Re: Who wants to do what?

by rborskie@mindspring.com on Thu Nov 03, 2011 3:54 am

Excellent post John. One solution I'd like to see in corporations is simply that they follow American laws. Follow American labor laws, and environmental laws, regardless of where in the world they have their operations setup.

Also, if our paid for government and Supreme Court decide that companies really are in fact, people, then they should pay their income taxes, just like people. What's the tax rate for a person making 15 billion a year?

by RAB on Thu Nov 03, 2011 9:59 am

The financiers that own the world's central, investment, and commercial banks, have leveraged their power over the money creation process to literally buy the world's governments, military and intelligence services, media, and the voting processes. Here's a recent article that shows the level of consolidation:

New Scientist article.

If we don't go after the root cause, which in the U.S. would be taking back control of our money by bringing the functions of the Fed under the control of the Congress, as stipulated in the Constitution, then all the good intentioned reforms that are listed here, in the OWS declaration of September 29th, and elsewhere, will be for naught.

The corporations get away with criminal activities because anyone who has the legal standing to stop them is in their pocket.

It is no easy task to determine where to start with this. Every President that has tried to return the money creation process to public oversight has been assassinated (Lincoln, Garfield, Kennedy), or in Jackson's case, the pistols failed.

My suggestion is that we look at demands that would take back control of our money (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvTDTL55K1U), eliminate corporate personhood, create verifiable voting, and have real debates covered by the media (PBS and NPR at a minimum). These steps would give us a fighting chance.

by **RayArrowood** on Thu Nov 03, 2011 8:56 pm

Wow! I'll do the best I can to include all the ideas expressed here when I rewrite the poll for the next vote.

It looks like I made a mistake putting "all the above" in the poll, but I wanted to see how many people had multiple interests.

I'll have to eliminate the all of the above question in the next vote, and ask people to indicate their first choice, so we know more precisely which options are most popular.

by katiep on Thu Nov 03, 2011 9:35 pm

I am behind the 99%declaration.
I would be willing to join a third party, especially if we can absorb the Peace Party and so forth -- however that works, coming together.
I don't care about a national support group; based on what I have seen in the chaos I am not sure it would work in an online forum.
I like the idea of a National General Assembly, but I don't want to take away from OWS or MichaelP's efforts -- we either drop all this and come together or we will not make it through the fires.

by ChrisWheeler on Thu Nov 03, 2011 10:06 pm

I do agree with John's premise that we are best served by addressing the SOLUTIONS and mobilizing the 99%. The systemic issues in our present government ( corporate manipulation of all branches of government; stolen elections through ballot tampering, redistricting etc; corporate control of mainstream media and bad policy making throughout government) are the main reasons we have no voice and representation for all our issues to be addressed. The deck is stacked against us. I believe this message is what we've been hearing from OWS to Oakland and everywhere in between.

We all know the issues that are important to us and are shared by many others. What we haven't done yet is create a foundation upon which all those issues have a LEGITIMATE and resounding people-powered framework.

I think we have to build it. The People's Congress does have the foundation started that could be built on by all of us.

I also am unsure whether this group is aligned with or separate from the OWSGA. Seems it was aligned at one point. Could someone please clarify that status. If this is an outlying separate group I think we are spinning wheels if we won't or can't be inclusive, countrywide. This would help me understand how and what we're doing here.
Thanks

by simplee on Fri Nov 04, 2011 12:15 am

Like Chris, I would really like to know if we are aligned with the OWSGA. Do we have someone who is in direct touch with someone at the OWSGA who could answer that question? I think it is very important.

by **RayArrowood** on Fri Nov 04, 2011 1:00 am

As far as I know there is no national OWSGA, they are all local GAs.

A National General Assembly is what the largest percentage of people in this forum want to form according to my poll.

by simplee on Fri Nov 04, 2011 1:23 am

RayArrowood wrote:As far as I know there is no national OWSGA, they are all local GAs.

A National General Assembly is what the largest percentage of people in this forum want to form according to my poll.

I guess what I am asking is, do we have anyone in touch with the original Occupy Wall Street in NYC? I sort of thought that all the other localities with Occupy movements would be in touch with the original OWSNYGA people, as would all the online groups like us, but it sounds like you are saying that we are not really in touch with anyone else in any GAs until each locality sends delegates to Philadelphia? I am astonished!

I would think that would be something we should do.... establish a network of contact people to link all the branches of the movement together in terms of communicating. Surely that would be easy, what with everyone having laptops and ipads and iphones and all that.... no?

by Guest on Fri Nov 04, 2011 8:55 am

simplee wrote:
RayArrowood wrote:As far as I know there is no national OWSGA, they are all local GAs.

A National General Assembly is what the largest percentage of people in this forum want to form according to my poll.

I guess what I am asking is, do we have anyone in touch with the original Occupy Wall Street in NYC? I sort of thought that all the other localities with Occupy movements would be in touch with the original OWSNYGA people, as would all the online groups like us, but it sounds like you are saying that we are not really in touch with anyone else in any GAs until each locality sends delegates to Philadelphia? I am astonished!

I would think that would be something we should do.... establish a network of contact people to link all the branches of the movement together in terms of communicating. Surely that would be easy, what with everyone having laptops and ipads and iphones and all that.... no?

I agree with you, Simplee. Establishing a network of contacts would not only work toward a goal of being a support group, it would also establish our honest intentions and general goodwill among the occupy groups. I wouldn't think it would be that hard.
Maybe before diving further into the petition, we should work on getting a letter out to local GAs.
As always, if someone has already drafted such a letter and posted it on another thread, please direct me. I have a 10 month old son and my brain is not functioning at full capacity!
Peace,
Johanna

by **RayArrowood** on Fri Nov 04, 2011 11:45 am

I don't know how many local GAs are in touch with the NYC GA simplee. I know there are people in this group that have been in contact with the NYC GA, and probably still are. Brit said he was on good relations with NYC GA I believe.

We have members of local GAs in the forum, so I'm sure what's happening here is getting out to some of the GAs.

An outreach forum section was started here too, so I'm sure many people would like to work on networking the GAs.

by PDT on Wed Nov 09, 2011 9:07 am

In light of the referendum votes which took place, such as in Ohio, and other states, what if we had as one of our priorities the writing and placing of national referendums on the ballot?

by katiep on Wed Nov 09, 2011 9:26 am

Simplee, I am in touch with the NYC group, but don't mention it here because I have been run out of dodge for saying anything positive about MichaelP's group -- the man who started this group, and because he got mad at someone and used caps was also run out. I suggest if you want to be in touch with what they are doing, you join the 99% and then you can report back here. Maybe cooler heads will prevail here, but I am NOT going there

He is working with other GA's and the OWS, despite the frack you read. I think there are a couple of people who got Michael Pollok (michaelp) mixed up with another vocal lawyer, Michael Pollack, who is a corporate lawyer.

That is all. I refuse to read the negative commentary that I will get for mentioning his name, but he is moving forward, he is apparently not having trouble doing so, though there are a few people from this group who have gone to post negative commentary on his other blog out of spitefulness. I am fairly disgusted about it.

Watch the commentary about my post. It will be all about the negative and nothing about the positive that he is doing. But he is doing what he set out to do, and others are moving with him. And he is at OWS.

by PDT on Wed Nov 09, 2011 10:12 am

Have we discussed referendum votes yet anywhere? I don't even know that this has been done on a national level. Will have to research it.

Added:
Hmmm. Seems like there is no provision to allow referendums at the federal level. Would need a constitutional amendment for that. More here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendum

by RAB on Thu Nov 10, 2011 1:43 am

From my vantage point in Colorado, it seems to me that it is a brilliant strategy on the part of OWS to have no demands and no leaders per se.

Of course, the corporate media will try to create demands and leaders, because that is what will allow them to attack and marginalize OWS.

So, from a strategic point of view, any group, including this one, must be unofficial, which is fine with me. I just hope that we are able to create a cohesive set of objectives and demands that the public can understand, without getting hijacked ourselves.

I have been positing that everything begins with control over the creation of money, because this is how the powers-that-be/new world order, call them what you will, gained control over all the banks, corporations, governments, military and intelligence services, media, and voting processes. See this New Scientist article.

Regaining control over the money creation process for the 99% includes bringing the functions of the Fed under Congressional control (as stipulated in the Constitution) and creating a means where the sovereign currency is distributed at a state, county, and city level through public banks, to create liquidity on Main Street.

This is not enough, however. There must be a change in campaign financing laws (prohibit corporate personhood and rescind the Citizens United decision), decentralization of media, and verifiable elections (paper ballots overseen by a consortium of groups), just for a start. Then the will of the 99% can be implemented.

by **randallburns** on Thu Nov 10, 2011 3:03 pm

I back nationalization of the Fed. However, what I would expect from nationalization of the Fed is a bit limited. That appoach would mean an additional $450-750 Billion of effective revenue would be available to the US government. That would be a big dent in the governmental deficit-and we'd see accompanying downward pressure on interest rates.

However, even with that in place-and the other changes you are asking for, we'd still have substantail downward pressure on US wages from globalization. We'd still have a voting system in place that represents at best 13-26% of the electorate.

It isn't that the things you are asking for are bad-they are simply not enough by themselves.