The closest we'll get to "one demand"...

[TygrBright]

Get. A. F--king. Clue.

Get a clue, "mainstream media."

Get a clue, political punditry.

Get a clue, talking heads.

Get a clue, politicians.

Get a clue, helots of our Beloved Oligarchs.

Wise up.

Why are we pouring into the streets? Why is Union after Union looking out the window and sighing with relief "Finally!" and grabbing their umbrellas and their homemade signs? Why is the movement spreading from city to city to city?

"What do they want?" the editors holler in frustration. "They don't even know what they want." sneer the helots of our Beloved Oligarchs in contempt.

"Why won't they just, you know... create a LIST of demands? You know, something concrete, like "Free Mumia," or "Free Housing" or "Ponies for All?"

That way, we could take their "demand(s)" and deconstruct them and misinterpret them and run them through our Propaganda Machine and prove how wrong and bad and silly and worthy of being ignored they are!

That way, we could devolve the whole scary, uncontrollable phenomenon into a circus, nominate a few main clowns (whoever first 'states the demand(s)') and dismiss the whole thing."

Stop it.

You know bloody effing well what we want.

You know it, and I know it.

The ninety-nine percent knows it.

Seriously, even our Beloved Oligarchs know it. You damn' well BET they know it. They are age-old veterans of the Class War, they know their history. They see the tide turning, they're just using you, USING YOU, to hold it off while they grab a little more boodle and hide some of the stash and build better legal, economic, and physical walls to hide behind.

Then they'll slink away to their private islands or whatever and leave their good little helots holding the bag. No more seven-figure bonuses and an angry mob on your doorstep.

Wise up.

You know what we want.

We want this mess fixed, we want it fixed NOW. And we want it fixed in ways that ensure economic security, a good education for our children, better opportunities and a better world for our grandchildren. We want an end to greed and exploitation and disingenuous posturing about how the Holy Free Market is just doin' its thang creating prosperity for the truly worthy and if you're not prosperous, well, it's yer own damn' lazy worthless fault. AN END TO THAT.

We want breathable air and clean water freely available to all, and land that doesn't make us sick. We want an infrastructure grid that allows us to communicate and be safe and travel cost-effectively and get help when we need it. We want access to quality health care for everyone and decent jobs and a chance to start our own little businesses and build our own security without the behemoths of the Oligarchy crushing us or grabbing our work away for a pittance when we succeed. We want food that nourishes and doesn't make us sick and fat and weak.

We want a government

of the people, by the people, FOR the people

We want our soldiers and sailors and airmen to go in harm's way ONLY when WE understand why and believe it's necessary. WE, the ninety-nine percent, not the Oligarchs who suck our tax dollars into their bank accounts through defense contractors and military "consultants." And when our servicemembers DO go in harm's way, we want them to have the best equipment and good pay that supports their families and fair treatment and proper medical care and decent benefits.

We want our nation back. We want our dream back.

Izzat enough "one demand" for you, assholes? Go ahead, make fun of it. Try to deconstruct it. Show us why it's impractical, unwinnable, dismissable.

But the people in the streets aren't going to listen.

And there are more of us every day.

determinedly,
Bright

[xchrom]

1. i hope we are at the avalanche point now. nt

[Warpy]

2. I put mine a little differently

Corporations are good servants but terrible masters.

The problem is that the corporation's rights have been held in higher esteem than the rights of human beings by both the Rehnquist and Roberts courts.

Corporations are not people. They are cartels. Money is not speech, it's property. It's time to put the corporation where it belongs, back into the role of servant.

It's time to impeach the two most corrupt and arbitrary members of the USSC in favor of people who can rule more dispassionately on constitutional matters without greed, god, or other personal concern coloring their rulings.

[Ship of Fools]

3. Hear, hear!

[Little Star]

4. You said that quite well! n/t

[Pacifist Patriot]

5. Well put indeed!

[Doctor_J]

17. More than 2 corrupt SCOTUS members

Slappy could be impeached right now for lying at his confirmation hearings about his serial sexual harrassment. Cases would have to be developed against Fat Tony, Roberts, and Alito. Scalia would be the easiest because of his refusal to recuse himself from cases involving his pal Cheney

[mopinko]

6. we want bread and roses.

[truedelphi]

7. I can't for the life of me figure out

Which part of your essay I like the most.

Thank you for your statement.

Only correction - it's not Mainstream Media - it's Lamestream Media. (Came to me, compliments of one of the OWS sites.)

[FarLeftFist]

8. Anyone who still doesn't know what these protests are about are just plain stupid.

K&R!

[The Wizard]

9. I'd like to see and hear

some Wall Street shysters tied to a pole on the corner of Wall and Broad Streets and publicly humiliated, stripped naked and pelted with rotten eggs and produce. Scourging to follow.

[JNinWB]

10. Is his the actual list of demands of the OWS protesters?

or propaganda?


Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending "Freetrade" by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.

Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.

Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.

Demand four: Free college education.

Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.

Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.

Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America's nuclear power plants.

Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.

Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.

Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the "Books." World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the "Books." And I don't mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.

Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.

http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/10/obama-and-wall-steeters#disqus_thread

Comment area

[progressivejazz]

11. But the point of the original post is not to give a list...

because if we give a list it gives the other side the opportunity to attack the individual demands one by one with their distortion/propaganda machine.

[JNinWB]

13. So, is this list I posted accurate, or not?

If not, could someone offer a link to whatever demands have been published.

[Doctor_J]

18. Excellent list

Any politician with such a platform would never make it near national office.

[w0nderer]

12. k&r n/t

[LiberalEsto]

14. Regulate corporations

so that they have FAR less power than individual real people.

[mulsh]

15. Also " who is their leader?"

these same folk who need a list of demands seem to be perplexed at this leaderless movement. The lack of a clear "leader" and 'concrete demands" makes it much more difficult for the chattering classes to demonize this movement.

Why on earth would thoughtful, articulate people need a leader? I've always thought "Occupy Wall Street" was pretty easy to understand.

[JayhawkSD]

16. "I'm fed up and I'm not going to take this shit any more."

"What aren't you going to take any more?"
"..."
What are you fed up with?"
"..."
"I understand completely, and I agree with you."

Absolutely, me too.

[Kurovski]

19. Kick

:kick:

[ezmerelda39]

20. What we want...

has been very clearly explained by this author. For those of you who actually have a different agenda then it may be that you are already well heeled, with a job written in stone, own a health care clinic where you have access for you and your family at no charge, live somewhere that will not be affected by climate changes and are eating organic food raised in your own garden. Perhaps your placard should read Lucky Me.

[TBF]

21. Wish I had seen this in time to rec - great job! Kick! nt