Occupy Wall Street better defend its identity

[Brainster]

Check out this report in Time:

In the six weeks since the group first gathered in lower Manhattan, it has become increasingly better organized. Its "working groups" have multiplied from a handful to 79, including those tasked with organizing the movement's public demands and handling the movement's media, alternative banking and sustainability needs, among many others.

They have 79 working groups?

 

[applecorped]

Check out this report in Time:



They have 79 working groups?

Each with their own Czar.

 

[RandFan]

The OWS Message:

This is what I hear from protestors regularly now in the news.

• End the corrupt entanglement of business and govt.
• Investigate the activities that led to the housing and market collapse.
• Pass the jobs bill.
• Increase the tax rates.

 

[Brainster]

How'd they do in the storm, only the fourth time New York has had snow in October in the last 135 years?



Mmmm, tofu chowder!

 

[RandFan]

The OWS message:

Don't tell me there is no message.

1. Pass the Volker rule.
2. Implement most if not all of the policies and regulations recommended by Elizabeth Warren without the loopholes and BS that neuters them.
3. Increase tax rates with incentives to businesses who invest in domestic jobs.
4. Pass Obama's jobs bill.
5. DO SOMETHING other than attack women's reproductive health rights.

Really not all that hard actually. You do that today and most if not all of these people go home tomorrow.

 

[RandFan]

Like? How do they propose to actually do it?

Thank you.

• Make it illegal to destroy documents.
• Pass the Volker rule.
• Implement the recommendations of Elizabeth Warren.
• Hold hearings and pass laws and regulations like they've done in countless departments.

 

[bikerdruid]

The status quo cannot go on. Do something to end this.

this definitely is the bottom line, randfan.
the systen is broken and corrupt. as you know, i do not share your optimism that it is fixable. to view it as metaphor, we can see it as an old barn, foundations crumbling, structure, unsafe and unstable. to fix it is beyond reasonable cost, to leave it is unsafe, for when it falls, and it will, it could hurt many people.. the safest thing to do is demolish it safely and rebuild.
i don't think it is possile to bring it back to code with repairs.
and i would rebuild a different design.

the status quo is no longer acceptable, it is harmful and immoral.

 

[RandFan]

Why the Washington Establishment is Heeding Occupy Wall Street


he running critique of the Occupy Wall Street protests is that they have too many bongo drums and not enough message coherence. But that hasn’t stopped Washington’s elite–Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and President Barack Obama–from all hearing the same, singular message loud and clear.

“I think people are quite unhappy with the state of the economy and what’s happening,” Bernanke said at a Wednesday hearing on Capitol Hill. “They blame, with some justification, the problems in the financial sector for getting us into this mess, and they’re dissatisfied with the policy response here in Washington. And at some level, I can’t blame them.

Good.

 

[Brainster]

OWS would like to end the corruption and incestuous relationship between the SEC and investment and financial institutions.

And reading from the New York Times article you linked:

The agency’s records were routinely destroyed under an S.E.C. policy, since changed, that called for the disposal of records of a preliminary inquiry that was closed if it did not get upgraded to a formal investigation, according to Congressional records and people involved in inquiries into the matter. The agency believes that both the original policy and the new rules comply with federal document-retention laws.

So they looked into it, decided there wasn't sufficient evidence to warrant a formal investigation, and disposed of the records. Shocking.

 

[WildCat]

Don't tell me there is no message.

Is that your message, or the OWS message? If the latter, link?

 

[RandFan]

this definitely is the bottom line, randfan.
the systen is broken and corrupt. as you know, i do not share your optimism that it is fixable. to view it as metaphor, we can see it as an old barn, foundations crumbling, structure, unsafe and unstable. to fix it is beyond reasonable cost, to leave it is unsafe, for when it falls, and it will, it could hurt many people.. the safest thing to do is demolish it safely and rebuild.
i don't think it is possile to bring it back to code with repairs.
and i would rebuild a different design.

the status quo is no longer acceptable, it is harmful and immoral.

That's fine. I think the founding fathers gave us a system that can right itself. Democracy is the most powerful tool for change but we have to wake people up first. This is our start.

If people understand that there is real discontent and real danger for doing nothing then we can change.

 

[Virus]

this definitely is the bottom line, randfan.
the systen is broken and corrupt. as you know, i do not share your optimism that it is fixable. to view it as metaphor, we can see it as an old barn, foundations crumbling, structure, unsafe and unstable. to fix it is beyond reasonable cost, to leave it is unsafe, for when it falls, and it will, it could hurt many people.. the safest thing to do is demolish it safely and rebuild.
i don't think it is possile to bring it back to code with repairs.
and i would rebuild a different design.

the status quo is no longer acceptable, it is harmful and immoral.

Continuing your analogy, you and many of the OWS protesters believe in demolishing the barn and building a new one on a swamp. With assurances that this one won't sink and kill everyone in it like all the other barns built on swamps.

 

[bikerdruid]

Continuing your analogy, you and many of the OWS protesters believe in demolishing the barn and building a new one on a swamp. With assurances that this one won't sink and kill everyone in it like all the other barns built on swamps.

absolutely not.
build it on the same stable ground where the old one stood.

 

[Virus]

Adbusters, one of the left-wing extremist groups behind the OWS protests advised hiding the real aims of the movement behind an innocuous sounding "Trojan Horse"

Strategically speaking, there is a very real danger that if we naively put our cards on the table and rally around the "overthrow of capitalism" or some equally outworn utopian slogan, then our Tahrir moment will quickly fizzle into another inconsequential ultra-lefty spectacle soon forgotten. But if we have the cunning to come up with a deceptively simple Trojan Horse demand … something profound, yet so specific and doable that it is impossible for President Obama to ignore … something that spotlights Wall Street's financial capture of the US political system and confronts it with a pragmatic solution … like the reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall Act … or a 1% tax on financial transactions … or an independent investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice into the corporate corruption of our representatives in Washington … or another equally creative but downright practical demand that will emerge from the people's assemblies held during the occupation … and if we then put our asses on the line, screw up our courage and hang in there day after day, week after week, until a large swath of Americans start rooting for us and President Obama is forced to respond … then we just might have a crack at creating a decisive moment of truth for America, a first concrete step towards achieving the radical changes we all dream about unencumbered by commitments to existing power structures.

http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbusters-blog/occupywallstreet-update.html?page=1

Nothing new about the Trojan Horse strategy. The Communists were doing it a century ago.

 

[Virus]

absolutely not.
build it on the same stable ground where the old one stood.

Do you think this new barn should be based on say, a Cuban design?

 

[bikerdruid]

Do you think this new barn should be based on say, a Cuban design?

no.[/metaphor]

 

[Neally]

Thank you.

• Make it illegal to destroy documents.
• Pass the Volker rule.
• Implement the recommendations of Elizabeth Warren.
• Hold hearings and pass laws and regulations like they've done in countless departments.

Now, now, let's not use anecdotes to broad brush the entire movement. They are not a monolithic entity you know.

 

[RandFan]

Now, now, let's not use anecdotes to broad brush the entire movement. They are not a monolithic entity you know.

I'm not. I've made that abundantly clear. First off, I didn't post an anecdote and draw a conclusion about the entire group. I've conceded that not everyone shares those goals. Jesus Christ how often do we have to go over this? Some percentage of the movement want anarchy and to end capitalism. Just as some percentage of civil rights protestors of the 60s wanted to end capitalism.

So no. If I were doing that I wouldn't mind the tu quoque. I'M NOT DOING THAT.

 

[Checkmite]

I get the feeling that this is what he likes about the protestors, because it allows him to feel that they are speaking for him. They are a blank slate, on which anything can be written or read.

Well the side effect of that is that anybody here can do the same thing; and when we find "protestors" in the midst of the movement with ridiculous personal demands, violent tendencies, obviously bogus motives, or insufficient hygiene, RandFan can't argue with us that "those people don't count, look at these other people instead...", especially when OWS makes a point of keeping them around.

 

[RandFan]

RandFan can't argue with us that "those people don't count....

Straw man. You are working very hard to ignore what I say and put words in my mouth. A.) I concede they exist. B.) I concede they criticisms of them valid. My only complaint is the broad brush stroke conclusions about the movement. Seriously, can we focus on what I'm actually saying and not something you think I'm saying?

P.S. would you please not personalize the discussion?