What's next? That's the question being asked as cities close down Occupy encampments and winter approaches.
The answer is simple. Just as the Tea Party gained power, the Occupy Movement can. The Occupy movement has raised awareness of a great many of America's real issues and has organized supporters across the country. Next comes electoral power. Wall Street exerts its force through the money that buys elections and elected officials. But ultimately, the outcome of elections depends on people willing to take to the streets -- registering voters, knocking on doors, distributing information, speaking in local venues. The way to change the nation is to occupy elections.
Whatever Occupiers may think of the Democrats, they can gain power within the Democratic Party and hence in election contests all over America. All they have to do is join Democratic Clubs, stick to their values, speak out very loudly, and work in campaigns for candidates at every level who agree with their values. If Occupiers can run tent camps, organize food kitchens and clean-up brigades, run general assemblies, and use social media, they can take over and run a significant part of the Democratic Party.
To what end? All the hundreds of the occupiers' legitimate complaints and important policy suggestions follow from a simple general moral principle: American democracy is about citizens caring about one another and acting responsibly on that care.
The idea is simple but a lot follows from it: a government that protects and empowers everyone equally, a government of the Public -- public roads and buildings, school and universities, research and innovation, public health and health care, safety nets, access to justice in the courts, enforcement of worker rights, and practical necessities like sewers, power grids, clean air and water, public safety including safe food, drugs, and other products, public parks and recreational facilities, public oversight of the economy -- fiscal and trade policy, banking, the stock market -- and especially the preservation of nature in the interest of all.
The Public has been what has made Americans free -- and has underwritten American wealth. No one makes it on his or her own. Private success depends on a robust Public.
The rationale for the Occupy movement is that all of this has been under successful attack by the right wing, which has an opposing principle, that democracy is about citizens only taking care of themselves, about personal and not social responsibility. According to right-wing morality, the successful are by definition the moral; the one percent are taken to be the most moral. The country and the world should be ruled by such a "moral" hierarchy. Except for national security, the Public should disappear through lack of funding. The nation and the world should be ruled for private profit alone -- and by force.
That idea is what is destroying American democracy, and America with it. That idea is what is behind everything the Occupy Movement opposes -- and everything that is going wrong with America today.
Not only is America divided between two opposing principles, but a great many individuals are of those two minds at once: progressive on some matters, conservative on others -- with all sorts of variations. They are called variously independents, moderates, or the center. They are mostly the population that elections depend on. They have not one fundamental principle, but are split between two.
What makes one of these ascendant in the individual brain is the language one hears most. That is why the domination of public discourse is so important. It is why advertising in the media is important, why talk radio and tv and social media matter. Elections are what focus attention on public discourse. That is why the next step for the Occupy Movement should be to occupy elections.
The way to begin any discussion should be: Do you care about your fellow citizens? If so, do you take responsibility to act on that care?
The next question is: Do you realize how much every American, no matter how rich or poor, depends upon The Public?
Only when those questions are answered can detailed policy questions make sense.
Those are the questions that should be dominating our public discourse. They are the implicit questions asked by the Occupy movement. It is time to make them explicit, and to do so where it counts: in occupying elections.
Organizing, running for public office & the Election process are "the" only legitimate ways for change. Get enough folks to vote in every election - you can hold politicians accountable & throw them OUT after every term - if you like. Imagine how different things would be if we had the same 2008 voter turn out in 2010 = NO tea party. The democracy we have today - is a result of those who did & didn't vote in 2010. Many grew apathetic, thinking things couldn't get much worst = LOOK what happened. Sitting on the side lines isn't an option... nor is expecting others to vote the candidate "you want" into office. It's crazy & dangerously irresponsible!
We want the 1% to do what's right for our country - yet we don't even allocate 1 hour every few years to go vote. Our democracy isn't perfect, but it's what our founders put in place. We only need to look at voter turnout around the globe, to see how others "cherish" this civic duty... many have died for it. I have friends who don't vote, but they seem to have the loudest complaints & opinions afterwards... it's very selfish of them & I let them know. I also walk away when they complain, I tell them - I hear echos.
If we're not careful with our democracy - we stand to loose it to the crazies. If you care about the nation, it's future, it's potential...
o the billion of dollars needed to compete with the two-party duopoly
o the two-party duopoly has a stranglehold on ballot access laws. Oklahoma doesn't allow write-in votes.
until then, let's pressure our public servants to earn that epithet by serving the people.
of course, no amount of such pressure will work on gop officeholders, so we better elect dems.
FALSE. The Dems are plutocrats the same as Republicans. We have only one party, a corporate party. Just follow the money. What's needed is a movement to create a third party that makes gains at the local levels,i.e. municipalities, counties, state legislatures, until finally establishing the clout to challenge at the national level.
The Democrats are wrotten to the core as are the Republicans, they espouse plutocracy and have no real intention of changing it; they benefit to greatly from it.
Unless/until individual candidates and/or either party make a REAL stand for taking cash out of Congress, the OWS folks should withhold their support for ANY candidates.
demand that our so called 'leaders' vacate their offices!, At that point we will bombard the halls of congress and stay there, like they did at the beginning and create a revised government that we can be proud of. We've had over two hundred years to understand the pitfalls! We can do better,
much better!
I'm waiting for a 'call to action' from our OWS. They should get all of the biggest and most respected names we know and have them say it's time...it's got to be like the 10 million 'man' stand.
Naive? No! Easy? Hell no! Will some of us be hurt? Maybe. Anything worth having is worth
fighting for!
Currently, the unemployment rate for those with college degrees is 4.2%, virtually full employment. THOSE folks are doing OK!
Not even the Green Party is on the ballot in all 50 states:
http://www.gp.org/committees/ballot/
Green Party Ballot Access Committee
There is some progress:
http://www.freeandequal.org/2011/04/ballot-access-reform-bills-in-16-states-nation-wide/
Ballot access reform bills in 16 states nation-widÂe | Free And Equal
In October 2011 - filings for foreclosures rose 7% or 230,768 US properties. That's 7,444 foreclosures on average a day.
67,624 US Properties were repossessed by the Big Banks and other financial institutions - 6 Big Banks controlling the majority of this countries wealth (or those who own the Big Banks) and more property than ordinary working Americans.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-ferguson/the-financial-crisis-and-_1_b_782927.html
Charles Ferguson: The Financial Crisis and America's Political Duopoly
"...My answer is this: far from being in an era of brutal partisan warfare, as conventionÂal wisdom holds and as watching the nightly television news might suggest, the United States is now in the grip of a political duopoly in which both parties are thoroughly complicit. They play a game: they agree to fight viciously over certain things to retain the allegiance of their respective bases, while agreeing not to fight about anything that seriously endangers the privileges of America's new financial elites. Whether this duopoly will endure, and what to do about it, are perhaps the most important questions facing Americans. The current arrangemenÂt all but guarantees the continuing decline of the United States as a nation, and of the welfare of the bottom 90% of its citizens.
[snip]
In my personal conversatiÂons, I sense an emerging consensus based on nothing more complicateÂd than a sense of basic honesty, fairness, and common sense, qualities which the American people still have in abundance. Let us hope that this can be translated into some organized force that can put an end to the present political cartel. "
But with this article Lakoff is alienating me too.
First of all. It is a myth, a MYTH(!), that the Tea Party was a group that was frustrated with the Republican Party that then took it over. The Tea Party's views were ALREADY the views and the positions of the G.O.P.; the battle to take over the G.O.P from the right had been done a long time ago.
But more importantly is is NOT true that Occupy will only have power if we jettison our current outside the present system activism and go "Clean for Gene" to gain power in the party through traditional electoral means. The last 35 years since the original "Clean for Gene" shows that is a silly thing.
continued
Guess what? Back in the 70s we actually got one of our own, so it seemed, elected to the Senate, a true leader in the Anti-War movement who'd lead one of the most powerful anti-war groups, Vietman Veterans Against the War, and spoke against the war to Congress. Who was that? John Kerry who morphed into one of the most pro-war Democrats we've seen and who has NEVER voted against funding a war, plus voted for the Gulf War, Afghanistan and the Iraq War.
But by staying outside the system and agitating against the problems the current system creates, Occupy has a platform to shake things up. George? Get out of your Cognitive Psychology universe for once and investigate Ecological Psychology. It's the system that's the problem. Trying to fix it from within ends up reinforcing it.
Of course all the election laws make it as difficult as possible for a third party to succeed (written in collusion between the two major parties).
The answers to our country's problems will no be found in democrat or republican circles. They ARE the problem.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/
Banking on Becoming President | OpenSecrets
That was before the SCOTUS "Citizens United" decision.
The second problem is that ballot access laws have been rigged by the two-party duopoly to make it almost impossible for independenÂt or third-partÂy candidates to get on the ballots:
http://www.thelibertyvoice.com/ralph-nader-ron-paul-agree-ballot-access-laws-are-rigged-against-independent-third-party-candidates
Ralph Nader & Ron Paul Agree: Ballot Access Laws are Rigged Against IndependenÂt & Third Party Candidates | The Liberty Voice
http://rangevoting.org/Strangle.html
RangeVoting.org - Stranglehold of 2-party domination
http://www.freeandequal.org/videos/free-equal-ballot-access-movie/
Free & Equal Ballot Access Movie
There was more turnover in the Soviet Politburo than in the U.S. Congress
There is some progress:
http://www.freeandequal.org/2011/04/ballot-access-reform-bills-in-16-states-nation-wide/
Ballot access reform bills in 16 states nation-wide | Free And Equal