Forum Post: Hiring a carpenter vs. hiring a politician.
Posted 12 years ago on March 28, 2012, 1:27 a.m. EST by FriendlyObserverB
(1871)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
When we hire a carpenter, we still have the final say.
But when we hire a politician, they think they have the final say.
Part of the problem here is thinking of democracy in terms of market relations, which can only corrupt democracy. Democracy is not a business. It is the rule of the people.
but .. we want business to be run by "rule of the people , instead of greedy tyrants .
I don't know who "we" is. Most (though not all) of the OWS activists that I interact with don't want "business" as it is usually concieved as market relations to exist at all. They envision (of course through a glass darkly) a post corporate world in which market relations of any kind do not exist at all.
..Anarchism all around .. sounds like .. no government, no leaders , no businesses , no markets ,, just total anarchy .. it's a helluv a dream dontcha think ! lol
The OWS religion" is not what most of us want .. we mostly want a well functioning society.
If OWS is not what you want then why are you logged on to an OWS web site?
They misled me from the start .. with slogans of equality and fairness .. but now they try to shove their anarchy religion down my throat.
It is true that most of the initiators of OWS are either anarchists or at least influenced by the anarchist intellectual tradition. And while I'm not personally an anarchist it is my perception that by and large anarchists and people influenced by the anarchist intellectual tradition continue to be OWSs best organizers. But as an organization OWS most certainly is not anarchist. It is much broader than that, though it is true that anarchists have a disproportionate influence in the movement largely owing to their organizational skills. But nobody ever misled anybody about this. People in OWS have always been very open about their politics.
Anarchism is the principle foundation of OWS and its belief system is solely anarchism.
OWS has no founding principles except to nonviolently occupy Wall Street. Beyond that, the only political document that OWS ever produced so far has been the Declaration of the Occupation of New York City, passed a few days after the occupation began. It has more than 20 grievances, the vast majority of which are anti-corporate, but there is nothing in that document or any other document that OWS has produced that is specifically anarchist or even anarchistic.
they are very discreet about it , but yes they have founding principles.. it's their religious belief system of anarchism.
I'm 69 years old and I've been a revolutionary socialist (not an anarchist) for nearly 50 years. One of the most refreshing things about OWS as a movement is that it isn't discrete about anything. In every movement that I have been involved with in the past people were so worried about red baiting that nobody would be candida about their true politics. That is not true of OWS anarchists started it and they were totally open about that from the beginning. However, OWS is not an anarchist organization. It is an anti-corporate organization and anyone who doesn't understand that doesn't know the first thing about political theory and would undoubtedly tend to conflate liberalism, progressivism, social democracy, democratic socialism, revolutionary socialism, anarcho-syndicalism, communism and anarchism when the fact is they are all quite distinct tendencies.
Are we talking about the same OWS !
How active have you been in OWS? On what experience do you base your point of view? Anyone who spends 20 minutes at any occupation would find it clear just how significant the anarchists are to the movement because the anarchists there would tell them so. There's nothing discrete about it.
The opening message I clearly remember was one of inequality and the unfair distribution of wealth. On many occasions I offered a simple solution( cap profits ) and no one from the founders of OWS contacted me.
Have you ever been to a local general assembly, read anything about how they operate or thought through exactly what it means to be a leaderless movement? The converse of being a leaderless movement, really another way of looking at it, is that we are all leaders. If we have an idea it is up to us to get the movement as a whole to consider it. The most typical way of doing that it by going to a local general assembly and getting it placed on the agenda. "Founders" are not responsible for any of our ideas. Look in a mirror. We are all founders.
The anarchists want to over throw the government. Is this evidence of clear minded thinking ? Or is this a Jim jones koolaid club !
Yes, but this is not anything that they have ever hidden. In fact its built into the very meaning of anarchism. Anarchism, by definition is anti-state, against the state, for the overthrow of the state, but that does not mean that every project that anarchists are involved in is about the overthrow of the state. Anarchists often work with other tendencies that are not anti-statist, that are not revolutionary and that most certainly is the case with OWS. Anarchists are revolutionaries. They have never made any bones about that or denied it. They are by no means discrete about it. They are totally open about it. And yes they have a disproportionate influence in OWS, but that said OWS is not an anarchist movement. It contains many other tendencies and the anarchists in the movement, while very influential, remain a minority. Any serious reading of the very few political documents that OWS has produced makes it very clear that OWS is anti-corporate and not anarchistic, and there is a difference which anyone with the most rudimentary understanding of political theory can clearly see.
That’s how the Founding Fathers set it up, and as for me I don’t trust what would have to be done to change that, so I think we pay attention and do everything we can to get rid of the worst of them. If you don’t want to pay attention, and I would understand seeing how it can turn one’s stomach, you can just vote for whoever is in best shape to beat a Republican, not likely to go wrong with that.
Politicians do have the final say and it's been that way for years.........their masters pay them well to keep it that way too....
Truth.
We need to wake politicians up to the fact that we the people have the final say.. but first we need to wake up " we the people .. lol
No bout adoubt it.
It would be really nice to see a lot of the information on issues and answers provided on these posts printed out into leaflets and mailed or handed out and forwarded out onto social media.
Communications are essential.
good idea ..
makes me think of the whitehouse.gov website .. if they had an open forum , or place to post some of this information would be great..
I enjoy the conversation on here on many topics , but I don't like associating with the OWS "religion"
I've started posting things out to social media. I have also started posting to the presidents campaign site as well as posting to my elected representatives. I've placed links so people can do this here and hope that others will also start doing these things. Communications is essential to get the word out and have it supported by many more.