In recent years, we have seen vividly the problems of the systems of governance and economics in the United States. Many of us have felt them personally. Our wealth -- both as individuals and as a society -- is precariously situated, ready to fall from our hands in an unstoppable flow (if it has not slipped away already). Our national political system is dysfunctional, characterized by halting, irregular movements, marked with corruption and cronyism (corporate ethics have become political ethics), and fueled, it seems, not by any virtues of civic duty or social responsibility, but by personal rancor, distrust, and petty disputes over who knows best. Our government's enactment of democracy has become so warped that we can barely see how its objective is, at the end of the day, to provide us with freedom, equity, and well-being above all else.
But we know all this.
We know that we are in a crisis that has been intensifying for years. And we know that every attempt by ordinary citizens to remedy it, undertaken through normal political channels, has ended in failure or its approximation. We see that nearly all of the positive energy that citizens put into politics, after making its way through the halls of government where things are supposed to happen, results in nothing of substantial worth to our country and the vast majority of its people. It seems more and more that anything positive and proactive we endeavor to accomplish leads to an ignition of partisan conflict and a paralysis of governmental activity. We see that, in this regard, the category democratic citizen has become mostly a sham.
Yet, when a movement swells up at an epicenter of this malfunctioning system and presents itself as a radical alternative to the prescribed modes of political engagement -- those modes that have been failing us so completely -- many commentators turn up their noses and say that nothing serious is being done, that these people aren't making a "real" political engagement.
These commentators, for one reason or another, are ignoring the fact that their "real" political engagement requires the utilization of a slimy, inefficient, and, recently, ineffectual political machine. They forget that Congress has proven, especially since the financial collapse, to be completely insulated from any rational appeal from the citizenry for major regulatory or structural reform and that, consequently, any effort to lobby for specific policy exposes itself to the rot that is eating away at our entire system of law-making.
Hopelessly lost outside of our historical moment, these commentators would rather scoff at the supposed naivety of the Wall Street protestors, ridicule their vaguely utopian ambitions, than take a critical look at the story of United States politics in the last three years. In that story, they might find where the truly naĂ¯ve expectations lie: that politics-as-usual, and the "proper" political channels, will provide our country with a practicable way out.
Were they to look critically, they might see that, in fact, an injection of mass, non-partisan dissatisfaction (with a dash of utopianism), could be precisely what our country, and more especially our government, needs to pull its head out of the sand. Maybe this other voice -- the voice of the Wall Street protestors, the one refusing to give in to demands for legibility because it knows that the political language afforded to the citizen has been rendered ineffectual and basically non-communicative -- is the one that will provide an engine that will allow politics to really start happening again in the United States. Because what we have now in the governance of United States is not really politics. We have, at every turn, the failure of politics.
Maybe the protests, by evading the traps and lures of party politics, will help to generate the nationwide sentiment that is required for policy change; maybe they will inspire a small corner of our congresspeople to push the agenda that so few of them, fearful of agitating their donors and alienating misinformed constituencies, seem willing to push. At the very least, as we are beginning to see, these protests will generate conversation about possibility, which is really the basic material of democracy.
Among the countless opinion pieces criticizing the Occupy Wall Street movement for failing to create real movement in political discourse, we find a crucial truth: these pieces, each offering its own insight and persuasion, each its own critical take on the problems of our country and how to engage them, represent a beginning to the real conversation on reform, newly invigorated. And we should be careful not to forget where this conversation found its genesis: in a group of shambly, inarticulate hippies camped out with bucket-drums in the financial district of New York City.
If we are attempting to locate the movement at Wall Street within the frame of our contemporary American political landscape, and to measure its value and efficacy according to the norms of this landscape, then the failure to make a political critique is not on the part of the protestors, but on our own. If the protestors are lacking a clear and resounding call for reform, it is because Washington has denied the permissibility of that voice.
Kelly Cogswell: So You Want to Be an Activist?
Phil Aroneanu: Why Environmentalists Should Occupy Wall Street
Chris Weigant: Wall Street Protest, Circa 1967
John Eskow: Occupy Reality TV: We Need a Cops-Type Show for Corporate Criminals
Need profits so government can take "their" portion of the profit and spend it.
don't like the banks, don't use them
don't like the crony capitlism, vote in different people and change the rules
these people should read Andrew jackson and the Bank Wars.......actually everyone should.
Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.
Free college education.
Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.
One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.
One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America’s nuclear power plants.
Racial and gender equal rights amendment.
Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.
Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.
Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the “Books.â€
Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.
Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.
The revolution took place. Contrary to what Ann Coulter believes, it took place in the 1980s. The revolutionaries now sit in the offices of Wall Street firms.
But they still don't know anything.
Change you can believe in.
;-)
Then, maybe, they'll have something of value to say. Right now they are just inarticulate ignorant whiners with vaguely Marxist pretensions.
He is less in the back pocket of corporations than BO is for sure.
Yes, but be careful or you get a Tea Party, the GOP cannot control them
Congress must also write and mandate the laws that will change political contributions from large corporations which control the campaigns that influence voters and continue the re-election of incumbents who participate in cronyism. NO more lobbyist should be allowed in Washington, no more large contributions to political campaigns by any corporation seeking to gain favoritism for their agendas.
Congress has moved from by the people, for the people, to by the people for the wealthy and Big Business. The best possible outcome of this protest can be obtained by organization and continued National attention to the issue that CONGRESS is, and has been the problem. Creating voter awareness is the best possible outcome. Encouraging more registered voters to change to Independents, and encourage they vote as many incumbents out as possible in 2012,sending a message that We The People will be heard, and CONGRESS you will do the job for the majority of Americans or we will continue to vote you out in droves every election.
No, it started with the Ron Paul Revolution, which was hi-jacked by corporate interests and turned into the nonsense that is the Modern Tea Party. This then filtered into the Republican Party, causing them to go hyper right, which then caused the left to have an extremist reaction in the opposite direction which led to Occupy Wall Street.
It's time to realize that the true activists of both sides want precisely the same thing - an end to corporatism, empire, and centralized monetary control - all of which are problems caused by an out of control and corrupt government, NOT capitalism.
Smaller Government, - A bloated bureaucracy creates wasteful spending
Eliminate Excessive Taxes
Eliminate the National Debt
Eliminate Deficit Spending
Protect Free Markets
Abide by the Constitution of the United States
Promote Civic Responsibility
Believe in the People
Avoid the Pitfalls of Politics
Maintain Local Independence
These are not radical ideas. They are common sense approach to fiscal responsibility, individual rights, and less Government control. We want America to prosper and allow each individual to take responsibility for their own self. We want representatives to be held accountable to their oath of office, and enact laws in accordance with the constitution.
The media may call as what ever they want to discourage others and to follow their leftist agenda. The choice is up to each individual. We want to keep our nation, free, strong, and prosperous.
Nothing changes as fast or as much as we would want, but nothing changes at all if we don't work for it.
Ours is a hybrid economy, not unadulterated capitalism.
A shift to the left might just enable our economy to have a future.
Boring, same old thing, nothing new.
Perhaps what then is needed next is a constituency of those individuals who work within media, medicine, insurance, education,finance and politics and so forth to propose ideas that will go some way in addressing the legitimate grievances of greater society-and to bring back some checking of the system and evening of the playing field. But should we hold our breath?
http://scallywagandvagabond.com/2011/10/finally-america-begins-to-revolt-against-the-moneyed-classes-but-will-the-rebellion-actually-lead-to-any-changes/
They don't even realize what they're saying - "We're tired of government corruption, so we're going to beg government to quit being so corrupt!"