21, 2004, through the merger of the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) People's War and the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCC). The merger was announced to the public on October 14 the same year. In the merger a provisional central committee was constituted, with the erstwhile People's War Group leader Muppala Lakshmana Rao alias Ganapathi as General Secretary. It is currently proscribed as a terrorist organization by the Indian government for organizing mass killings in furtherance of their ideology.

[-] 1 points by HitGirl (2263) 12 years ago

Anna Hazare is not a maoist. I think some of his supporters may be maoist sympathizers, but he has such a large support base that's to be expected. Also there is a swift-boat style effort to paint him as a maoist. The usual 1% crap: lies, deception, bigotry, posting shit like yours. They win by keeping us confused and hating each other.

[-] 1 points by gawdoftruth (3698) from Santa Barbara, CA 12 years ago

needs links.???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPR3GlpQQJA

I have been active here since the very beginning, and since the very beginning I have been trying to make some core points. These points clearly have not been digested or fully understood by the mob, and so I'm going to try to make a further attempt here again.

  1. Merely protesting in the streets will not bring change. In fact merely protesting in the streets is in fact a means to the end of avoiding the real work of a revolution, which consists of the evolutionary solutions, answers, problem solving process, and new political alignment we create.
  2. This forum is absolutely disorganized. It won't be read by most people and it won't and can't function as a core organizational system.
  3. Back at the very start of this, I petitioned the admin to add multiple sub forums and a wiki. Multiple sub forums were promised but have never arrived. I think that this tells us that the intention actually of this forum is message control and containment. The entire purpose really of this forum has always been to keep us spinning in disorganization. We are hanging out on a forum that expressly exists to actually keep us confused and disorganized.
  4. The real work of a revolution isn't going to happen on forums, it needs to happen in a much more organized fashion using collaborative software.
  5. The assorted other details about how to collaborate, how to work open source direct democracy, how to focus in on science instead of isms, how to become hyper rational about this, are details which are essential and crucial, without which we can predict the movement to fail.
  6. Technically speaking we are not 99 percent, we are one tenth of one percent attempting to represent the 99 percent. Our core mission must be to communicate to and with the 99 percent, and get them to join us. This forum will not accomplish that and neither will any of the other main websites.
  7. You can follow other people out to other wikis and other websites, where they will try to get you to get involved with what they want and their program, but frankly speaking, there is no other website and no other operation out there which understands the complexities involved with meaningful organization. In short, everyones being led to get involved here there and everywhere else, scattering the movement in directions which ultimately do not gain us critical mass, criticial momentum, or critical systemic lucidity.
  8. I have managed to get a wiki put up and have already put on that wiki evolutionary details which make it more organized than anything else. I can't do this alone. There are 10 or so wikis now out there, most of which were created in response to my pleas for a wiki, and several of which are in domains owned and operated by some corporation, (wikia, etc) And which we can thus assume will simply be closed, shut down, or deleted if they become useful to the movement.
  9. Probably at least half of the invites you have to go participate at some other site are people who are scamming everyone to waste time and energy, distort the movement, co opt it, and etc. When you walk off into a closet ask yourself how you know that the closet isn't created by some fed, or by some republican, or by some democrat, in order to sway things in their direction.
  10. The only meaningful strategic option we have for real change in this country is to create a new third party, and take every political office in this country.
  11. Once that is done, we can have an article 5 convention. If we have an article 5 convention before getting rid of the oligachs, that just opens the genie from the bottle for them to abuse that process with their corruption and evil.

For these reasons, I beg of you to please immediately join me on the wiki. We need to have all of these details and all of these ideas put together in an organized fashion, rather than posted in a long scrawl which will never be read.

http://occupythiswiki.org/wiki/THE_99%25_POLITICAL_PARTY

http://occupythiswiki.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://www.followthemoney.org/?gclid=CMbY87bB-qsCFUPt7Qod9HE8mQ

http://maplight.org/us-congress/guide/data/money?9gtype=search&9gkw=list%20of%20campaign%20donations&9gad=6213192521.1&9gag=1786513361&gclid=CP61oYbB-qsCFQFZ7AodcTF0jw

http://www.opensecrets.org/

http://occupywallst.org/forum/our-new-wiki/

http://occupywallst.org/forum/non-violence-evolution-by-paradigm-shift/

[-] 0 points by HitGirl (2263) 12 years ago

Then you don't think it's possible to persuade or infiltrate the Democratic Party? It seems like that is what happened to the Republican Party. Granted the resources=money were plentiful. It just seems a longer harder route to create a third party and third parties never do well. Right now OWS's real strengths are that a large percentage of Americans support the movement (that could change), and America is ripe for change. If OWS becomes too unrealistic, it could lose the support middle-Americans.

[-] 1 points by gawdoftruth (3698) from Santa Barbara, CA 12 years ago

No, I don't think its possible to persuade corporate oligarchs to give up their power. We have to remove them forcibly via the manner which the law provides. Anything less sets us up to be co-opted.

The republican party was glad to have the tea party pull it further to the right and off into wingnuts ville. The Tea party was always merely a coked up version of the tea party, and both have always been the party for the elites, by the elites, and of their dupes.

Clearly this is not actually a pattern we want to follow,. being duped by the dems is not a viable alternative.

If you think its longer and harder of a route, then you need to stop and get clear about whats at the end of each route. Operating inside the dem party assures us failure as a revolution. It assures us that everything gets watered over, and that the oligarchs put a binky in everyones mouth and then shuts them down and shuts them up and makes believe that its their way or the republicans. As long as they have us caught in that false dualism they can continue to shaft us. So that "route" is a dead end. Period.

A great deal of organization needs to take place, once that organization takes place the middle class and independents will join us, it won't look at all unrealistic and it isn't. I mean it is right now with everything a giant screwball anarchists mess. But assuming organization happens there is not one godo reason why a third party couldn't win hands down every seat the upcoming election cycle.

[-] 0 points by agnosticnixie (17) from Laval, QC 12 years ago

The Republic party is infiltrated? Funny, it still seems to advocate the same agenda as it did for the past few years...

[Removed]

[-] 0 points by Vincenzo (47) 12 years ago

Forgive me for not being enthusiastic. India's so-called "new prosperous middle-class" has come about at the expense of many middle-class Americans vis-a-vis corporations offshoring to India and the corrupt and harmful H-1B visa.

[-] 0 points by HitGirl (2263) 12 years ago

Sad but true. But who is to blame? Certainly not the Indians. It was OUR elected officials and OUR corporations. We should have been paying attention. They didn't sneak across the boarder to take our jobs. We handed the jobs to them.

[-] 0 points by pinker (586) 12 years ago

Whhhaaat? Huzare's protest/hunger strike/arrest had NOTHING to do with this and started way before this. Do you know how poor the people in India are? Do you know what a caste system is?

[-] 1 points by HitGirl (2263) 12 years ago

Did my post say otherwise? And it wasn't that long ago and it is ongoing FYI.

[-] 0 points by pinker (586) 12 years ago

Really? it's ongoing you say? the struggle of the poor in india? who knew?

[-] 0 points by TIOUAISE (2526) 12 years ago

"India's 99% has risen up against corruption." Isn't that amazing news???

The WHOLE WORLD is rising up.

Do you know if he came to Liberty Plaza? He was supposed to address OWS a few weeks ago.

See : http://occupywallst.org/forum/anna-hazare-india-gandhi-called-to-address-liberty/

P.S. His name is spelled "Anna Hazare".

[-] 0 points by pinker (586) 12 years ago

Jesus Christ Americans are pompous. India IS the 99 percent. YOU are the 1 percent to them. And the world was rising up well before OWS. Leave it to Americans to think they were the catalyst.

[-] 0 points by TIOUAISE (2526) 12 years ago

"Leave it to Americans to think they were the catalyst." Where did THAT come from, "pinker" ? From your imagination, I'm afraid, as there is NOTHING in the above post OR in my comment that would even remotely suggest some jingoistic American claim for launching the Worldwide Revolution for Social Justice.

In fact, it seems pretty obvious to me that we Americans were rather late comers, AFTER the Arab Spring, the demonstrations in Europe, in Israel, etc, etc. So there!