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Occupy Wall Street Protests
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Post by
Adamsm
Was anyone prevented from working? This wasn't a general strike, a sit in or a salt march, it was far more sedate and far less well advertised than the Tea Party movement (presumably because advertising contradicts the spirit of the movement). Are you arguing that they should have participated in direct action?Any time they took to the streets in major cities, blocking the roads and sidewalks.
Gamer, I'd suggest you look deeper into what the Occupy movement is protesting.
Post by
gamerunknown
Any time they took to the streets in major cities, blocking the roads and sidewalks.
Can you provide a specific cite of someone inconveninced? I don't think it's any more significant than a Saint Patrick's Day procession, but if they did break laws on congregating/planning then I'll happily cede that they were in the wrong in doing so.
Gamer, I'd suggest you look deeper into what the Occupy movement is protesting.
I'd be glad if you could provide me with any resources for doing so.
I've been to Occupy London three times. The first time I brought food and spoke with a man that described himself as a Capitalist about direct democracy, democratic plurality and Milton Friedman. The second time I brought a document outlining my own thoughts on direct democracy and three books I thought the free library could use (History of Western Philosophy, Orientalism and Hegemony or Survival). I spoke with a man that seemed to oppose homosexuality, the Reverand Billy Talen, a German individual that opposed direct democracy, a translator working in a public hospital that had invested a lot of money and whose financiers had refused to let him access the profits of, a person visiting from America that had camped in Cornwall for a few weeks, a retiree that was worried for her future and a Socialist party member that wanted to organise protests against the public service cuts that were occurring under the Conservative/Lib Dem government. I attended two discussions: one by the Corporation of London explaining how companies obtain votes in their board and another by the Youth Assembly of the protest asking for our opinions. In the first, I recommended that the UK construct an entrenched constitution so that the judiciary have a balance on the legislature and in the second, I recommended that individuals write to their MPs and use the direct.gov epetitions website. The third time I went was on my birthday as I wanted to engage my friends with the movement, but they were universally disappointed. I took toilet paper to donate as I heard that they needed it last time and talked briefly to one individual who wanted to limit campaign contributions and another that explained the trend of rising executive remuneration to a friend.
I accept that I'm still very ignorant about the movement as a whole and I'd be interested to hear your take.
Post by
Adamsm
This is a good read
; and it is about the movement how the 1% runs the world, while the other 99% just sits in the seats and don't get a say(yeah, that's believable). I'm sorry Gamer, but they just don't seem to be going about it in a good way; a lot of what I hear about the Occupy movement is with jokes, and they themselves don't seem to be as willing as the Civil Rights protesters were to go to jail for their belief.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
The reason that it's hard to find out what the Occupy movement is about, is that it doesn't have a set of clearly defined or attainable goals.
Civil rights movements were very focused on specific laws and policies that specifically discriminated against minorities, women, etc. There were specific goals, with outlined solutions- repeal and reword certain laws, include a clause in the bill of rights making it illegal to discriminate based on certain criteria, etc. They could look at specific companies, and their specific policies, and focus their protests on those companies.
In this case, they have an opponent that they have identified as the "1%," and their complaint is that rich people have too much of the money, and there needs to be a more equal distribution. But beyond that, there's no real concrete plan. There are all sorts of ideas and theories about different things that could be done, but no single plan that actually encompass all legal, economic and production concerns of what they want to accomplish.
Some people just want to redistribute wealth evenly, without concern for what will happen to the means to continue production in the country with no investment capital, when all businesses are taken out of the hands of people who actually are knowledgeable about how to run said businesses, and how that will affect the prices in the economy, etc. Some people want to raise the minimum rage to some arbitrary number, which wouldn't actually do anything to affect the spending power of people, and would just hasten inflation to match. Most people don't care how it's done- they just want more, and they think it should come from people who have more.
The reason that the occupy movement is hard to take seriously, is that the statement "I don't have enough- you should give me some of what you have" is not a sympathetic statement to anyone not making it. There's no argument for why they deserve it, what they did to earn it, how it will be better for the country or the economy- it seems very localized and short sighted. It also doesn't come with a second part of "and I will do X with this money." They're not saying give us the money, so that we can form businesses along x guidelines and run them this way. They don't have a plan beyond actually acquiring the money.
Also, any massive re-distribution of wealth would pretty much either stop all production, or place it in the hands of the government, which can't run anything efficiently anyway. And, if there is no one person or entity who is entitled to have any large amount of money, then nothing large can be funded or paid for. How do you pay for all of the materials to build a factory when the company doesn't have the right to retain millions of dollars? How do you fund payroll for people working there- if no one person can have more than X amount of money, then no person can employ another person because they have nothing to pay them. If no one can pay you to work, you don't work. And then nothing gets produced, nothing gets built, no one does anything productive.
The only way that what the general idea of what the Occupy movement wants could even begin to occur, would be to have a truly communist state. Which, as history has shown, basically destroys a country's economy. Because there is no incentive to work, there is no money for funding innovation, and the government takes too long to do anything and lets decisions be made by people who have no education about the topics they're deciding on (SOPA). Also, our government had clearly demonstrated that they have no ability to handle money. They are so far in debt, without even plans on how to stop increasing it, never mind pay it off, that eventually, they're not going to be able to fund any of the things that are their responsibility right now. If we hand them all of the money, they'll continue to do the same thing, and it will all disappear.
If the occupy movement had a plan, then they would be on par with the civil rights movement. Right now, they just have a list of things they don't like, but no idea what could be done to make it better. And so they want to do the worst possible thing, which is to just do SOMETHING, and not worry about the long term effects of it.
I am not saying that there are not things that need to be changed in the way we do things. The banking industry should never have been bailed out. If they over-extended themselves, they should have paid the price by shutting down, releasing millions from debt from credit they shouldn't have been offered, and clearing the way for smarter and healthier banks to take the market share over and do a better job. Health insurance has created an artificial scale of cost for the entire health care industry that should have been nipped in the bud before it ever got this far. There has to be some accountability for people and actions that really take advantage of the system. But there also has to be some understanding that we need a system to function, and that unless you can provide a good model of a system that will function better in its place, it's silly to tear down the system that's in place now and just hope everything works out.
Post by
MyTie
The problem with them being a movement without a motto is that there is really nothing to argue against. The benefit is, they aren't going to accomplish their goals.
Their goals are quite clearly an increase of government control on business economic freedom, and increased taxes on higher brackets. Of course, you can't prove that is what they are about. You can't prove they are about anything. Hence:6 months? 6 months of sitting there, protesting
something
, in the hopes that
something
will happen. Brilliant!
The shield of unspecific goals they hold up is exactly what makes them irrelevant.
Post by
gamerunknown
I don't have enough- you should give me some of what you have
I don't think that's ever been expressed. Various treatises have been proposed by various speakers, but I disagree with the characterisation of the movement as of being without a central focus other than opposition: the salient feature I think is cooperation. They wish to cooperate with each individual voice regardless of the capital behind it in order to reach a resolution. Recommendations while I was there were mainly along the lines of more democratic accountability (for the Corporation of London), self-sufficiency and greater participation in the political process for citizens by increased reliance on referendums.
Edit: Would that be a fair summation of what Orwell says
here
for example?
Civil rights movements were very focused on specific laws and policies that specifically discriminated against minorities, women, etc. There were specific goals, with outlined solutions- repeal and reword certain laws, include a clause in the bill of rights making it illegal to discriminate based on certain criteria, etc. They could look at specific companies, and their specific policies, and focus their protests on those companies.
The Civil Rights movement started with
small protests in classrooms and against businesses
. It had its roots in the organisation of the union leaders Bayard Rustin and Asa Randolph. They wished to challenge segregation as it contributed to unemployment among black males. It grew as a result of solidarity: ignoring the differences in outcomes and focusing on unifying aspects.The ultimate
aim
of the civil rights movement of the 60s was not realised though. Well, other than when expressed through protest:
Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.
At any rate, the protests help individuals that are dissatisfied with rising income equality, unemployment, lack of governmental accountability and the influence of money in politics come together and discuss practical solutions. One of the proposals that I don't think was plausible was a "maximum wage law": of course, those with incomes are not working for a capitalist, they are capitalists and thus are not receiving a wage. That said, incomes were capped in Eisenhower's administration when unemployment was at a lower level. Still, the way representative democracy works entails that representatives are not presented with a list of demands and then choose to accept them, they decide what measures are necessary to quell dissent. The Civil Rights Act was sufficient, but it was not the end goal for any civil rights protestor that I'm familiar with.
But there also has to be some understanding that we need a system to function, and that unless you can provide a good model of a system that will function better in its place, it's silly to tear down the system that's in place now and just hope everything works out.
I also hold that it's silly to be glad of a committe that is unifying people with disparate grievances and trying to improve the current system, or possibly even propose an alternative system that could work. One proposal I've seen Chomsky and Zinn (and essentially every socialist) make is worker control of production (rather than central governmental control of production). It's been tried once to my knowledge and failed due to the combined opposition of the social democracies, fascism and Communism.
This is a good read; and it is about the movement how the 1% runs the world, while the other 99% just sits in the seats and don't get a say(yeah, that's believable).
That's interesting. Do you have any illustrative quotes from the article about how the 1% runs the world (
possible mechanism
)? Do you think the 20% of people in poverty are adequately represented in the various parliaments of the world?
they themselves don't seem to be as willing as the Civil Rights protesters were to go to jail for their belief.
You're maligning them because they contravene laws in order to have their protest recognised and also because they have not been arrested en masse like the Civil Rights protesters?
Edit: Not to mention that some of the people arrested at the Civil Rights protests such as Dan Berrigan have participated in the Occupy movement too.
Post by
Adamsm
Did you read what Elhonna put Gamer? She got the point across much clearer then I could.
Post by
gamerunknown
Did you read what Elhonna put Gamer? She got the point across much clearer then I could.
I read and responded to her, but I didn't respond to some of the assertions such as
Also, any massive re-distribution of wealth would pretty much either stop all production, or place it in the hands of the government
and
Some people just want to redistribute wealth evenly
because they don't recognise the complexity and diversity of the proposals various speakers gave at the many Occupy platforms globally and they also betray a lack of familiarity with the moderate reforms proposed even by fringe anarchist groups, the industrialisation of Russia (which was bloody and miserable for dissidents, including union members, but led to the USSR having a higher quality of life than the US for a brief period) and other communal approaches to investment such as credit unions (read Homage to Catalonia for more).
Post by
Monday
but led to the USSR having a higher quality of life than the US for a brief period)
This matters nothing unless you tell us /when/ exactly the quality of life was higher, and back it up. Otherwise, I'm not believing it.
Post by
gamerunknown
This matters nothing unless you tell us /when/ exactly the quality of life was higher, and back it up. Otherwise, I'm not believing it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia#Life_expectancy
Post by
Monday
This matters nothing unless you tell us /when/ exactly the quality of life was higher, and back it up. Otherwise, I'm not believing it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia#Life_expectancy
So for a period of less than a decade, the life expectancy rose to approx. 69 years for males. I don't balance that with the brutality of the revolution.
Post by
gamerunknown
So for a period of less than a decade, the life expectancy rose to approx. 69 years for males. I don't balance that with the brutality of the revolution.
I wasn't marching down Main Street wrapped in a hammer and sickle singing la internationale. I have no love for the Soviet regime (nor does anyone that's read Orwell, Chomsky or Isaiah Berlin) since it is left authoritarian and thus opposed to my beliefs: just not diametrically opposed as right authoritarianism is (though often a right authoritarian such as Obama looks more appealing than a right libertarian such as Paul). I was using it as illustrative of the fact that production doesn't "immediately cease"... The opposite occurred in Russia, they set about with a forced industrialisation by abolishing serfdom. I have no illusions as to whether the working class had any more freedoms though. The reason lifespan retracted is because central planning was awful and the Commissars decided to underspend on healthcare and overspend on the military.
Post by
Monday
"immediately cease"
Immediate is relative. Production did slow immensely, and eventually almost died.
Post by
gamerunknown
Production did slow immensely, and eventually almost died.
Just like with the General Strike in 1926 or the teach-out strikes in the 50s and 60s. In order to accomplish change, the gears of the machine must temporarily halted. The first accomplishment of the post-revolutionary period (thus following the widespread executions) was the construction of the Dnieper dam.
Post by
207044
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
Was anyone prevented from working? This wasn't a general strike, a sit in or a salt march, it was far more sedate and far less well advertised than the Tea Party movement (presumably because advertising contradicts the spirit of the movement). Are you arguing that they should have participated in direct action?
The protests in Sydney at least were shut down on the basis that they were obstructing main pedestrian pathways. It was raining during the Occupy Sydney protests, and they were all crowding under the overhangs of buildings, soaking up all of the under cover area, preventing people from getting past.
Yes, I'd say that people were hindered and inconvenienced.
Likewise, what is an effective way to be heard without causing inconvenience?
Lobbying your elected representatives (and encouraging others to do so)? Blogging? Writing in letters to the editor, or voluntarily contributing newsworthy articles to community and commercial newspapers? Stepping up to become elected representatives of your community? All these things involve actually doing something about it, rather than sitting around and waiting for the community to take pity on you.
<analogy> Your argument is exactly like saying that Anonymous's only way to be heard is to use botnets to hack and deface government and corporate websites. There are plenty of other means at their disposal, but doing so is taking the lazy way out. </analogy>
To whom did their protests cause inconvenience?
Addressed above.
Which policies of theirs increased their personal utility?
Anything that artificially reduces the utility of the 1% that they were clamoring for. Restrictions on executive pay, bonus taxes, millionaire tax, increases in the top tier tax rate, etc.. The reasoning: this all flows back to the community and into their pockets in one way shape or another, whether it's by reducing the tax burden on the less well-off (i.e. high-tier taxes paying for low-tier tax breaks) or more spending in areas which benefit them (e.g. welfare, Medicare, etc.).
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