Civil disobedience can and does work.

Its so funny how all these cries against Occupy mirror the cries against the civil rights movement.

Many of the leaders backed then where tracked by the government as "communist sympathizers" during the whole red scare...

Seems thats the go to move for those in power when dealing with the cry for social justice from the masses.

If anything the responses to Occupy say alot about the person responding and not the actual movement.

Personally I believe Civil disobedience work, that combined with actually using our wallets to state our beliefs could have a bigger impact than anything.

What would happen if Americans simply stopped patronage of all these HUGE banks that constantly screw us over and put the money into local business and credit unions.

We need to stop calling our fellow Americans names, and falling for the division tactics that get used against us, it will take all Americans working together to solve the problems that face America.

I think the idea is that OWS is asking for more and more government regulation on the economics of the country and they are demanding that they want to make everything "fair". OWS argues that its not fair that some people have so much while they have so little.
While communism took Russia in a revolution pretty quickly, OWS is trying to get more government regulation of the economics on a slower pace. Im not saying that they are communists but asking for more regulation is more of a step in the direction of communism than it is for a free market.

I'd like to recycle my post from another thread that applies here too. I'll hammer this point every chance I get.

I would like to reach back into the dustbin of history and take a polshing cloth to a well known ( and very applicable to present day) early 20th century word.

Bolshevism....

Word History: The word Bolshevik, an emotionally charged term in English, is derived from an ordinary word in Russian, bol'she, "bigger, more," the comparative form of bol'sho, "big." The plural form Bol'sheviki was the name given to the majority faction at the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party in 1903 (the term is first recorded in English in 1907). The smaller faction was known as Men'sheviki, from men'she, "less, smaller," the comparative of maly, "little, few." The Bol'sheviki, who sided with Lenin in the split that followed the Congress, subsequently became the Russian Communist Party. In 1952 the word Bol'shevik was dropped as an official term in the Soviet Union, but it had long since passed into other languages, including English.

And we all know know what that led to.

I submit that the OWS movement is nothing more than a modern day Bolshevist movement/attempt with very much the same goal as the original.

I'm sure that the Bolshevics were not ALL communists either.

Occupy is not a political party or movement. It is a social/cultural movement and therefore it is inaccurate to define us as left or right. We are trying to affect positive change in society as a whole by starting to address the underlying issues in our culture that we have.been.born and raised into believing. It just so happens that those in seats of political power are the ones actually drilling this stuff into our heads via mainstream media outlets (tv, radio, advertising, etc). We have to change on a sociocultrual (is that word?lol) level if we're going to see our nations and the world change. As the late great michael jackson once said, if you wanna make the world a better place take a look at yourself and a make that change.

Originally posted by jacktherer
As for ows being capable of positive ends I would assert that the movement has already done several postive things such as bring communities together for various things like foreclosure defense, sustainable farming/agriculture, and fighting institutionalized racism and classism and a ishton of other isms. And I doubt that this will stop no matter how much we're clubbed or sprayed

Forclosure defense, okay, I get that. Sustainable farming/ag? Okay, I like that.

Fighting institutionalised racism? Groovy.

Fighting classism? What the frack?

How can you fight classism when you initiate it by defining yourself as the 99% vs the 1%?

Seems to me that you're enhancing the divide.

My biggest problem with the Occupy movement was the lack of a coherent message... from one city or protest to the next, I could sense the anger and passion, but what was the overall message? That the rich have it better than everyone else (they always have)? I just never found a good, solid, overaching statement that tied it all together

So Petrus, could you tell me what Occupy was trying to get across to people like myself who are in the middle between the 'haves and have nots"?

Honest question, not meant to be sarcastic or underhanded in any way (gotta love how many times intent gets misconstrued by the Internet).

Thanks.

Originally posted by beezzer

Originally posted by jacktherer
Forclosure defense, okay, I get that. Sustainable farming/ag? Okay, I like that.

Fighting institutionalised racism? Groovy.

I like these as well. Occupy Our Homes has been doing some great things.

Fighting classism? What the frack?

How can you fight classism when you initiate it by defining yourself as the 99% vs the 1%?

Seems to me that you're enhancing the divide.

Agreed. The Marxist victim complex is an enormous problem.

Originally posted by Dreine
So Petrus, could you tell me what Occupy was trying to get across to people like myself who are in the middle between the 'haves and have nots"?

I'd actually invite you to watch Dennis Trainor's movie, American Autumn, on this score.

However, another thing to point out, would be to say that, if you've got a roof over your head, Occupy most likely wouldn't view you as being in the middle. You'd be seen as one of the "haves," to use your own term above.

The single major issue, I think, is concern over corporate greed, to the point where it is believed that at some point, senior corporate executives could likely end up being the only people who are literally able to survive at all. Although the formal figure on American unemployment is 9%, I've seen estimates as high as 35-40%.

Another major issue is the environment. I've read projections that we are probably ten years away from causing a non-recoverable disruption, in the systemic chain reaction which this planet utilises, to provide an environment that is inhabitable for human beings.

To put this in more simple terms, in order to provide the four things (air, water, food, and liveable climate) which humans and other animals need to biologically survive, the Earth at a sufficient broad scale, can be said to have a cyclic chain reaction, which is just like the engine of your car. This is what differentiates the Earth, from the surface of Mars.

In other words, purification of these resources, and regulation of the environment, happens during each iteration of the engine, or rev, to use the car analogy. The problem is that like the engine of a car, the engine of a planet's biosphere requires a large number of inter-related parts. If you cause a sufficient amount of damage, to a sufficiently large number of said parts, eventually the engine will cut out and cease to run. In the case of a car engine, you could think of cutting the fan belt, or the radiator tank getting a hole in it.

These are both, of course, traditional or stereotypical Leftist issues. A number of people within the Left, mind you, are now claiming that the environmental problem is about to become everyone's issue, or really already has.