Forum Post: OWS is the Political Critical Mass of our Time
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 13, 2011, 9:10 a.m. EST by aahpat
(1407)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I wrote this in response to tulcak who made the assertion:
"the corporations control and own our government and our economy. politics has changed NOTHING in 30 years. why do you think ANYTHING will change within the present system? WHY?"
My rebuttal:
Because the financial crash of 2008 has negatively impacted so many Americans that the scales have tipped. Opposition to the corruption has hit a critical mass for the first time in forty years.
The corrupt do not own everything. They own a winning margin. It is just a small margin but they know how to focus it. And they know that causing folks like you to become disaffected and disenchanted with participating enlarges their margin. So many Americans have been economically hurt across so many generations by the 2008 collapse that the winning margin of corruption is only as good as their ability to keep good people from participating. From focusing on solutions.
If you really want to scare the fuck out of Wall Street start a voter registration drive at all of the encampments and rallies.
Carry large signs saying RESTORE GLASS-STEAGALL!
Make stencils with "H.R. 2451", its the law to restore Glass-Steagall, and paint it on every street in the financial district of every city in America. And in the street in front of every office of every member of congress. And at the door of every news organization in America.
But most important is the one thing they depend on the most, do not allow them to win by causing you to be disaffected. Your disaffection is their success.
I plan to Write-In Elizabeth Warren in the primary next year because Wall Street Hates her. And fears her.
I won't support her because she is a Democrat. Nor will I oppose a party candidate just because of their party association. That is throwing the baby out with the bath water. I'll write in Warren because to do so will make Wall Street quake in their Italian loafers.
Strategic Voting
We can register in whichever party has a candidate that we particularly like of dislike to put our primary vote where it will have the most strategic effect.
In the general election we can Write-In our preferred candidiate, if we have one. Or we can use the campaign season to get the two party candidate to address and acknowledge our vital economic issues. Then, if we have no one to Write-In we can vote for whichever major party candidate reflects our values. If there is none then we can Write-In NONE OF THE ABOVE or OWS! One way or another we express our values in the most important time and place to do it, the ballot box. And we do it our way not the way the two parties dictate.
Good points.
I firmly believe that we have the political power within OWS and we can take back OUR democracy from the corruption of Wall Street. It is requires a willingness to participate in the democracy. Not simplistically flipping leavers and mindlessly supporting the two corrupt dominance parties. But participating on our terms and on our grounds.
Creative destruction of the old by applying new ideas and techniques. Aggressively using the Write-in system on the ballot to overcome the ballot access obstructions that the two parties put in place against us.
Aggressively and loudly supporting laws that will stop the corruption.
Aggressively and publicly opposing the incumbents who caused the financial collapse and doing it now when we have the time leading into the elections to educate more Americans about who the corrupted are, in both the corrupt dominance parties, and why they must be opposed.