cause! The bad laws being passed that you are fighting against are passed by corrupt, bought off politicians.
You only need 1 issue!
COMPLETE CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM (CCFR). Publicly funded elections would take the legal bribes of the fat cat donors and make them illegal. We could have Representative government again, something we lost 35 years ago!

Nothing in this country will ever change without CCFR. Crooked SCOTUS and greedy bought off politicians are the enemy of this country.

When corporations have gotten more powerful than the government, when almost everything the government does is outsourced, when the Supreme Court is hellbent on removing all limits on individual political contributions, do you really think that passing a few more ineffectual laws would solve our vast array of other problems?

Our sickness has a name, but the closest approximation of that name is "property" -- or rather, the ideology of property, which says that everything is (or soon will be) owned by somebody, and that whoever owns the necessities of life can control how they are doled out to the rest of us.

Until you resolve that, even government is going to do the bidding of its "owners" and not of its citizens. And as for the rest of us, we just become one more kind of property.

more likely to happen than the USA than us changing to some from of socialism/communism.

Already the major donors have been plowing their money into so-called "issues" advertising, because there aren't the same restrictions as there are on direct donations to candidates. Publicly funded elections would do nothing to eliminate that -- and given First Amendment protections of free speech, there is no way to prevent it.

My son, who's fond of role-playing games, believes strongly that any system of rules has loopholes that will eventually be discovered and exploited by those who care about winning to the point where they don't care if they destroy the game -- and our Constitution is no exception. When it comes to RPGs, the game designers can put out a new edition that resets the game mechanics. With nations, it's not that easy.

This is why I believe that the system as it currently stands is broken and ultimately unsalvageable. I'm not sure that either socialism or communism is the way to go -- it might be sufficient to draw a hard line between personal property (clothing, gadgets, a private dwelling) and "ownership" of revenue-producing organizations, farmland, and natural resources and to treat the latter to a high level of scrutiny as to whether it serves the public interest. But one way or another, something a lot more sweeping than minor tweaks to our electoral procedures is called for.

The protection of the sanctity of our elections could do it. Your son is right though, they will not stop trying to exercise control and have the money to exploit any loophole. In any form of government there will be those that get special favors etc., the trick is to fight them back with a unity of purpose. The problem we have today is motivating the ignorant that it is in their best interest to join us, and not be brainwashed by the powers that be.

I believe the number one problem is an unfair tax code. If we reverted back to the taxes on high earners that we had in the 1950's, the election problems would go away.

I don't believe that publicly funded elections are THE solution. They would bring about the same kind of problems that always occur when the government tries to run something.

The reason why things have gotten so bad now is because Reagan's claim that 'government is the problem' resonated with so many people.

No, I think the only thing that we need for effective campaign finance reform is to make the high earners pay their fair share. Then they won't have enough left over to pervert the system.

Thanks for that, Fire Walk With Me.

...OWS also blew it themselves. By having no leadership, no concise agenda or defined policy demands, they allowed themselves to be defined by the corporate and right wing media as spolied kids, trouble makers, moochers, socialists and so on...and in the end they lost public support outside of the very politically active.

but as mentioned above, the mainstream media are corporate-owned and guess who didn't like our message? Corporations.



We never stood a chance in the mainstream media but that's okay.

If we'd had leaders, they'd all be in jail right now or worse. It's better that we used horizontal participatory democracy where each person's voice is exactly as valuable as another's.

Being politically active is critical. "Eternal Vigilance is the price of freedom." “The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”

And we do have a unified message:

Look I was all about OWS. Donated, went down to city hall in Philly many times to do my part.

There was a moment, a once in a generation moment, where OWS caught America's attention and had the support of many. There was real momentum, something big.

But like any great movement you need a defined goal, an end game. Civil rights. Gay rights. Worker rights. Environmental laws. They all had leaders and a specific goal.

OWS didn't. Originally their message was about corporate America and Wall Street owning our political system and rigging our entire economy for themselves, and this resonated.

But then this "horizontal leadership" you refer to led to OWS appearing to be for everything and nothing all at once. Then you add in the anarchists, the trouble makers, the pot smokers, to clueless kids...and the corporate media had no problem making OWS into a joke.

OWS brought the 99% talking point to the forefront, a wonderful accomplishment. But as a movement , given the national spotlight and momentum it had, it will go down as a massive failure and tragic lost opportunity.

Worse, it doesn't seem like you guys learned the lessons yet.

And please don't reply that "you don't care about getting things done within the system, you want to tear down the system and replace it"...to the average American that message is as scary as anything the tea party freaks have ever said.

Per the cartoon with the man screaming "no movement can succeed if it fails to encapsulate its message in a simple soundbite!", so much is wrong that all of it in and of itself forced OWS's existence. All of it has to change to a model reflecting fairness and equality. This does not require tearing down existing systems; it merely requires creating new (fair, equal) systems which will literally obsolete the cruel, old systems (a debit card which costs only 99 cents a month with no other fees can quickly cause one to simply forget all other options, for example. The ugly, selfish options will vanish as a result). And we have begun with the Rolling Jubilee/Strike Debt, the OWS financial cooperative, the free medical clinic in the southwest (forget which state; sorry), free service to the homeless such as in Occupy Sydney (which is raided constantly by an enraged government), Occupy Sandy relief efforts, etc. It's begun. Education and outreach regarding "money and corruption out of politics/income inequality" are active and are gaining new ground. Occupy Madison have an assembly line to create tiny houses for the poor and homeless (and those who simply wish to live that way).

OWS' main message is equality and fairness. That's our goal. It's not forgotten. It is vast and wide and far-reaching. It has in fact, begun. Its success relies upon it becoming the will of the majority, and it is ramping up to such as we watch. No one likes unfairness except for those fattening themselves through it. We are headed toward a peaceful populist uprising which will simply create better ways of living to replace that which is ugly.

OWS has transformed into more a philosophy, almost a religion. I think that's great, and the work they are doing is truly wonderful. But I'm not going to hold my breath that it will fundamentally change America, the powers that be have far too strong a hold on everything from public education to brainwashing media advertising to the news and so on.

into my "mainstream" conversation. I'm as interested in macro concepts regarding the overall direction of humanity as I am with the micro.

What I'm discussing is from Buckminster Fuller:

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality.To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

Because the powers that be do not WANT change, unless it's to further engorge themselves. The GA with its horizontal, participatory democracy gave an equal voice to someone from Skid Row and the President of the united states. This is exactly how it must be. It reminds all of the people that WE are the reason, not THEM. THEY are full of reasons we should give away our personal power (to them). To become empowered, to have an equal voice, reminds that we can all do this together and that it is truly possible in this manner, without submitting to power structures now corrupted by money and greed.

Yes, it's a tremendous battle against a function which most decidedly has no interest in losing any of its ground. So we work to keep bringing the message to the people whose general will, in a GA or even in general, decides. Look at Rush Limbaugh right now...forced out because the majority finally became sick of his crap. I believe this is building in the majority regarding income inequality/unfairness, corruption and money in politics, housing and food rights, etc. Let's keep working on spreading the message!

that the movement wasn't going to act as a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party.

If OWS wasn't going to help elect Democratic politicians, then it wasn't "focused" and "lacked a message."

But I think a lot of people also were just behind the sentiment, not thinking left or right. But lets not kid ourselves, only democratic politicians would have any interest in supporting ows, or independents.

But also, the OWS people were right: if they picked a side, then their efforts would have been co-opted and the message would have been compromised.

regarding the attacks, brutality, lies, and general oppression we experienced. Democrats are no friends of Occupy and have a great deal of corruption to expel (Susan Rice with more than half a million dollars of investment in the tar sands/KeystoneXL, NSA lobbying/MIC monies, Bill Clinton saying "It's time to build the KeystoneXL pipeline, NAFTA, TPP, etc.)

Much of the democratic party are Part Of The Problem. Money out of politics!

Memories of Occupy Oakland:

http://occupyobservations.blogspot.com/2012/01/oakland-officials-caught-in-lies-about.html

with the nationwide Federal crackdown on Occupy.

Here in Portland and up in Seattle we had some pretty nasty exchanges between the Occupy folks and local police forces. These were easily preventable simply by not treating the Occupy movement as a threat.

It could be very instructive to look into what your saying a little closer. I'm not saying you're wrong about any of this, only that science is proving certain things to be real.

I sort of understand this "horizontal leadership" concept and science is showing that it's only a concept. It does not exist in real-life social structures among real people, specifically social networks among what the literature refers to as insurgents.

This ties deeply into the whole concept of what leadership actually is. Especially the leadership of political movements.

Scientific analysis is proving that the most critical persons in a political movement are generally not the ones who are the most visible or the most vocal. This is what I've been able to find out from trying to read up on this stuff. The subject matter is difficult enough, and then add to it the secrecy imposed by the surveillance state, and it becomes pretty murky pretty quickly into it.

To me, a good,well documented, example of a successful political movement might be the Obama campaign in 2008.




That upward turn for Obama during the primaries, that looks like a movement to me. He captured the Edwards and Gore supporters (they dropped out) almost completely. Who should get most of the credit? The science is showing that whoever came up with the branding is probably among the most influential people involved.

I believe OWS were victims of this new technology. I believe the metadata is the greater danger to liberty and freedom.

in their own stated aims - so I can't quite see how they provide a useful counter-example of how a leadership/defined goal movement is so superior. As for Gay rights, as happy as I am that our GLBT Sisters and Brothers are experiencing gains in formal rights and some lessened discrimination, and as as admiring as I am of the personal and group courage that has accomplished the gains, those rights do not - as far as I can see - pose much of a threat to the Corporate Oligarchy.

Civil rights failed? Worker rights? Environmental protections? Do you think America began 30 years ago or something?

See, you can't even "speak for OWS" because there are no leaders. Yours is just one lousy opinion--because you can't speak for the group. You can give us your personal impressions, but that's it.

What doomed OWS was the inability to set a course of action on any issue, even one as mundane as where the porta potties were sited without a lot of talking stick bullshit and "consensus."

There are times when a little top-down leadership is a good idea. OWS would be alive, kicking and making some serious sense if the kumbayah-leaderless-"everyone has the same clout" input system was dispensed with, and people that the group deemed qualified were elevated as leaders and spokespeople. They'd probably still have some of that money that people, in good faith, sent in.

If leaders got jailed, you get more leaders--but you don't do without leaders. Lawyers and people who support the goals OWS championed don't like to deal with a borg of people waving their fingers in the air, with a bunch of homeless people who don't really give a shit about the issues but are just grateful for a place to crash that has less crime and free food, and those black bloc jerks who disrupted every third demonstration, having the same input as people who actually CARED about the goals of the organization. They like an organisational structure, a chain of command, a leadership succession.

OWS missed an opportunity, because of that time-wasting "consensus-leaderless" model, to provide a visible crucible for future political leaders. I do think they'd still be a fierce force if they'd just gone a little "old school" and went for a "responsibility and authority" organizational structure.

Something like the Democratic Party? Something like the environmental organizations that "partner" with the very Corporations that are destroying the earth? They are doing such a bang-up job of expanding human rights, creating sustainable communities, and decreasing inequality?

OWS was a flare. A signal. The time was not right. People are not "there" yet.

Buckminster Fuller has it right.

group, who have been chosen by the group, who are supported by the group, the group thrives.

OWS was a bunch of great ideas, but the execution--and the hangers-on--doomed it.

Why in the world are you asking so many irrelevant questions? Why are you making assumptions and comparisons that are absurd? Environmental organizations that partner with corporations? NO. Democratic Party? NO.

Why do you think it is impossible for an organization to spring up ... and grow their own LEADERS? All by themselves, in autonomous fashion? That the only way that they can do it is to "partner?"

Who thinks like that? What a passive POV! You prove my point...

OWS wasn't "a flare, a signal." If that's what you think it was, you weren't onboard with people on this very board who were calling it the movement to end all movements that was gonna change everything and get those "banksters" on the run. Yeah, that worked....not.

Maybe with some leadership and focus, though, it might have worked. There was no reason for that energy to have been "symbolic" or a harbinger of future events. With LEADERSHIP, it could have been happening already and been raging like a house afire.

I guess there were too many of the "Everybody gets a trophy" club in those crowds. You want omelets? Ya gotta break eggs. There were potential leaders in those little campgrounds, they were constrained from rising, like creme, to the top, by a stupid protocol that served to doom the effort from the git-go.

It's no accident that the best "OWS" demonstrations had a ton of UNION help organizing them. Unions know leadership. They "get" organization.

It was a shame, too--the concept was great, the execution (too much camping, too much standing around hand waving) just sucked. It was exasperating.

That's why the people melted away--too much talk, not enough walk.

Any real change had damn well better embrace the homeless and hungry, and damn well better understand that "they" are us. Otherwise, it will just turn into the very system it opposes. With it's "organisational structure, a chain of command, a leadership succession."

As for "the lawyers" etc. - ppphhhfffftttt.

Again - Buckminster Fuller was right.

Look, you don't ask the janitor to do open heart surgery. Was the idea to "camp with the homeless" or was the idea to embark upon a course of activism to change the world?

You want to feed the hungry, fine--set up a program that does that. You want to house the homeless? Same deal. Do it professionally, with focus, purpose and in a sustainable fashion. Where are those people now? Back under a bridge, or back in the alley? That little camp-out was a temporary measure that didn't "help the homeless" at all.

You're again showing us why it didn't work. Too much time spent on playing house in campgrounds, fighting with the police about where to poop and getting mad that ordinances forbade little playhouse "kitchens," and not enough focus on what was truly important.

Doomed...doomed by attention to bullshit, instead of attention to detail.

A shame, too--all that energy, dissipated by a whole load of .... spinning.

The concept? Great. The execution? Sucked.

Can't have an objective discussion about OWS. It's the you're either with us or against us mindset usually reserved for right wingers.

And BTW, you're dead on, and most reasonable people know this.

Their "business model" just didn't work. It's a great one for seminars and academic retreats (in a woodsy setting with campgrounds and crappers), not so good for world-beating and driving out the greedy basstids of Wall Street.

Look - we're obviously not on the same page. I have no interest in "convincing" you of anything. I see your perspective as authoritarian, you see mine as feckless. "Shrugs." Time will tell. If we have enough left, which I highly doubt. I post to distract myself from our eve of destruction.

Oh - and by the way, I am not only a lifelong union supporter, I am a union member. I have a pretty good idea of what both the strengths and weaknesses are in that model. And the weaknesses are every bit as important as the strengths. In fact, more so.

I am not saying "rely on existing programs" I am saying build them yourselves, create sustainable, participatory models.

It's a far better/meaningful use of time than arguing over sacks of poop and fighting with police.

I do not see "your perspective" as feckless at all; I think OWS was a brilliant series of ideas, HORRIBLY executed. Opportunity wasted. And I know the weaknesses of unions, but OWS should have imitated a couple of their strengths--like deep leadership down to the shop level, and organization, organization, organization.

I hardly think wanting to get something done is "authoritarian," but that seems to be the go-to Insult of the Year, here.

Occupy has had a long lasting impact on the social fabric of this area and on the political process here.
"Occupy Medical-What free universal health care looks like"
Article | April 11, 2013 - 1:00am | By Camilla Mortensen

What do you do if you are homeless, uninsured or just plain broke and you’re sick? Where do you go if you do have a home but the waiting list is too long at the clinic or your insurance isn’t good enough to get you the care you need?

On Sundays from noon until 4 pm you can walk up to the former bloodmobile painted red and white and emblazoned “Occupy Medical Mobile Clinic,” that’s parked downtown at the Park Blocks and get anything from a Band-Aid to a prescription for heart medicine. You can also get food, a haircut and proof that someone cares.
http://www.eugeneweekly.com/20130411/lead-story/occupy-medical

You call this 'horrible' and 'wasted opportunity' but I bet the people being served feel otherwise.
Please post the name of the Moderate Centrist founded Free Clinic in your town!!!!!

Great...but they are like a finger in a hole of the Hoover Dam and won't bring about the fundamental changes we need...the fundamental changes that I and others believe OWS COULD HAVE ACCOMPLISHED.

That's our point. No one is shitting on what Occupu is doing now, just regretting that so many bigger things could have been done.

MADem:
"I am not saying "rely on existing programs" I am saying build them yourselves, create sustainable, participatory models.

It's a far better/meaningful use of time than arguing over sacks of poop and fighting with police.

I do not see "your perspective" as feckless at all; I think OWS was a brilliant series of ideas, HORRIBLY executed. Opportunity wasted."

So I pointed out a program for Free Health Care started by Occupy here. Sorry if that was too on point for you. I note the poster did not respond, but instead you come barking in proxy.

Were I not, as a MA resident, I could get affordable insurance. Were I broke, the state foots the bill.

My entire state is a "nearly free clinic" for the poor. It doesn't rely on volunteers who could die, move, or decide they don't want to volunteer anymore, either. The "urgent care clinic" is something below the level of an emergency room, that does walk in service around the clock, and they're popping up everywhere, so it's not like people have no choice but a family doc or the ER, anymore. And if you need hospital care, you get it.

Example: I know someone who was unemployed, whose unemployment insurance had run out, who had a massive stroke. Commonwealth Care paid for top notch hospital care, a month in the best rehab facility in the state (the one Teresa Hines just came out of, in fact) and follow on care and a visiting nurse. No charge. He got a brace for his leg made, also free. He's now on disability and managing to keep his head above water. He sees a doc regularly -- that's free--and he does pay for his prescriptions, about 12 bucks a month for four prescriptions, and he gets free test strips and needles for his diabetes.

Your example is not typical, you know. One swallow does not a summer make. The energy OWS generated did not produce the expected fallout and the Great Big Change that was promised--that is the point I am making and I believe it is a valid one. A few people in a bus volunteering to give free medical care is nice, but it's just one place. And it's not original by a long shot--when I was a university student without medical insurance, I went to a "free clinic" too, in a basement of a "bad neighborhood" tenement--and that was many, many decades ago. A crew of people preventing the sheriff from foreclosing on people here or there is nice, but it's a band aid on a gaping wound. It's not the "Wall Street Accountability" that was advertised.

The OWS people spent too much time yelling at the wrong people about unimportant stuff. Instead of demanding their right to camp out in winter, they should have used those millions people sent in to rent a cheap place and run their operation out of it. They ignored the big issues and spent too much time hollering about their right to pitch tents in parks, while those "banksters" laughed all the way to the bank, because their opponents were so easily distracted.

And then it just....melted away.

Arguing with a right winger who isn't actually listening to what you're saying, just waiting for their turn to say whatever their next talking point is.

I've read your posts on this thread, they make your point VERY clear. Like me, its simple, you feel OWS was brilliant and inspiring, but ultimately while it did some good things, a failure and massive blown opportunity.

It's called "Commonwealth Care," and it's statewide. People aren't limited to bandaids on buses, if they need heart surgery, they get it.

It's the program that the ACA is based upon.

Dirty and corporate money controlling politics is one facet of the biggest problem we face: that of income disparity and wealth distribution.

When the supremely wealthy can purchase elections and politicians along with non-stop media telling everyone how we're all better off if the rich get richer, there is no freedom and there is no justice. The extremely wealthy might as well not even live on the same planet as we do for the amount of rules we have in common.

OWS earned its rightful place in the Psyche of our nation, AND the World,
along with its rightful place in the History Books
with the long, continuing History of the Movement for Economic Justice,
in our country and The World,
which has had many names over the years.

It will rise again,
perhaps called OWS,
perhaps named something else,
but THAT spirit never dies.

[font size=5 color=firebrick]Solidarity![/font]

And this is another winter in which the discontent builds. to flower anew in American Spring.

Don't let the negative people and their search for immediate closure get you down, Fire Walk with Me.

It's a process, and it was stifled in the 70's by Kent State, the end of the Vietnam War, Watergate and stagflation, but not forever. A problem of this size will take several generations to resolve, because the bastards have been working at making this mess since 1937.

Those who think that it is over are wrong.

That's so last century. Fraud is the new business model.

I saw one of the brightest core members, ex Wall Street whiz Alexis Goldstein on Maher's show last week, she is brilliant and very well spoken but......Barney Frank just talked over her every time to dispute all her points, I'm usually in his corner but not last Friday, I was so miffed at him.

Last edited Sun Aug 11, 2013, 07:37 AM - Edit history (1)

Like all things OWS ebbs and flows into and out of prominence, organizes and disperses, as it should. Entrenched power is the enemy of free people.

More will rise, organize and effect more change, this is inevitable, and good.

Huge lov to all who worked to create the moment we saw, and massive encouragement to do more now!

Life of the individual is short, make yours count.

-Without the commons, it is very difficult to come together and gain the momentum of purpose and unity required for change.
-The intent is for everyone to become a leader, for everyone to have an equal voice. We have spent far too long waiting for THEM to solve the problems affecting us, waiting for THEM to get it together, that most of us have forgotten what it's like to self-determine to the extent required to make it work, especially together at a national level. That is also where the "participatory" aspect activates: some may simply never rise to their own best ability and that's okay.
-Leaders would either be dead or in jail, period. Remember the FBI uncovering (and doing nothing) about a Texas plot to assassinate OWS leaders if deemed neccessary? And how many of us they jailed? I watched a few persons in local Occupy get singled out by the cops again and again and again as they desperately searched for leaders.
-You are missing that the GAs, the leaderless aspect, that many aspects of OWS across the nation and world were emergent. There were no votes across all of the encampments on these issues. They simply occurred as being natural and right.
-The cops beat us up and sent the 1%/government's message to stay home and shut up. Most people don't want to face that, which is why it works.
-A populist uprising requires the population's participation.
-Again, so much is wrong and requires change that our single message is that very much is wrong and must be changed; join us and work towards it because together we can and will succeed. The issues we face are myriad. There is no simple soundbite to please those who require a simple soundbite. Perhaps more skill is required in this area in regard to outreach (I myself am unskilled) but the nationally-perceived call to work inspired and attracted so many incredibly bright people it was stunning and inspiring. Which again is why we require "commons" to gather and organize and toss around concepts for extrapolation.
-Free healthcare is an absolute anomaly and must not be taken as a national or international given. A single injury or disease can destroy many families who now live from paycheck to paycheck.
-We ARE successful in having instilled the message of income inequality, fairness, money out of politics, corporate influence of our country, and the human rights of living wages, health care, housing, education, and more. Note people striking across the country for these things and against these things in ever-increasing waves. It's beginning again. Enough of the population are sick of "it" and are willing to begin standing up to demand and create something better. All previous uprisings and protests give permission and models to them.
-This is not over.

... in our hearts