Forum Post: Occupy Government
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 5, 2011, 4:31 p.m. EST by blaughli
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I think it would be more effective to occupy our govenment spaces than the spaces outside of our economic centers. Put the pressure on the politicians, like was done during the civil rights movement. Change needs to happen in government. I call for a national march on Washington
How are you affecting the plutocrats? What does "hitting the Financial Centers" mean? What are the goals of your actions? Some of you sound very radical; what realistic change do you think is possible? If you do not unite under the banner of a tangible, rational cause, then I fear you will lose this moment. The civil rights movement achieved change in DC. Why not outdo them, march in the millions, occupy the whole damn city? Please tell me how else you will change anything.
Occupy DC and October2011 are planning a march on Washington actually. I think this is unwise. We should mobilize on Wall Street. Politicians are just for show. Really, the US is simply not a democracy-- its a plutocracy. New York is where the real seat of power is.
Also, DC is a city that is accustomed marches. They happen all the time there. Not much impact. It shakes things up more in NY.
But how will standing outside of the offices of the 1% affect their actions? Are you hoping for a change of heart? Not going to happen. I say occupy D.C. Occupy the streets in front of politicians' homes. If you don't affect the policy makers then it's a lost cause.
"But how will standing outside of the offices of the 1% affect their actions? Are you hoping for a change of heart? Not going to happen."
The purpose of the occupation is to build public support toward civil disobedience and direct actions like general strikes, seizing and controlling area's within the finical district, boycott's, the move to credit unions, and creating alternative social institutions. The civil rights movement gained its successes by taking the streets, not through electoral politics.
"I say occupy D.C. Occupy the streets in front of politicians' homes. If you don't affect the policy makers then it's a lost cause."
The policy makers are here in NYC. We marched past their mansion recently. Politicians aren't deciding policy brother, its a scam. Our political system is window-dressing to distract people from make real change happen and addressing the root cause of the problem--- concentrated wealth and power.
I agree with much of what you say, and I think that the movement is awesome and is doing good things. But really, how will you address this concentration of wealth and power? If you do not hold the government accountable, then you are supporting a free market, and in a free market there are no social guarantees.
We are holding both the corporations and their state thugs accountable -- through direct-action. There are also efforts to move past this idea that the only two institutions possible are corporations and governments. Government control is not the only alternative to the so-called "free market" (i.e. unrestrained corporate autocracy)
Although, I don't entirely dismiss your suggestion. Like I said they are planning this in DC, I am actually friends with the organizers who are build around it. We can probably get some tangible gains out of it if it goes well. I just think our primary concern should be with the plutocrats.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. July 4, 1776.
Quit ur Diversionary tactics.. We are hitting the Financial Centers. U must be a Hebrew / Zionist...only way i can explain it.
What is your purpose of this march on Washington, the civil rights movement had a cause for equal rights, what do you want? It makes no sense, it's laughable actually because the consensus seems to be "were angry about something and we blame rich people for something, but we don't know what change has to happen so that we stop protesting." Laughably idiotic
That's kinda my point. A bunch of unemployed people standing around yelling at rich people will not make the rich want to hand out money or adopt a lower quality of life. If the Occupy Movement actually does have any rational demands, it should organize and present them in Washington. Right now it seems like just a bunch of angry hippies who are mad that life is hard. You are making this easy for the government.
It's funny because the OWS movement elected Obama and the Senate and they can't blame their idiotic voting record so they blame rich people.
I didn't vote for that guy...neither did I vote for that old doddering fool in the republican party so stfu!