It was late Saturday night at Zuccotti Park, the heart of the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York. "Why are you here?" I asked one of the occupiers. "We are here to defend the American people against an occupying global financial oligarchy!"
"I am choosing to no longer participate in what I perceive to be an abusive relationship," said Occupier Lopi, a 47-year-old who last year went to Haiti and housed 100 orphans in geodesic domes.
"Our goal to create a massive independent weapon of mass help! We are not intent on destruction. We are intent on confronting and fixing what we all know is a bought government." another occupier told me. "This is our shared moment to seize prosperity."
As each occupier bounced around like a water molecule, seeking alignment with those around them, the energy at the park was palpable. Watching the scene around me, one thing became clear to me: that a massive wave of energy is rebelling against the American government, unified in its intention to reject a system that refuses to defend 99% of its citizens.
Zuccotti Park in New York is just the beginning. Like a magnet pulling iron out of sand, folks from all walks of life are emerging from their tribes to align in a national wave rejecting our auction-democracy in order to give America the debate it deserves.
We all feel this wave. But how can we harness it together for positive change?
"Your ego wants to go to an outcome." said spiritual leader Deepak Chopra, who addressed Occupy Wall Street's General Assembly on Monday night. "But the only thing you can control in a wave of this size is your own intention."
These are all people who are getting off the hook of hope and exchanging it for the solid ground of courage, resolve and action. It is a group of shared principles and goals, not mechanics and ideas, centered around this: creating value by working together to solve problems with aligned interests for all. The ultimate goal, then, is to confront and resolve misalignment.
As an occupier named Goldi explained to me, "Our nation is too busy growing debt, poverty, homelessness, wars, oil spills, global temperatures and inflation on everything we need -- like food, education and healthcare -- to slow down, stop and fix the problem."
"I'm here because I love my family, and want to protect them from the thief with the gun on the street to the thief with the pen behind the desk!" said Calvin Roy, a Texan who said he was once aligned with the Tea Party, but has been disappointed by their failure to confront the auction of power in our democracy. (In fact not only has the Tea Party failed in this mission. So too has Democratic leadership since 2008.)
The status quo characterizes the occupations as unfocused and disorganized. Yet when I spoke with individuals at Zuccotti Park, participating in group talks and one-on-one debates with them for hours on end, their goals were nothing but crystal clear. They know their government is being purchased at auction, and they intend to stop it, whatever that may take.
Fortunately for all of us, the waves of collective action and aligned goals keep coming. Each one is bigger than the next. It is my intent to participate in this third wave, and use our collective power to harness it and do one thing -- finally end the auction of our government.
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Andy Ostroy: The Occupy Wall Street Movement Needs a Clear Set of Demands
Dylan Ratigan: Get Money Out to Bring Jobs In
Valarie Kaur: This Is What a Groundswell Looks Like
Rev. Daniel Simons: Trinity Church: Occupying Wall Street
Every institution failed us. Gov't, banks, regulators, rating agencies, insurance companies, and even ourselves.
Looking at the net results and accountability, something unmistakeably stands out.
The 99% are the only ones having to pay the piper in any substantial way.
Facts don't lie, but they can be ignored.
Jobs, homes, life savings, wage buying power, the list is endless in loses, and then the final straw, recognition that our gov't doesn't belong to us anymore. Politicians ignoring the will of the people, big money co-opting movements and engineering elections which strengthen their hold. A new Muppet representing the increasing % of children living in poverty and going to bed hungry.
They are called a mob conducting class war. Are they fighting this war using someone else's credit card, because they don't have a job, home, or cc of their own?
Get a job you say. Let's see, which one of the millions of new jobs out there will I choose from?
Dems, jump on board. Why would part of the illness go looking for a cure?
The only reason why people who can fix this mess, can't fix the mess, is, there are too many dollars stopping them. Stop it, Stop it, Stop it!
Making our elections paid for by us -- only us -- is the only answer. As in how my 8-year-old granddaughter puts it, "Like duuuuua."
I haven't had time to tune into the blogosphere on all the "Occupy This One Time." Regrets (I'm with you though). But it is so very GD simple that the answer to all our issues is to get the money out of politics. Only then do we get representation that is for us instead of the greed misters.
As Randie Rhodes says, "Until we get the money out of politics, what we see is what we get" -- and that is the certain path to self-destruct capitalism.
A citizen congress would put people and nation first, not promises and debts, and focus on the next election cycle.
And please, don't cry "inexperience" as a reason to exclude citizens. Jurors are not legal experts and yet they take the facts, deliberate quickly, and decide on life and death issues. I would trust a random jury of peers before 12 politicians, how about you?
Tired of corporate oligarchy rule? Take away their minions. K.I.S.S.
If I was at the protest, this would be my message:
STOP ELECTING LEGISLATORS. APPOINT A CITIZEN CONGRESS
POLITICIANS ARE MEN IN SUITS, NOT CELEBRITIES!
1. make sure the Democratic party wins the next election. Including Re-electing president Obama
and regaining a Super Majority in the Senate.
2. Keep a political majority for at least the next three election cycles.
3. Challenge Blue Dog and Yellow Dog Democrats in primaries.
4. Make sure anyone appointed to the Supreme Court is liberal.
5. Convene a Constitutional Convention to enact constitutional safeguards.
Lets not forget the best weapon the American people have is the vote. We have 99% of it.
With no way to spend corp money, there would actually be no congressfolks beholden to anyone but the voters that put them into their seat of representing us, ratther than corporation-corupted seat of misrepresentation.
1) Corporations are property, and have no rights other than explicitly granted by law. Corporations enjoy no freedom of political speech and shall not provide funding in any form to individuals seeking or holding elective office in the USA.
2) No individual shall donate more than $XXX to any individual seeking or holding elective office anywhere in the USA. Funding of campaigns for national elective offices are provided exclusively by the Federal Government and at the state level by the Government of the State where the office exists. No such funding shall be retained by seekers of office, whether or not elected, nor retained by any political party.
3) No member of Congress or a State Legislature shall lobby any government in the USA for a period of ten years after leaving office. No individual who has lobbied any government in the USA is eligible to seek elective office until ten years after ceasing such activities.
4) No person holding elective office in the USA shall have benefits unavailable to all persons eligible to vote for that office. All persons holding such office shall be bound by all laws that bind persons eligible to vote for that office.
5. In order to maintain a financial faireness at the corporate level, the CEO salary including bonus etc should not exceed xx times the basic minimum wages of workers.
6. In order to maximize profits, a CEO ususlly lays off employees. Instead, all the employees should take pay-cut proportonately until the Company becomes profitable.
7. Abolish lobbyists entirely. Multinational Corporations are NOT US CITIZENS. Only US citizens are legally eligible to contribute to the US elections.
Time to start electing people who are not indebted by PAC money.......and that is the problem, for it takes so much money to organize and run a campaign today, that only the rich need apply...and even the rich have to hold fundraisers. Now that the Supreme Court has issued its ruling on corporate donations, the problems will only worsen.
No, we need to be bolder, much bolder than boycotts. We need to Demand public and only public finance of elections.Period: One mission. One answer. One Solution.
"Update: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Invest in Lawmakers"
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/09/update-fannie-mae-and-freddie.html
And either address the reason corporate money is in politics or stop whining about it, generate some wealth, and buy a little influence of your own:
From "Congress to Big Biz: Lobby more, or else" by Tim Carney:
"Congressmen, especially Democrats, like to attack lobbyists and lobbying. They also supposedly hate corporate influence through campaign spending. Why, then, are they always criticizing businesses that don’t lobby or give enough in the form of campaign contributions?"
http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/congress-big-biz-lobby-more-or-else
From "It Isn’t Insider Trading When Your Senator Does It" by Ann Woolner:
"Laws that criminalize insider trading cover corporate insiders and those they tip, but not specifically Congress."
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-14/it-isn-t-insider-trading-when-congressmen-do-it-commentary-by-ann-woolner.html
And this from "Are Members of Congress Engaged in Insider Trading?" by Conor Friedersdorf:
"When Congress isn't sending billions in taxpayer money to bail out Wall Street firms, some of its legislators appear to be using information unavailable to the general public to personally profit on stock trades."
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/05/are-members-of-congress-engaged-in-insider-trading/239564/
Where the people are a many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
Where the executioner's face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I'll tell and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin'
But I'll know my songs well before I start singin'
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall."
Bob Dylan: A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall