Forum Post: A list of transitional demands
Posted 12 years ago on Sept. 27, 2011, 10:36 a.m. EST by aussie
(4)
from Sydney, NSW
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
This is my list of 10 transitional demands. This list is not my view of what should be the end-point, but just the starting point of this occupation. People will no doubt say that "Well I agree with all of these, but other people won't, so we can't have all of those..." but that's just silly. We can let people pick which ones they like, and let them focus on those, but almost everyone agrees that there needs to be SOME demands that thing rallies around.
"Decriminalise Drugs! A Crime without a victim is no crime!"
"Free education for all! For a decent living stipend for all students!"
"Open the REAL corporate books! End corporate personhood!"
"Abolish the racist death penalty! Free all political prisoners!"
"Free, quality healthcare for all! Free Abortion on demand!"
"Troops, ships, drones out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan! Abolish the Patriot act!"
"For full and equal marriage rights for all consensual unions."
"For union control of hiring new workers!"
"For workers management of the workplace!"
"Community control of housing! Cheap, quality public housing, with cheap, easy to access pblic ransport! End the foreclosures now!"
"Decriminalise Drugs! A Crime without a victim is no crime!" Why not end all victimless crimes?
"Free education for all! For a decent living stipend for all students!" Who is going to pay for it? Education is something you could get, not an right to be had, your not entitled to one. There should be no laws forcing you to have one, nor ones that restrict you from having one, nor those that force others to pay one for you. Pay your own education or do as I and self educate.
"Open the REAL corporate books! End corporate personhood!" Why not free market, abolish all law that restrict trade or favors anyone.
"Abolish the racist death penalty! Free all political prisoners!" I agree with political prisoners need to be freed but only if they committed victimless crime.
"Free, quality healthcare for all! Free Abortion on demand!" There should be no laws impeding or forcing you to have healthcare, nor should there be laws that force others to pay for your healthcare.
"Troops, ships, drones out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan! Abolish the Patriot act!" I guess most can agree with that. War is bad. Killing innocents is bad.
"For full and equal marriage rights for all consensual unions." There should be no laws that restrict marriage or impose marriage or promote marriage.
"For union control of hiring new workers!" Humans should be free in doing what they want. They want to form unions then there should be no law restricting them, same there should be no law restricting employers hiring union workers. Work it out between yourselves.
"For workers management of the workplace!" There should be no law restricting or forcing anyone doing anything in the kind.
"Community control of housing! Cheap, quality public housing, with cheap, easy to access pblic ransport! End the foreclosures now!" There should be no law restricting you to get a house, build a house, or any other shelter, nor should thee be a law forcing others to pay for your housing. There should be no law restricting you from transporting yourself in anyway you can do by yourself, nor should there be laws forcing others to pay for your transportation.
How about an open, unregulated, free-market? That aught to take care of points 2,5,8,9,10.
Without government legislation propping up monopolies, these problems would sort themselves out.
I'd say a free market would take care of nothing, especially not the people.
How about declaring it immoral, and hence illegal, for people to own shares in banks? After all, if board rooms can't hide behind "the interests of their shareholders", then we might see some morality return to business.
No man, it's the other way 'round: The people take care of the free market. Unless their appointed government decides to play nanny and interfere, it is self-regulating. Here's a neat visual explanation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOBD6v8g1F4
see below
See Alex above clearly disagrees with the thrust of my demands, but at least took the time to say why they think they are wrong.
Ok i'm sorry. I'll clearify.
1 Decriminalize Drugs
While I agree that this would be a positive step towards individual liberty and that drugs abuse/addiction should be treated as a health concern not a criminal one, this is not the time or place for that debate. The current debate is concerning the impact of wall street money in our politics and the enviornment of inequality that is created by it.
2 Free education for all
University systems are exceedingly expensive to operate and that burden cannot be shifted onto the populous. There shouldn't be anyone profiting off of the loans however. Maybe reform in the sense of 0% intrest on all current loans and the guaranteed continuation of the Pell Grant program would be a step in the right direction but again, this simply detracts from the issue at hand.
3 End corporate personhood.
This is where the focus must be concentrated and any other demand/message simply muddys the water.
4 Abolish the death penalty.
Off topic, and not nearly enough support for this one yet. Eye for and eye is kind of ingrained in our society, like it or not.
5 Free healthcare for all / free abortion
This would require a complete overhaul of our healthcare system (which needs to be done anyway) but would take years and years for that to happen, before we could expect people to pay for all healthcare. However, in some countries, you are responsible to provide insurance for yourself for day to day medical needs and out patient things, while the gov insures everyone for major medical care and hospitolization. This may work, in time. Abortion is way to contested and putting that in the mix will drive away many potential supporters of the cause.
6 Bring troops home.
If you focus on #3 and are successful this will surely result. As soon as we get the lobbiest out of the picture the people will bring back our heros in the armed forces. But again, this is still somewhat contested and the more points you try to focus on the more you devide your constituents.
7 Gay marriage.
Same argument as #6.
8 Union control of hiring new workers.
This requires more unionization, and is an additional cost to the workforce that simply cannot be afforded in todays economy. Also, this would be devistating to small businesses as many of them cannot afford the results of a unionized work force.
9 Workers management of the workplace.
This is a private sector decision and would be over-reaching for any government to insist in this type of structure for all businesses. However, it has been tried with some degree of success, but the bottom line is, if it was meant to be, the businesses who have tryed it would be larger and more successful than they currently are.
10 Community control of housing
If this were the case, and the government owned our homes, it would be the responsibility of the government to ensure that they didn't fall into dis-repair in order to protect the investment of the people. This would require regular inspections of your home by government officials, and that is simply unacceptable. This equates to warrantless searches and the American people would not have it.
So I have made my arguments, I am sorry I was quick to judge before and what I said previously was not constructive.