Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search
9 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies

macbug

(22 posts)
4. Leadership, Focus, Battleplan
Sun Aug 19, 2012, 11:21 AM
Aug 2012

The problem with the occupy movement that it is really a bunch of little movements moving in different directions with no leader, no clear goals, and no battle plan. I supported the LA movement until evicted, and then when I tried to find a leader I met a lot of angry very hard working workers, but no leaders, now I can understand keeping a low profile in our police state and with the patriot act, which gave the 1% and whole new tool box of suppression. But all of us in the 99% need goals that appeal to the 99%. A well paying job, Get Corporations out of Politics, Debt forgiveness, Free Healthcare, Free education, mass transit, or how about this: from the founding fathers: Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What we have now is cradle to grave exploitation, and a partnership between business and government to exploit and control the people.

patrice

(47,992 posts)
5. Perhaps THE essential drive in that exploitation is the sense, mistaken or otherwise, of
Sun Aug 19, 2012, 01:16 PM
Aug 2012

dis-possession that divides everyone but the 1%.

MY solutions to that problem are socialistic. Others have other solutions, but they all deal with the issues associated with acquisition of the wherewithal to survive. Even some of the middle-class and upper-middle and lower-upper are driven by the sense that, even though they have waaaaaaaaaaaay more than what is necessary to survive, especially in comparison to those under them in lower economic classes, if they lose the ability to acquire more, they will lose all of it. CORRECTLY - or perhaps - otherwise, they perceive the problem as all-or-nothing. This is why my solutions are ir-relevant to them.

The point to these issues is DIVISION imposed on shared goals. All of us have to learn how to approach the same goals in DIFFERENT ways, so, whether I like it or not, that DOES include Capitalism. Yes, Capitalism IS part of the problem too in that it assumes an antithetical mode toward anything else that is too different, especially anything socialistic.

patrice

(47,992 posts)
6. More thoughts on that driving sense of dispossession . . .
Mon Aug 20, 2012, 12:51 PM
Aug 2012

on the matter of whether they are correct or not:

Whether they actually are dispossessed completely or not is secondary to their perception of it, because that perception is a fundamental driver for everything else. Behavior in particular is driven by any sense of vulnerability and, because it is, those who think they are about to be dispossessed engage in self-fulfilling prophecies that actually make their own dispossession, in one degree or another, more likely, since they abdicate any and all autonomous control to what they calculate to be protections and those protections are not authentically known to them, so, in their (our) abdications, they/we can become part of what dispossesses them and, because of those abdications, they cannot recognize the dysfunctions of their protection seeking calculations until after the fact, ergo, a driver underneath that sense of dispossession is ignorance.

The internet offers a chance of empowerment from its opportunities to ameliorate ignorance and thus make better calculations about authentic and appropriate protections, but, by the internet's own nature, it includes higher proportions of those who are in the same state-of-being operating on the same either innocently uninformed or outright biased motives and, then, because of that fact, the internet itself can be seen as the enemy, so, though it could free people, there will also be a perhaps stronger cohort who attacks it, thus further reinforcing the factors that dispossess vulnerable people and that fulfills their self-fulfilling prophecies.

All of this supports the case for getting off of the internet and getting out there into various communities and working from that stand, but all-or-nothing propositions are not usually the sole most functional driving motives for most people, so we should never abandon the internet because it IS ours, it belongs to ALL of us and if we turn our backs on it, it will be taken away from us; we will be dispossessed of something that we collectively created and that fact could further dispossess us of other means of survival.

...........

I know all of that is too complicated. I just wanted to sketch it out; maybe I'll come back and break it down better. All of it grows out of my master's research, but I have (ha, ha) been dispossessed of the time and wherewithal to flesh it out with authentic research.

macbug

(22 posts)
7. Strategy of the 1% If I studied the POWELL MEMO correctly... I THINK I....
Sat Sep 8, 2012, 10:18 AM
Sep 2012

Recognize what they are really trying to achieve. Unquestioned Obedience, efficient exploitation, zero risk, zero accountability, control of all information. complete domination of government and its policy and no exposure to lawsuits or violence. In other words what they want is a completely free ride, without obligation, responsibility, or moral question.

patrice

(47,992 posts)
8. I think the fact that Matt Taibbi, in his recent Rolling Stone article about Romney, referred to
Sat Sep 8, 2012, 10:58 AM
Sep 2012

Romney as no citizen of any country, but, rather a stateless one who inhabits an archipelago, shows that he and some others agree with you 100%. It's at the very end of his article here:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital-20120829?page=5

Would like to explore manifestations of these facts a little more, but I'm going out to canvass for a local Democrat. TTYL.

Latest Discussions»Issue Forums»Activist Headquarters»get off the internet