Thousands of Grievances, One Common Cause. (Add to the List)

[Blue State Bandit]

The powers that be are trying to discredit the "Occupy Wall Street" movement by pointing out that there is a lack of consistency in our long list of grievances. Ask 100 protesters what prompts there discontent, you will get 100 different answers including:

-home forclosures
-unemployment
-underemployment
-gender/racial/class bias in the workplace
-gender/racial/class bias in the judicial system
-gender/racial/class bias in the market place
-government corruption
-private corruption
-privatization and/or destruction of essential government services
-profiteering
-education reform
-militarism
-election fraud/voter suppression
-misappropriation of public funds
-tax code inequity
-pernicious foreign and domestic policies

...and the list goes on and on.

But what's common to all of these grievances, is the root cause.

The destructive influence of corporate money in our democratic process.\

This one over-riding factor is seen in nearly ALL of the issues being raised in the street and over the internet.

Anti-science campaigns are bankrolled in support of deregulation of health and saftey in everything from energy and public health, to food and childrens' toys.

The privatization of prisons drains public coffers while providing corporations with what amouonts to a defacto slave labor force.

Corporate influence in foreign affairs lead to resource wars and the destruction of our nations reputation. Not to mention the deaths of thousands of American and hundreds of thousands of foreigners in our names.

Voter suppression has now metastasized across the country, and is an attempt to support politicians in the pockets of big corporations for the purpose of serving there bottom lines at the expense of real people and humanity's very survival.

Add your grievances to this list. Let the world know what you see and how it all circles back to this singular common cause to all our ills.

When the list gets long enough, we can post and circulate it for the purpose of debunking the "inchoherant" myth being pushed on the MSN. And maybe, it could be officially adopted by the OWS working group.

[socialist_n_TN]

1. The one common thread in all of this is the

system of capitalism itself. ALL of those problems can be traced back to the system. If they are going to strip the pretense of democracy from us, we should return the favor.

[Blue State Bandit]

2. Good point.

But many un-informed Americans will not understand how "Capitalism" in and of itself is the root cause. It could be argued that a properly and forcefully regulated system of capitalism could work. But as many here know, the system in it's current form, is too easy to game and possibly beyond recovery.

A refined "Common Cause" tag line should also be discussed here as well. But it needs to stand out and apart from what many Americans see as a system that is supposed to support entrepreneurship, even if it is a mortally flawed system.

As to capitalism, maybe we can blame them for it's destruction. A move straight out of the republi-corporo-cratic playbook.

[TBF]

4. "It could be argued that a properly and forcefully regulated system of capitalism could work"

Then why hasn't it? You've had your capitalism from the get-go, and the only time you've seen any type of serious distribution was in the 1950s under Eisenhower (with the high marginal tax rates). And even that - which lasted arguably 20-30 yrs at best - was built on the exploitation of workers here and in other countries.

[Blue State Bandit]

5. "...my capitalism"?

What part of "It could be argued..." makes me it's defender?

I'm only offering a point of rebuttle that could be used given the state of understanding and verbiage of those un-initiated in the progressive politics that is at the core of the OWS movement.

Capitalism, as a word is a mantra that is hard-wired into the lexicon of American society, regardless of what it really represents.

Ignorance of this point may cost us support, even if it is from the edges. Our goal should be to speak to as many people as we can, and do it in a way to does not compromise our common goal. And if that means taking this term, and proclaiming it another system hijacked and destroyed by Wall Street, I'd be more than happy to honor it with a wreath at it's memorial.

[jwirr]

3. One thing we seem to always forget to add to that list is war profiteering.

And you are very correct - this is well organized - drawing the many persons who in one way or the other has been screwed over by the banksters who trashed out country.

[Blue State Bandit]

6. That's a good one right there. Anybody else?

This would partly fall under the privatization of government services (the Rumsfeld doctrine), but would also go to interference in foreign policy which creates such situations, private/public corruption that fuels the arms/drug trade, and even privatized corrections (Patriot Missiles).