By rexymeteorite / Daily Kos / November 29th
There has been a lot of hand-wringing about the direction of the Occupy movement, its message, its leaderless nature, its outside-of-the-beltway tactics and the everyone-is-invited attitude of the Occupiers. There has been much consternation about Occupy foregoing the two party system debate and instead focusing on direct action, and other ways to influence our rusted out old political system without having to argue about democrats or republicans. While concerns about the movement should be addressed, and problems solved in a timely manner, these specific criticisms have gotten as stale as week old bread.
Occupy exists outside of our current two party system. It is not a vehicle to elect national Democrats or Republicans. This fact, despite the concerns about electing Democrats to office, is a good thing. We need a movement that exists outside of the party’s top-down hierarchical structure, that isn’t accountable to any one Democrat, that isn’t responsible for going out and soliciting donations. We need this movement to hold all members of our political system accountable, so it cannot be beholden to one party or another. Occupy “declaring” for one party or another goes against the entire concept of the movement.
Their message isn’t cohesive, because all walks of life are invited to join, but one message has been abundantly clear throughout the duration, if you have listened: the rich guy gets richer because he can buy power and representation in our Government, the little guy gets screwed because all of the gains he has made has been eaten up by said rich guy. And we are not having it any more. That is about as clear as it gets and that is as clear as “the message” needs to be. The goals of the movement sprout from the message: to have a fairer society. Not to have a society where the rich can’t have their riches, but to have a society where everyone has the opportunity to live their lives without having to work two jobs (one for health insurance, one for pay), without going bankrupt because of cancer, without losing their homes to shady mortgaging practices, without working 19 hour days, without going hungry, without going homeless. Those goals aren’t ill-defined, that is what the movement has been saying all along! Were you listening?
Read the rest of this article at Daily Kos
Photo by Atomische • Tom Giebel via flickr.com
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Did anyone at OCCUPY notice that the Obama Administrations and Federal Reserve pledged today to provide funds to foreign banks? The reason the stock market went up 400 points today is due to this pledge to bail out the European banks. The next step of these new bail outs will be for the IMF (funded largely by the U.S. taxpayers) to provide loans to Italy and Greece.
So while Occupy marches on B of A, the Feds are still, right now, bailing out banks.
When the Quasi-Government central bankers,including the Fed here do this stuff, all the sharks swarm the bait and get their share. Thats why any one of these organizations makes a move and the stock market goes off the hook. As soon they get all the dollars (yes $) being put in are grabbed up it will go back down.Steven Keen (debtdeflation.com) has established that we are already in a severe depression. It’s all pretty grim. He explaines that as regular people are trying to pay off their debt,that money goes to the banks. And government cut exacerbates this. Putting us in a downward spiral. His prescriptions are interesting. Check this guy out.
I agree with RB on this subject, not only is the fed pumping up the foreign banks , it’s coming from a inside source close to the fed The white House , OWS New York last night are spot on they are starting to focus on the scum bag , protesting his relection fund raising this will snow ball and demand accountability!
You can’t hide under class warfare for ever!
Hey the “scumbag” we elected in 08 is not nearly as evil as the scumbag you apparently supported for 8 long years (GWB).
I’d be curious to know how many protestors got out and voted in the midterms. The problems that they are protesting are not new–they are very late to the table. Obama wanted to raise taxes on the rich but the repubs took the house. Think people…NOT voting is part of the problem.
Why the put-down of the Occupy movement? It’s done more in less than 3 months many a campaign. Oh, they/we are late to the table? I don’t think you really get it. The occupy movement is saying ‘the system is broken!’ Just continuing a lone as it there is nothing else to do but vote is definitely not the answer. Voting can be part of the answer but in and of itself, it is not.