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Forum Post: OWS: Put up the list of demands so we can begin narrowing it down

Posted 12 years ago on Sept. 27, 2011, 3:09 p.m. EST by npowell85 (249) from Montana City, Mt
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All americans have a stake in what you guys are doing down there. Please post the list of demands and lets start making progress on finding a solution that will benefit the majority. We need something concrete to discuss if progress is to be made.

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[-] 2 points by gawdoftruth (3698) from Santa Barbara, CA 12 years ago

‎1. We call for protests to remain active in the cities. Those already there, to grow, to organize, to raise consciousnesses, for those cities where there are no protests, for protests to organize and disrupt the system.

    2. We call for workers to not only strike, but seize their workplaces collectively, and to organize them democratically. We call for students and teachers to act together, to teach democracy, not merely the teachers to the students, but the students to the teachers. To seize the classrooms and free minds together.


    3. We call for the unemployed to volunteer, to learn, to teach, to use what skills they have to support themselves as part of the revolting people as a community.


    4. We call for the organization of people's assemblies in every city, every public square, every township.


    5. We call for the seizure and use of abandoned buildings, of abandoned land, of every property seized and abandoned by speculators, for the people, for every group that will organize them.

i wish they would grow up and am having the same love hate relationship with them as say tzm. it would be nice to have allies that didn't all go waste their time in infantile demonstrations and instead bothered to you know... show up with me and have an information revolution. Their way never works since the USA figured out controlled media. Check. the media aren't reporting this. Their silence is a mind crime in and of itself. The government cyclically proves it is the criminal in all of these demonstrations....the police have no business jumping all of those people just for wearing masks... etc... why aren't the police doing the will of the people and arresting the criminals on wall street? why? because we haven't made the legal case as intellectuals that is so; just lobbed assorted attacks and seen the truth but not argued to the public using formal logic and nvc. You see the problem? My way wins this game forever in under 6 months. their way just gives their negative energy to what they don't like.

   -----------------------
    John Bassist if Everyone does what they call for... if even 30 percent of the population does... that could be epic and could make change happen. but in what direction? anarchy? Its hard to agree so much and yet have so many clue by fours to hand a mob.
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i think its time for us to write a more eloquent document gentlemen i was thinking something along the lines of "Declaration of Independence 2.0"

‎1. We the people, of these United States of America, Hereby invoke our right and our powers and hereby do proclaim that our government, of by and for the people, shall again and immediately be of by and for the people, instead of of by and for the elites and their assorted bubbles and economic voodoo schemes. We hereby place under arrest any and all persons who are merely systemic parasites utilizing fictional economic bubbles in order to "rule over" the rest of us.

 ‎2. It is hereby a criminal offence equal to treason to knowingly lie to the public and this shall from this moment in time forward be extended to any and all possible pasts in which government interacted with corporations or their representatives. Any and all persons who shall be found guilty of knowingly using mass media to knowingly lie to the public shall be incarcerated for life in a federal penitentiary or put to death.

‎3. It is hereby a criminal offence to wage class warfare of any kind, and specific to this it is thus criminal to do any of the following.

A. Collect taxes. period. Taxes are merely part of the caste system and one of the bubbles that they ride. Our government was founded on the sound principle of havin gthe government itself both print and distribute its own money. The old banking system infiltrated and took over the USA and so the USA is still more or less owned lock stock and barel and controlled by the British Crown.

 B. Incarcerate persons for non violent non victim offenses. If you are going to put a person in Jail you must make the case that you are doing them less harm than they would do to society otherwise. Currently, they just put people in jail really to fill the jail with random victims they find instead of look for and deal with real criminals who for the most part evade the police and get off while random homeless people and drug addicts fill the jails.

C. Create any federal boundaries or laws regarding the creation of unions, which rightly should take precendence over corporations in government because they represent PEOPLE not Corporations. Thus Government shall not restrict the right of people to form unions and to seek just compensation for employment.

D. Own property for rent. Either you sell the property or you keep it vacant. Renting is in essence a form of masked slavery to prevent people from owning their own home. Every person in America should own their own home and probably to start, own it by virtue of inhabiting it.

  E. Lie in any kind of contract or make or create any kind of contract that is knowingly misleading. Contracts should be up front and there should be no "fine print" phenomenon because everything important should be said up front. business and corporations need to make an honest living advertising what they actually are and do at the actual costs and prices, not conspire to somehow scam their clients with unsecret complexities.

F. Restrict the Right of the people to convene esp upon a political problem or to solve an issue with any meta entity that the population deems to have crossed the line. If 10001 people show up at some meta entities door step thats a citizens arrest and the police darn well had best enforce the will the people and arrest those folks to make sure that it all goes to propper and fair trials.

‎(CALL THAT THE CITIZENS ARREST CLAUSE...)

‎4. The legal notion that a corporation is a legal person or may be is hereby rescinded. Corporations are not legal persons, and their actions are the actions in fact of assorted persons who make those decisions. Legal Representation is also now hereby restored, and ancillatory to this (part B) It shall be the job of the legal representative to run an open source forum and wiki on which the public can work through problems and make its views known. This direct communication via the internet shall replace all of the back door secret secret lies and spies against the public games that have been going on. From now on we the people demand direct access to our representatives, the right to tell them what to do, and the right to keep corporations and meta entities out of it. If a CEO of company X wants to talk about his company he can do so on the forum with everyone else and in full view of the public. All gifts and all donations to any public representative (congress, senate, mayor, city council, etc...) are hereby illegal. You get payed a flat rate by the government to do the job, and its a nice high wage because otherwise your not legally allowed to accept gifts while in office or because of favors after or any of that . Government by secret favors is now over.

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[-] 2 points by MKittles (36) from Maralinga, SA 12 years ago

Correction: the whole world has a stake in what you are doing down there. I am happy to abstain from American discussion if it is requested of me, but I really would like to see a list being thrown around.

If nothing else, we will all learn a lot. Your problems now are my country's future problems.

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[-] 1 points by npowell85 (249) from Montana City, Mt 12 years ago

Don't abstain, you are right the whole world has a stake in it. Please include yourself in the discussion as it is the only way we can accomplish anything.

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[-] 1 points by MKittles (36) from Maralinga, SA 12 years ago

I am to bed now (sun will be up soon). I think there is one obvious improvement that can be made...

Some people are spamming these forums with very long posts. I imagine the forums moderator would be overworked at best, but perhaps this needs more attention?

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[-] 1 points by AriaLittlhous (18) 12 years ago

http://coupmedia.org/occupywallstreet/occupy-wall-street-official-demands-2009

Here's the link to the vote for demands page. I'd add rewriting the tax code from scratch via national dialogue.

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[-] 1 points by GandhiKingMindsetResist (44) 12 years ago

  1. Arrest the following criminals in the following firms who clearly broke the law and helped cause the 2008 financial crisis.

  2. Congress enact legislation to reverse effects of Citizens United

  3. Glass-Steagall http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass–Steagall_Act

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[-] 1 points by GandhiKingMindsetResist (44) 12 years ago
  1. Oh.... and pass the Buffet Rule on fair taxation so the rich pay their fair share. (If you really had a good negotiating position and had the place surrounded, you could actually dial up taxes on millionaires, billionaires and corporations even higher. But this would require direct non-violent blockades / action in New York and DC to get the broad public support necessary).

Please keep one thing in mind. This is from Martin Luther King, Jr.:

"Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to so dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.

The purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation."

Here's the entire "Letter from the Birmingham Jail": http://abacus.bates.edu/admin/offices/dos/mlk/letter.html

And here's a short video from BBC to inspire you. It gets pretty extraordinary about halfway through: http://youtu.be/lqN3amj6AcE

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[-] 1 points by ZinnReader (92) from Encinitas, CA 12 years ago

I think one goal is pretty obvious and that is to raise awareness about an unjust economic system and the political forces that foster it. Wealth and power has been further concentrated to small sectors of our society and democracy has suffered because of it. People do not want to live under oppressive institutions and policies -- they want basic control over their resources and lives.

Create a list that speaks to economic and social justice. For example, the vast and growing wealth inequality, the systematic destruction of the working and middle classes, the attempt to dismantle the social state, the corporate take over of our democracy, etc. Make specific demands that counter these trends.

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