Posted on 10/19/2011 12:48:19 PM PDT by mdittmar
The Occupy Wall Street movement is a more profound challenge to the current way of doing business than the Tea Party was or aspired to be.
Although Occupy Wall Street may have an impact on electoral politics, it does not share the partisan trajectory of the Tea Party. It is a more authentic and independent movement, giving voice to the outrage at how Wall Street has crashed our economy and how Wall Street and giant corporations have captured our political process and debased our democracy.
Occupy Wall Street has been criticized for not offering a clear set of demands. In fact, the protesters have been eloquent in rejecting the idea that they produce "one demand," and in articulating in broad terms what they want. More to the point, it's not for a lack of ideas that the country is in crisis. Put the unemployed to work retrofitting energy-inefficient buildings, teaching children, and meeting other unmet needs. Invest in a green energy revolution. Impose a financial speculation tax, and increase taxes on the wealthy and corporations (and make them pay). Put in place a single-payer, Medicare-for-All healthcare system. Undo NAFTA-style corporate trade agreements—and don't enter into any new ones. Force banks to renegotiate mortgage terms, and let foreclosed-upon families stay in their homes as renters. Overturn the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission with a constitutional amendment and re-establish the principle that corporations exist to serve the people, not the other way around.
The country's problem is not the lack of a policy agenda. It's not even winning strong public support for the policy agenda—the public does support these ideas. The problem is translating the popular anger about the nation's state of affairs into a political movement strong enough to overcome the corporate opposition.
If Occupy Wall Street continues to grow, and if it bridges to more and more sectors of society—huge ifs, to be sure—Occupy Wall Street may serve as a spark to that political movement, something far more powerful and transformative than the Tea Party.
There is a mindless sameness to all of this. It was the same in the 60’s and 70’s.
Idleness and ignorance are exploited by unprincipled politicians to propel their own agendas...pathetic.
Where do these morons get this nonsense?
Well, if by “the people” they are referring to the shareholders, they might be accidentally right.
It’s the “Gimme Cuz I Want It” movement.
Anything written after that is only more twisted cant filled with monotonous platitudes written by an undead zombie recently escaped from the Island of Dr. Moreau.
Leni
maybe they just can’t remember their demands when they wake up in the morning
About Robert Weissman: Robert Weissman is president of Public Citizen where he is an expert on economic, health care, trade and globalization, intellectual property and regulatory policy, and issues related to financial accountability and corporate responsibility.
Oh, yeah. Sure.
The board of directors:
http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=4676
Seems to be a bunch of leftist loons and litigating class action lawyers.
And the front page mentioned that Bill Moyers is a regular.
Occupy Wall Street is a tiny group of maybe a few thousand spoiled brats, leftists, professional operatives and drugged up street people. They don't know what they are protesting or what they want. They are just Democrats and Obama voters who drank the Koolaid and now all that “hope and change” has left them with no opportunity and no future other than taking handouts from the productive members of society.
So they want to whine about it and use violence and intimidation to try to force the politicians to take money from the honest and productive people to support their leisured lifestyle.
The Tea Party represents millions of honest, hard working patriotic Americans who understand the Obama Administration is destroying America. All they want is to prevent our great country from being destroyed.
It’s a blank slate onto which you can transfer whatever your desires and aspirations are, and shape it into whatever you want to be.
Sort of like the Obama 2008 Campaign.
Wait a minute...
Robert, what I can gather from reading your article is you are nothing but a socialist democratic jerk. Try doing your home work. This OCCUPIED OUTHOUSE aka PEE PARTY bowle movement is nothing but a failed attempt to try and match the political power of the TEA PARTY who are kicking the socialist’s rear end. This bowle movement was conceived by the brain trustsof the communist and democrat parties in hopes of reviving the failed obama administrations socialist agenda. It will fail miserable along with the socialist democrats in 2012.
Yeah (yawn) it's unstoppable, it's a tidal wave picking up steam like an avalanche, yeah, yeah...
...Occupy Wall Street may serve as a spark to that political movement, something far more powerful and transformative than the Tea Party...
Not much doubt now that what we've been saying for the last month is true: this thing is laughably contrived and breathlessly reported by people whose sole object is to marginalize a legitimate populist movement by publicizing a phony one. It doesn't look as if it's working but you can bet we'll be told that it is, all the way to November 2012.
One has to gaze in open-mouthed wonder at the degree to which this cheerleading is dissociated from the real world. The OWS people have, states the author, "resisted" some fictional demand to settle on a single objective. It is not, as the author implies, a virtue; what we hear is, in fact, an incoherent torrent of mindless platitudes, ill-formed accusations, and heady abstractions to which no coherent program ever could be attached. Precisely how much "transformation" the author expects from a movement with no objectives is a marvel of modern political doublethink. Nothing will be transformed, but an old game might be repackaged.
That is also a fair working description of the 0bama campaign of 2008 and the one to come in 2012. Make no mistake about it: this is 0bama's campaign for re-election taking shape and it is as inchoate, disorganized, self-contradictory, and incompetent as his administration has been.
Not.
USN&WR shouldn't let their columnists write while under the influence of mind altering substances.
Corporations exist to make a profit for their shareholders by providing a product that PEOPLE WANT TO BUY.
If someone is happy to trade money for that product they have been provided a service.
If the corporation derives a profit from selling that profit, the customer has provided a service.
This is the nature of capitalism, a mutually agreed upon mutually beneficial arrangement or trade.
These morons think the only way to make a million dollars is to rob a million people.
History has shown the best way to make a million dollars is to make a product that millions of people want.
OWS has a few hundred professional protesters hanging around, objecting to city insistence on cleaning the space.
Tea Party had a half-million regular folks show up at once with little planning, and left the place spotless.
The former’s demands are little more than the latter pay the former’s way.
The latter’s demands are little more than the former pay its own way.
No comparison beyond “yin, meet yang”.
The original Greek protests, which the OWS movement is attempting to copy, is much more focused. BTW - The Greek government just ignored the protesters and voted for an austerity package.
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