applegrove
applegrove's JournalThe timing of Occupy is also unique. I remember learning that it took 5+ years for the UN
to change how they bought birth control pills: to buying in bulk which saved them hundreds of millions of dollars. It takes a year for legislation to pass, often much longer. Getting to smaller entities still, it takes corporations a several months to institute a new policy. Small business can make changes in a day. Occupy can come up with an idea and implement it in a few hours for each individual group, (perhaps it takes a few weeks for the larger OWS movement to adopt creative ideas). This rocks. Occupy will be able to follow its' passion and roll with the waves as things in the world evolve and change. And it will be able to do so almost instantaneously.
I still believe in the democracies we have today. And as long as the internet remains
open the powers that be will have to adjust to the power of one: each person in Occupy fights like a mighty mite and together they create a movement that is huge and passionate (and has the quick implimentation of creative ideas in a speed hierarchies cannot muster). The GOP thought they had done away with the power of the little guy, or at least had coralled the passion of the little guy into social issues and religion. But Occupy allowed escape from the hierarchies. What I am talking about above I don't think I'll see in my lifetime. Only if the corporations get out of control, and ignore the current blowback, will people give up on our present democratic system totally. They say the pendulum swings one way, and then another. Occupy is the pendulum swinging back towards true democracy. I really believe that. And it is about everybody having a say. Which means that yes, there will be some improvements that will help corporations, Occupy will not stop all legislation that helps corporations. Because they are in the country too. But that the country will not look like a place that only serves them. A country should not serve only one group. That is what Occupy means to me.
Maybe Occupy is a harbinger of what democracy will look like: where people get together
with some other people to support some issue (and maybe get taxed for its cost) and then break apart with that group and form another when it comes to another issue. Because Occupy represents a myriad of ideas. Maybe democracy will be done over the internet. Maybe we can do away with legislators and vote directly on laws after a period of open discussion some day way ahead in the future. Corporations want to be the messenger between people and a tiny weak government. Maybe the internet will allow people to make an end run around the plutocracy the GOP want. Just musing.
The 99% are about multiple realities. In this last year they made cocaine laws equivalent
to crack laws where incarceration is concered. That could be considered a race issue and a 99% issue. Though I think it was fought and won before OWS came into existance. The point is this: at some point OWS will promote some issue that doesn't affect you but is about fighting inequality. Small business people may want credit card laws eased (as they are often more dependant on credit cards for loans, than bank loans, and thus - are more vulnerable to the draconian bankruptcy laws that were instituted a few years ago). The point of OWS is that we are all different and have a variety of needs in the 99% but we share that we want fair laws, not laws that favour only the richest. And that everyone needs to have a voice. That we can handle this mixture of realities in one movement because we are not writing down laws or policies. The movement is fluid and any issue can find itself at the top for a bit as people fight for equality.
It is not about improving schools. It is about softening up students so they make
great little GOP footsoldiers. Sure some schools are struggling in the USA. But they are not struggling in Canada. In 2007 the Conservatives in Ontario ran on increasing religious schools. There was no problem with the quality of schools in Ontario. One reason for them to do this was to indoctrinate more students as they learn...preparing them to be indoctrinated again by the right wing as they age and start to vote.
Softening UP: to prepare to persuade someone of something is what it is all about....doing away with critical thinking that public institutions teach and inserting an authoritarian mindset in children.
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