Pre-OCCUPY-Ed: How the Occupy Wall Street movement will economically destroy America

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As Barack Obama reaffirmed his commitment to supporting the movement, the "president" attempted to discredit the Tea Party by claiming it was related. Wall Street protesters are selfish, make silly demands, and have misguided rage toward job creators. Over Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested during its first month; after more than two years, zero arrests have been made in the Tea Party movement. Unlike the Tea Party, Obama was quick to acknowledge Occupy Wall Street, offering it credibility and a share of frustration and support. Rush Limbaugh argued that this protest was organized by the White House and Obama.

Other reports indicated that sanitation was becoming a concern for Occupy Wall Street as the park where the protesters camp was not been cleaned since September 16 and Mayor Bloomberg indicated that the protests were costing NYC tourism dollars. The Democrat Media Complex has willfully covered up the violence, vandalism , and anti-Semitism that truly does define the Occupy movement. Conservative media has documented more than incidents of their outrageous and appalling behavior. Andrew Breitbart 's BigJournalism website shows emails from well-known media members trying to facilitate a message for the protesters, insisting on demands so as to further report on the movement.

New York Times reporter Natasha Lennard did not merely cover the protests, but also took part in planning and executing them. The Washington Post and the New York Times generated a total of stories and opinion pieces praising the protest movement. In addition, they ran 33 stories or segments about "Occupy" within the first 11 days and only 13 stories for the first year of the Tea Party movement. Reports show that Wall Street protesters were being paid to march.

Manufactured, professionally-designed protest signs indicate liberal money is influencing the protests. Conservatives mock the movement as Occupy Sesame Street, for its childishness. Conservatives know that it's the government devaluing our currency, weakening our economy and plundering money from the next generation—Wall Street and the banks aren't to blame. Republicans Mitt Romney and Herman Cain have denounced the protests as class warfare. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent out a fundraising email asking supporters to sign a petition in support of the protesters.

Barack Obama said that the movement reflected "broad-based frustration about how our financial system works. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Said Assembly shall convene on July 4, in the city of Philadelphia. The office of Delegate shall be open to all United States citizens who have reached the age of Implementing an immediate ban on all private contributions of money and gifts, to all politicians in federal office, from Individuals, Corporations, Political Action Committees, Super Political Action Committees, Lobbyists, Unions and all other private sources of money to be replaced by the fair and equal public financing of all federal political campaigns.

We categorically REJECT the concept that money is equal to free speech because if that were so, then only the wealthiest would have a voice. A complete lifetime ban on accepting all gifts, services, money, directly or indirectly, to any elected or appointed federal officials or their immediate family members, from any person, corporation, union or other entity that the public official was charged to regulate while in office. A complete reformation of the United States Tax Code to require ALL citizens to pay a fair share of a progressive , graduated income tax by eliminating loopholes, unfair tax breaks , exemptions and deductions, subsidies e.

The current system of taxation favors the wealthiest Americans, many of whom, pay fewer taxes to the United States Treasury than citizens who earn much less and pay a much higher percentage of income in taxes to the United States Treasury. We, like Warren Buffett , find this income tax disparity to be fundamentally unjust. Medicare for all American citizens or another single-payer healthcare system , adjusted by a means test i. The Medicaid program, fraught with corruption and fraud , will be eliminated except for the purpose of providing emergency room care to indigent non-citizens who will not be covered by the single-payer program.

We also demand the immediate adoption of the most recent international protocols , including the "Washington Declaration" to cap carbon emissions and implement new and existing programs to transition away from fossil fuels to reusable or carbon neutral sources of power. Adoption of an immediate plan to reduce the national debt to a sustainable percentage of GDP by Reduction of the national debt to be achieved by BOTH a cut in spending to corporations engaged in perpetual war for profit, the "healthcare" industry, the pharmaceutical industry and all other sectors that use the federal budget as their income stream AND a truly progressive income tax code that does not allow the wealthy and corporations to evade taxes through excessive deductions, subsidies and loopholes.

We agree that spending cuts are necessary but those cuts must be made to facilitate what is best for the People of the United States of America, not multinational and domestic corporations. Passage of a comprehensive job and job-training act like the American Jobs Act to employ our citizens in jobs that are available with specialized training and by putting People to work now by repairing America's crumbling infrastructure. We also recommend the establishment of an online international job exchange to match employers with skilled workers or employers willing to train workers in 21st century skills.

Student loan debt relief. Archived from the original on November 4, Archived from the original on December 4, It's Not a Hippie Thing". Archived from the original on May 26, Make it go away". Archived from the original on May 11, Archived from the original on January 9, The San Francisco Chronicle. Archived from the original on July 9, Archived from the original on October 31, The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 15, Archived from the original on May 3, Archived from the original on June 21, Archived from the original on December 21, Archived from the original on September 2, Retrieved November 1, Archived from the original on February 28, Retrieved January 23, Retrieved June 1, Retrieved May 20, Archived from the original on April 20, Is Representation Under Siege?

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The same content is here archive. Archived from the original on March 9, Retrieved October 3, Archived from the original on December 14, Archived from the original on May 7, After six weeks, a profile finally emerges". Archived from the original on December 17, Retrieved October 23, Inside, a Buddha statue sits near a picture of Jesus, while a hand-lettered sign in the corner points toward Mecca.

Archived from the original on January 12, Who Is Occupy Wall Street? Archived from the original on July 19, Retrieved December 8, Archived from the original on July 1, Archived from the original on December 19, Retrieved February 15, Barton November 4, Archived from the original on August 15, Retrieved November 11, White October 25, Archived from the original on July 15, Archived from the original on February 23, The New York Observer. Retrieved November 13, Does it need any? Retrieved October 25, Fordham University Sociologist Heather Gautney in an interview with the International Business Times 'the movement doesn't have leaders, but it certainly has organizers, and there are certainly people providing a human structure to this thing.

There might not be these kinds of public leaders, but there are people running it, and I think that's inevitable. Archived from the original on April 18, Retrieved November 21, Retrieved March 18, Archived from the original on August 24, Archived from the original on January 7, Archived from the original on June 7, The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on November 19, Retrieved November 19, Archived from the original on May 14, Retrieved October 24, Archived from the original on February 19, Retrieved November 15, Archived from the original on December 22, Because it's hard to be heard above the din of lower Manhattan and because the city is not allowing bullhorns or microphones, the protesters have devised a system of hand symbols.

Fingers downward means you disagree. Arms crossed means you strongly disagree. Announcements are made via the "people's mic This is the media center, where the protesters group and distribute their messages. Those who count themselves among the media team for Occupy Wall Street are self-appointed; the same goes with all teams within this community. Deprez and Charles Mead October 28, Archived from the original on December 29, Retrieved November 2, Retrieved March 25, It's a hub for all Occupy-inspired happenings and updates, a key part of the internal communications network for the Occupy demonstrations.

While sitting in the media tent I saw several Skype sessions with other demonstrators. At one point a bunch of people gathered around a computer shouting, "Hey Scotland! Retrieved October 9, Retrieved October 16, Archived from the original on May 27, Archived December 14, , at the Wayback Machine.

April 1917

The New York Post. Archived from the original on March 28, Retrieved June 2, A New York Supreme Court has ruled not to extend a temporary restraining order that prevented the eviction of "Occupy" protesters who were encamped at Zuccotti Park, considered a home-base for demonstrators. Police in riot gear cleared out the protesters early Tuesday morning, a move that attorneys for the loosely defined group say was unlawful.

But Justice Michael Stallman later ruled in favor of New York city officials and Brookfield properties, owners and developers of the privately owned park in Lower Manhattan. The order does not prevent protesters from gathering in the park, but says their First Amendment rights not do include remaining there, "along with their tents, structures, generators, and other installations to the exclusion of the owner's reasonable rights and duties to maintain Zuccotti Park. Retrieved January 1, Archived from the original on February 25, Retrieved January 30, Retrieved March 24, Archived from the original on July 30, Archived from the original on January 5, Retrieved March 22, Archived from the original on June 11, Retrieved September 26, The Morning After in Zuccotti Park".

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Julia La Roche American Collections Blog, British Library. Occupy Wall Street poster printers become pamphleteers".

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Occupy Wall Street is a rejoinder to that in a way that has breathed life into the dialectic. It began with an idea—Occupy Wall Street! This is why base and superstructure are a dialectic and intertwined , rather than a one-way movement between discrete forces where we treat consciousness as a mere outcome of material conditions.

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Of course, we have witnessed this many times in the last year. Tunisia and Egypt affirmed that agency, solidarity and persistence can overturn the dominant powers. The strength of the Occupy Wall Street movement—its lack of organization—is also its weakness. While the plutocrats are shaking in their Guccis and politicians are less eager to play Sweeney Todd with social programs, this formless movement needs to create some sort of form to exercise real power beyond the symbolic and performative.

Because Zuccotti Park and other occupations popping up around the country are open social and political spaces, groups can go in and create poles to organize around. But building a movement with a vision and coherent politics means listening carefully to people there, speaking directly to their politics and grievances—and more important—passions and desires, while gently steering them to a radical analysis.

The distrust of leaders and organizations means any attempt to impose an agenda will fail.

The meaning of Occupy Wall Street

But if radical politics grows organically out of the General Assembly, working groups and informal nodes of power, then it will gain wide legitimacy and force. There is no one end goal, just as there is no one demand, because there is no one problem stemming from the crisis of global capitalism. One encouraging sign is how various occupations are already targeting banks, but many other targets could be chosen.

What must be avoided is the pursuit of reform, which is based on the notion that the system is fundamentally just and only needs to be tweaked with policy changes. This is the perspective of every compromised force within the Democratic Party from ossified labor unions to reformist NGOs to clientelist community groups, which are glomming on to Occupy Wall Street to push their agenda and return disgruntled Democratic voters back to the fold in This movement will achieve victories by rejecting the ballot box, staying in the streets, constructing new narratives and keeping the heat on the oligarchy.

That is what will push this movement forward in ways we can barely imagine. They challenge the rest of us to get out of our comfort zones. For years, so many of us have wanted something to happen, some kind of spark. And what OWS makes clear is that we have to be our own spark. We all have to up our game.

How can OWS win change? I SEE these two questions as related. Overwhelming numbers of people who are negatively affected by the kleptocratic nature of our society are completely unaffected by this movement as of yet. I think this is related to the question of goals. OWS has correctly pointed out fundamental problems in our society—outrageous inequality, lack of opportunity, corporate power and the corrosion of our democracy. The movements we grow and create—and I think we need to see these as plural—have to engage at this deep a level.

So even as we pursue discrete goals—like, for instance, progressive taxation, student loan forgiveness, meaningful jobs programs—these need to be pursued with the understanding that such remedies are partial, only part of a longer-term struggle we must engage to realign the power relations in our society.

Before the beginning of the occupation, the organizers—or at the very least myself—had no blind certainty that Occupy Wall Street would work. People have consistently and creatively stepped up to do amazing things at the encampment. People just sweep, organize the library, plan actions, organize teach-ins, work on the OWS phone book, etc. There have been many times when a specific idea arises in my mind to make the camp better—and I go back, only to find it already completed.

This is the true sense of OWS as leaderless. It is the horizontal structure that allows for everyone to be empowered to step up and do the work that OWS needs. Beyond the occupation itself, the self-organization of various social struggles in their relation to OWS has been truly inspiring to see. The support and participation of various struggles and identities in OWS opens the possibility for a broader movement, which unites particular social struggle for a more universal movement for emancipation.

And the chorus is beginning to form. The Union Square march, the Brooklyn Bridge march, the Foley Square rally and other actions have been instrumental in building support for OWS, and were a learning experience for many. The incidents of police brutality caused widespread condemnation of the police and support for our movement. The next step now is moving from protest to resistance—in other words, using civil disobedience and individual fiscal withdrawal to disrupt the financial institutions.

The clarion call was answered, and people are stirring. We now need a strategy for, and call to, occupy schools and workplaces, and directly challenge financial capital. At least three websites—OccupyTogether. The process of developing circuits of inter national communication, coordination and inspiration needs to continue in order to build a inter national strategy for challenging the given socio-economic order. The most powerful thing about OWS has been not the encampment itself, but the way it has energized people to support it and begin fighting back on their own.

The mass rally was important because it brought out the widest layers of people, drawing in huge numbers of workers with a very multiracial mix—probably the most diverse manifestation of OWS so far. The biggest impact of OWS is its role in initiating a mass movement against corporate power and economic inequality.

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