Forum Post: After a month of observing, have decided that OWS is
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 19, 2011, 2:07 p.m. EST by onepercentguy
(294)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
A necessary and welcomed bit of social unrest to show our elected officials that there is anger in the streets, something i wholeheartedly support. Your demands are muddled, but the alarm over income ineqality and corporate influnce is just. I've found that some of you are on the fringe, but most of you are regular, hardworking folks who just want a fair shake.
But ultimately, I've concluded that OWS itself is incapable of becoming anything more than a mild temper tantrum. Because there is zero accountability, no organization and no concensus among your members. In fact, the very structure of your movement is to have no structure. Therefore, it is a failure. Real, systemic and lasting change comes from involvement in the political process and we all know that isn't going to happen here. A wasted opportunity has been the deficit reduction talks, why ows hasn't interjected itself in the conversation is confusing. Why ows hasn't been more present in the presidential primary debate is confusing.
The combative rhetoric is a turn off too, which is dumb. You haven't learned anything from the failure of the tea party to be more inclusive.
I will continue to support elective officials who share my beliefs in fiscal restraint and social justice. I suppose it is easy for me to be so dismissive on the sidelines as I type on my iPad and sip my five dollar cafe mocha, but it's true.
I have found OWS very open to all points of view, though it does have difficulty understanding those who show little compassion for their fellows. I also find OWS quite coherent politically. Just read he Declaration of the Occupation. While it calls itself leaderless, it is perhaps more correct to characterize it as "leaderful." We are all leaders. 24 hours at Zuccotti Square, even now after the cops have smashed the physical structure of the community, perhaps even moreso now after the police attack, will show anyone just how well organized OWS is.
As Bernie Sanders has pointed out the deficit is a phoney issue. The real issue are the vast transfers of wealth to the super rich from everyone else.
OWS will not be a failure because the issues it addresses are real.
Bernie for president.
Disagree in that they are open to all points of view. I posted in my other thread about how fractured and close-minded the occupiers at the local protest were when I went to visit in person, the general assembly meeting was a disorganized, futile mess.
Is that one camp representative of the whole movement? Not necessarily, but from what I heard it's pretty much the way its working everywhere.
The consensus mode of decision making is slow and tedious and not to everyone's liking. But figuring out how to make democracy is also slow and tedious and figuring out the decision making process is part of that. The system of govermnent set out in the Constitution should not be viewed as something ordained by God and brought down from Mt. Sinai by Moses carved on granite tablets. It is a human experiment wrought by human beings. So is OWS and its decision making processes. The point is to get in there and let's all work it out together. It will probably not be solved in one meeting and perhaps not for several years, decades or even lifetimes. It's a big project, which is why it will take all of us.
Look into the99declarationworkinggroup.com, you may find in what they have laid out something that you could stand up for too. It was set up in yahoo, but the seem to be making strides in organization and a condensed message.
That was rather condescending, but... well.... TRUE.
LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD - at the very least DO THIS, it's a start
http://votesmart.org - KNOW your elected officials and what they do, then tell them what you think
http://www.conservativeusa.org/lobbykit.htm - Tea Party Tried and Test Strategies (it's great info, regardless of source)
NO-you haven't tried this... all you've done is talk to your friends. That's not a bad thing. It's just NOT going to change ANYTHING.
THIS HAS ALREADY BEEN DISCUSSED IN DETAIL 2000000 discusssions about the same topic where 2 people chime in and the results are re-hashed, mixed up, and the economy of scale is NEVER cahshed in is EXACLY analogous to "Direct Democracy" The noise to signal ratio is 100000000 to 1. Try finding ANY unified message on here and how do you do it. The best way is to search by how many comments there are, and how often it gets bumped even that (while it's the best way here) is terrible because it never reflects true "majority" ideals. It's a million wheels that spin in a million different directions.
Wheras One discussion where a hierarchy allows the combined efforts to be focused, and the fringe elements and detractors are sifted from the majority is, has been, and always will be, A BETTER TOOL FOR CHANGE,
OWS simply will not allow that though because they believe that "the cool origins or OWS that are anti-suit methods man!" are more important than resolving any of the issues. Ie OWS is more important to OWS than change is.
PLEASE SHARE THE THREAD AND KEEP IT IN ONE PLACE http://occupywallst.org/forum/so-much-of-whats-here-is-contrary-to-the-actual-mo/
Also look at the petition in this thread. This page is a horrible way to share information. There are hundreds of other "occupy" threads popping up in every post, most of them are distractions and corporate shills and radicals trying to screw everyone for their own good. The message in the petition is simple. We have the power, now lets build a roadmap, logical "next steps" that are checked and balanced by the community for the goods of all of us (not for the good of the guy who made some webpage that promotes a political party, or has a ton of advertising that some guy is pocketing and will pull the plug on the site in a while and walk from etc..) Power and action with no direction is meaningless as anything other than a spectacle for people to stare at.
Agree. OWS itself is incapable of becoming anything more than a mild temper tantrum UNLESS IT GROWS TO 500 million people globally.
The political process is broken. Time for something new.
It will grow. Watch.
I doubt it'll grow to anything near big enough to influence public policy, based on reasons I've stated above. Prove me wrong, I guess.
Oh I think its striking a nerve at 2 months there is a lot of growing up that must happen and hopefully sites like this will help to shape and form the argument and movement. Civil rights movement too decades this is really just a beginning I believe. Im just an observer like you.
The main problem with OWS as I see it is that the main grievances (income inequality and the corrupting influence of concentrated wealth on the political process) are not resonating with as many as it could and should because the movement is (or appears to be) dominated by ideological leftists and immature college kids. A lot of people I talk to are sympathetic with the aforementioned general grievances but are hesitant to openly embrace the movement because it is seen as too unpredictable and a potentially embarrassing association. It's an odd mix of intelligent people with legitimate grievances, plus some idle kids pretending it's the 60s and a few dangerous nuts.
This is simply my impression; I'm not aware of any hard, reliable statistics on a 'typical' OWS protester. Are you aware of any such data? If not, on what basis have you drawn your conclusions?
My opinion is based on interactions with local occupiers, who were forcibly evicted from their camp this week, and discussions I've had with supporters online. The overwhelming majority are ignorant as to the nuts-and-bolts reasons why we are in this mess and lack the education or understanding as to how to fix it. The rest are very intelligent and well reasoned folks who do understand the political and legal entanglements we are in and who I wish would speak up and be more involved.
Hi OnePercent,
So, I agree, if the dialog is not productive, it will not go anywhere.
Also, I'll take the challenge. Post a link to a topic, and I'll post to it with more than 'combative rhetoric'
-Jimi
Do you want to get rid of cunning people !? Vote petition on the Internet : http://wh.gov/jkl
First off, how can you say the TEA party wasn't inclusive in government. They are the reason the deficit talks grew stagnant and the reason America's credit rating was downgraded. Secondly, OWS may be considered leaderless currently, but leaders will emerge organically from the various movements around the country. I for one believe that OWS is the most important movement of this generation, but I also realize that there must be changes made in the system, if it is only deemed corrupt or changes made to the system, if it is deemed broken. My belief is the former and I intend to try to work within the system by pushing for a third party no later than 2016 as a viable alternative to the democrats and republicans who have served as scapegoats for the true powers that be (Corporations and the GREEDY elite) for far too long now. As a matter of fact I hope to someday run for an elected office as an independent or member of whatever third party comes out of OWS or movements like OWS. Currently, I write to my Senator and Congressman, hoping for the best (a response and offer of inclusion), but expecting the worse (no response), but I also go down to my local Occupy Movement (Miami) and share my ideas, enthusiasn and hope whenever I can. I am an electrical engineer, working full time, so my time is limited, but I blog my opinions and beliefs at: http://www.im2opinionated.blogspot.com/ and have done so since well before OWS, and was so thankful for OWS, which I see as our only hope Obi Wan or at least the beginning of things to come. As for leadership in the movement, I feel like I'm a leader and that everyone who voices their opinion, proposes some measure of change or silently supports the movement, because they know it's right and just and more fair than what we have now are all leaders, as it should be in a democracy. No accountability is your reason why the movement will fail? Why? This tactic seems to work just fine for our elected officials in Washington D.C. who have failed to hold one single financial miscreant accountable for the collapse of America's and the world's economy. And you want to talk combative rhetoric? Where is the rhetoric more combative than in D.C. where one party's entire agenda to "Make Obama a one term president" outweighs their desire to "make this recession a one decade recession": Voting on abortion bills that are already law, re-establishing that the American logo is "In God We Trust". What could be more rhetorical than these two votes when unemployment is at nine percent? So, you keep drinking your expensive cafe mocha and keep typing useless, combative rhetoric on your iPad about OWS and keep supporting those elected officials that are either telling you that they are going to eliminate your Social Security, Medicare, so they can pay for tax breaks that benefit corporations and the rich or for those elected officials who say they can't do anything to stop the first group. I'm sure they're happy your on their side, but I think you'll eventually learn that they are not on yours.
OWS would do a lot better to occupy their representatives offices instead. Politicians these days do not represent. They do whatever the fuck they want. We need to make them do what we are paying them for, which is to do what we want, not to do whatever they can to get reelected.
We have to be able to get rid of the crooks instead of slapping them on the wrists and let them stay in office. Rangel, Waters, Seabrook, Frank and many more steal from us and don't lose their jobs? WTF is that?
You try taking a pencil from work and you'll get fired for sure.
Want to change things, we have to get rid of the bums?
Agreed. I'm of the opinion that if every OWS supporter actually voted and were minimally involved in the political process, we wouldn't even be in this mess.
OWS is a mess and its failing because it has no leader or direction.