There will be no more sleepovers in public spaces for Occupy Wall Street. The tents and camp stoves have been picked up and carted away -- gone. But the impact of this upstart political movement remains. The voices of students, union members, the disenchanted, the disenfranchised, the angry, and the ever hopeful have entered our public conversation.
When we mention the 1 percent and the 99 percent, everybody now knows what we are talking about. It's part of our vocabulary. How quickly these numbers jumped from the sidelines to the center. I first heard them from Carol Shea Porter, former Congresswoman from New Hampshire. Fighting for the 99 percent was her campaign theme. I thought she was on to something, but I suspect even she, had no idea that fighting for the 99 percent would become the mantra for a new grass roots movement.
The wildfire spread of the Occupy movement, both here and abroad, amazed us. It touched a nerve of discontent with the status quo. The huge disparities in income growth between lower, middle and upper income groups offended our sense of fairness. The Occupy movement succeeded in expressing a general feeling of discontent that many Americans have felt building up over the last several years. We had no way to express it. Occupy enabled us to let off steam. The result is: "We're not going to take it anymore."
What "it" was -- that we're not going to take -- continues to be debated. Is "It" high student loan debts, is "It", new anti-union laws, is "It", joblessness, is "It" global warming? There is no single message connecting the movement. But that may not be entirely bad, for the short term.
But what about the long term? Could Occupiers shape an agenda that would be a counterweight to the Tea Party? Should they also support and defeat candidates?
I believe it is time for the Occupiers to focus. If there is one issue, that cuts across all the others -- it is need to curb the power of money to influence politics. Money often determines not only who gets elected, but what gets done. Which voices do lawmakers listen to, the banks or home owners, coal companies, or asthma sufferers, the CEOs or the unemployed?
Without putting the brakes on out of control campaign contributions from individuals and corporations -- it will be business as usual, with 1 percent of Americans pulling the strings. To give power back to 99 percent of Americans, we need a grassroots campaign for a constitutional amendment to reverse recent Supreme Court decisions on limiting campaign contributions. It's time for Occupy Wall Street to morph into Occupy Congress.
Charles McLeod: The Occupy Movement as Neo-Dadaism
'Occupy' became fundamentally suspect as of Trumka's involvement. Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO, a union that's government-heavy, is a long-time past master union organizer, hence his position at the head of that apparatus. Union members probably making 6 figures, plus benefits, and brother/sister organizations involving police themselves profiting handsomely off the whole thing, to the tune of millions of dollars worth of overtime thanks to the Occupiers.
Campaign donations? How about Campaign 21, that doesn't cost anything, because it uses the internet? How much can it cost to put up a website? Not any 14.7 million. Meg Whitman spent UNGODLY amounts of money on trying to basically buy the CA governorship, and lost.
More isn't always better, and the basic message/symptom of Occupy, is that there's a LOT of people behind the fiscal 8 ball in this country, and likely to stay there. So, maybe it's time to set up temporary soup kitchens and get community volunteers out there doing stuff, because neither government nor business seems motivated to do so. There is also class warfare, here in America, and if you're an Occupier, you're darn-skippy not 'middle class' like Trumka. Tried, judged, convicted, with digital efficiency...
I understand the evil of allowing Corporations to spend money in elections - should the same rules apply to unions? And if yes - should it apply to both public and private sector?
After all, shareholders can sell their stock if they do not like the way the corporation they own spends campaign dollars - union members can not typically leave the union and keep their job.
OWS leaders + organizers, here's action to consider that almost everyone can agree on, ---
constitutional amendment + national referendum to delegitimize and overturn "corporate personhood".
Here's a people's national campaign banner:--
"EVEN 90 YEAR OLD GRANDMA AND NINE YEAR OLD JOHNNY AGREE ---
CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PERSONS".
Let's strike fear and retrenchment into the heart of the 1% ruling class.
Please Google "99 Declaration" for detail information. Summary as follows:
99% Declaration: 6 Point Plan for returning Americas political system back to our citizens.
99% Declaration Specifics: 23 items …........scroll down after reading 6 Point Plan
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My view..... one of the most important documents in American History
sent to small banks or Credit Unions, with the Vets, handicap and Medicaid as well,
for that's 70 billion bucks a month that the government
spends, and watch Wall Street big guys go crazy all together. Congress wants the
Ryan Plan because Wall Street wants that money instead.
The Citizens United vs. FEC decission was wrong and allowed big money from the likes of the Koch’s, Murdock’s and Soros of the world to influence America’s elections under the guise of free speech. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, also known as the McCain-Feingold bill, simply left election finances in the hands of individual citizens and outlawed massive political contributions by corporation’s directly. Ask yourself, why should major corporations with ties to foreign governments and employee’s of many Nationalities, be allowed to flood our political system with money in an attempt to influence our election results? Do you really think that this is in America’s best interest. The right leaning majority of the SCOTUS in its attempt to favor the conservative wing of the Republican Party, allowed the potential interfearence of America’s enemies by their decission that corporations are a person and are therefore allowed freedom of speech. ABSURD ! American employee’s of these corporations were always allowed to contribute as they chose to. If you want to live like a Republican, vote Democratic.
We tend to blame someone other than ourselves—a political party, corporations, Washington. But blaming others is no longer an option. Sure, all these things need fixing, but the system reflects ourselves. We can only change the system if WE change. I don't mean just change attitudes or ways of thinking, I mean change our state of consciousness, individually and collectively. That means develop the full potentiality of who we are. How? Effective meditation, through which we can fully occupy our own individual consciousness: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeanne-ball/occupy-consciousness-heal_b_1106669.html
99% Declaration: 6 Point Plan for returning Americas political system back to our citizens.
99% Declaration Specifics: 23 items …scroll down from 6 Point Plan
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My view..... one of the most important documents in American History
strength is that they are involved with issues. The blame game between
the Republicans and the Democrats doesn't even end here on Huff Post,
for since June I've been commenting about the issues, and getting off
attacking everything but the kitchen sink, but it's a way of life. I'm
going to miss my 324 fans, and am sure they will keep fighting.
Thanks people.
It would be the most unifying revolutionary people's action when the current 5to4 majority of this Soupy Court's absurd "corporate personhood (and wink)" is finally and utterly delegitimized and decisively overturned by people's resolution, constitutional amendment, or national referendum, or all of the above.
Here's a heroic revolutionary music to go with OWS fervor:
Chopin Polonaise in A flat major Op 53 -- Lang Lang
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=org1Tt1NnBY
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No, it can only happen by an American Spring, A huge contingent of people who will Hound salons 24/7, at their homes, congress, websites, etc., until the amendment U speak of happens.