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.
The OWS movement freed people from the fear and hatred the GOP had stirred up inside centrists.
I think people liked to get their multiple realities back. Multiple realities is what the 99% is. People stopped worrying about the deficit around the same time. The economy improved. I don't know who is hiring, but it seems there is less fear about the economy lately. Like once people got free of the GOP fear machine, the economy immediately improved. I knew the fear the gop instilled in people of the base or the centre was about controlling them and getting them to hate the left. I didn't know fear could be a self fulfilling prophecy, stalling the economy so Obama could not get re-elected.
The corporations like to make money off their customers in more ways these days.
The Economist magazine had an article that talked about how in 1990 MBA schools started to teach business people to attack their customers, government, stockholders, not just their competitors.
Big banks certainly did that with sub prime mortgages. They took the fact that banks changed the 'rules' on what a 'good' mortgage was, as a way to fool people into getting loans. Then they packaged those horrid loans and sold them to other unsuspecting customers as derivatives. Their customers assumed that these were like old time bank loans where banks were discriminating in who they loaned to. That change in assumption was how so many bankers got bonuses on massive amounts of these transactions. With corporations 'competing' with customers based on 'new assumptions' the customers don't know about, it is a confidence game
Not only that, but the main assumption in all economic models is the 'given perfect information' demand and supply will find some ideal equilibrium. If information is purposely exploited, what is to stop corporations from misinforming or creating a misinforming industry (advertisements, politics, fox news). Nothing! The bankers misinformed Americans when, as a group, they refused to apologize in front of congress. That was play acting & propaganda.
Market failure is certainly what happened with the subprime mortagage crisis. It screams out for regulations, not just on financial instruments, but also on the role information and assumptions play in markets. Corporations are desperate for new areas of growth now that the Western economies are mature. Let's not let these new markets be totally based on disinformation.
There was an information vacuum in regards to sub-prime mortgages. Corporations
made millions based on the fact they knew the mortgages were crap and the people signing up for them or buying the packaged mortgages didn't know how bad it was. Used to be that you assumed your bank would be sure about whether you were a good candidate for a mortgage. That was the assumption many people out there were still working under. Bankers made millions in bonuses based on all the loan transactions they were able to make, the derivative transactions they were able to make, all based on a lack of good information their customers had.
That seems to be a new business meme: to make money off of people less informed than they are. The basic assumption under all economic models of markets is that given perfect information, demand and supply will find some healthy equilibrium. If the assumptions in the economic models is no longer correct, what does that mean for markets everywhere?
Repost because it was in the wrong forum: The GOP meme of the day is that Democrats are trying
to 'divide' people. What a projection from a group that has sliced and diced the electorate with wedge issues for 30 years. I hope Democrats have a good comeback to that. Just when people are begining to feel connected to their realities again, because of OWS and the 99%, just when they are thinking about their economic self interest again, the GOP attacks that feeling with the idea that the opposite is true. As per ususal with the GOP, up is down, black is white, coming together under the 99% is dividing the country.
Crosspost with Lounge: Skinner can we start a "good ideas" group?
Great minds think alike: what ideas have you had only to see somebody else come up with said idea and implement them? When they built the skydome in Toronto I thought it was really cool that the roof would open and that you could fit any kind of sports activity there including a rink. Maybe 8 years ago, I suggested to my brother-in-law that they should put the rink in the skydome and open the roof and play hockey under the stars... the same way kids learn to love to play hockey (local outdoor rinks are everywhere in Canada). They could tell the fans to bundle up and serve them hot chocolate. Now they have these classic hockey games outside in lots of cities every winter in open air stadiums.
My dad asked me to order cookies for the grandkids of a friend of his. They called my dad "cookie monster" and he wanted something special for them. I went to a caterers in August and asked if they would do some gingerbread men only dress them in beachwear. They did a fantastic job. Now you see decorated, cut out cookies everywhere in every city, in every season.
In both instances I felt particularly inspired when the idea entered my brain. When things like this happen I think there should be a website where you can go and 'give away' your good ideas. A place where people could go to get inspired. Where their minds could be expanded for a few minutes. We already see people coming up with the same great political ideas at the same time in the blogosphere, not just the DU. Why not have a group on the DU dedicated to good ideas of all kinds that could then be reccommended to rank them.
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