Social Question

Hawaii_Jake's avatar

Assuming you are sympathetic to their cause, what do you want to see arise from the Occupy Wall Street Movement?

Asked by Hawaii_Jake (37734points) October 7th, 2011

I want to see a reinvigorated electorate who will vote for Progressives that will rein in abuses in the financial industry and offer relief for the middle and lower classes in the form of jobs.

If you are sympathetic to the Movement, what do you want it to accomplish?

Topics: politics, US, finance, industry, Occupy Wall Street

Observing members: 0 Composing members: 0

21 Answers

Blackberry's avatar

Soviet-style communism everywhere! Dictator Obama 2012! Rawr!

I don’t expect change, but it’s the principle that matters. I would like to see something done, just to know they respect us a little. Some type of compromise shows they aren’t completely heartless.

Jaxk's avatar

I’d like to see them pick up thier own trash.

HungryGuy's avatar

Nothing drastic. Just that the rich pay their fair share of taxes. Stronger consumer protections. Stronger truth in advertising laws. Maybe a few other things that I can’t think of offhand…

saint's avatar

By your criteria, I am disqualified. Too bad. I have a definite opinion of the ignorant, whether born of innocence or evasion.

YARNLADY's avatar

@Jaxk Good Answer. The Occupy Movement here in our city left the park they occupied filthy, plus they damaged much of the lawn, plantings and even the art work.

There is no way a rowdy mob is going to change the current political climate.

Hawaii_Jake's avatar

To those who desire to address a different perspective, there are currently 5 other questions on Fluther you can answer.

syz's avatar

Repeal of the “personhood” of corporations.
Separation of investment banks and commercial banks.
Closure of tax “loopholes” for corporations.
Limits on pay ratios between employees and officers.

Jaxk's avatar

@YARNLADY

Apparently the cleanup is one of those jobs Americans won’t do.

missingbite's avatar

@Jaxk The Tea Partiers always seemed to pick up their trash.

Nullo's avatar

An end to job outsourcing. That way they’ll be required to hire domestically, pay their workers higher wages, and so have less of that money that y’all seem to begrudge them.

And maybe for them to fuse with the Tea Party in order to form a truly non-partisan outfit.

@missingbite Zombietime protest coverage suggests that Righties clean up after themselves, and Lefties don’t. I would imagine that this stems from philosophical inclinations – conservative types are rule-followers, mostly, and one of the Rules is that you clean up after yourself; liberals are more of the rule-breaking types (see the liberality of the drug culture, for instance, or other liberally-favored issues).

mattbrowne's avatar

Financial transaction tax.

Two huge benefits: Slow down of speculation and bubble creation. Reduction of national debts.

dreamwolf's avatar

I actually don’t want anything out of this movement. My solution is to stop our sourcing, and reopening actual working factories here in the U.S.A. Give us (the poor) a sense of well being, give us a goddamn job that doesn’t involve flipping burgers so we can be dignified. Give me some goddamn good old hard labor. Open jobs in America.

GabrielsLamb's avatar

@saint I wish I could give you 10 for that answer…

but that being said, I want it to go away more than anything else. We voted for him, as well as the one before him, it’s our fault and it’s our business not to do it again.

Nullo's avatar

@OP I want to see people who rein in runaway government expansion, and who won’t try to further undermine the legal reflection of good morals.

Blackberry's avatar

@Nullowon’t try to further undermine the legal reflection of good morals.

Lolwut?

HungryGuy's avatar

@Nullo – Yeah, can you translate that to English please :-/

Espiritus_Corvus's avatar

First and foremost I sincerely hope that this movement keeps its head and remains non-violent. They will get no sympathy from the broad middle class if it gets violent, and without middle class support, the movement will flounder into political oblivion.

Second, I hope the movement will focus on the root problem of why, no matter who one votes for in America, nothing fundamental actually changes; wars go on, rights continue to evaporate in lieu of state security, the treasury continues to be emptied into the coffers of multinational banks as the economy continues to falter, the state continues its nearly libidinous incursion into our private lives. For this, the movement needs to stay in touch with their cousins occupying the great European bourse districts. Those citizens are focused on protesting the dominance corporate power has over their democratic governments which they believe is the direct cause of the current global economic cluster f*ck.

Likewise, it is slowly occurring to a broad American demographic that there has been a hijacking of American democracy and that control of the government no longer lies in the hands of the the American voter. The only dispute among this demographic seems to be who is the culprit: the government itself, or the financial clout of Wall Street which is said to have wrested control of the government from the voter? (There is evidence that many Americans from the far Right through the spectrum to the far Left are agreeing it is the latter, as shown by their distrust and anger at the Federal Reserve Bank, our central banking system, and the Bank’s possibly unconstitutional power to create money and then loan it to the American government, its questionable manipulation of the American money supply and in effect its markets in a supposedly free market system, its domineering role in the bailouts, and its refusal to be audited.)

The Occupiers obviously have laid the corpse of their grievances at the door of Wall Street and a growing number of Americans are quietly watching to see how this plays out, many in tentative, silent support.

Americans are awakening to the fact that we cannot have a democracy by the people and for the people with a mainstream press that spews infotainment in lieu of investigative reporting, a Washington lobbying structure that is weighted thoroughly on the side of the corporatocracy, and election campaign financing that converts perfectly good candidates into whores of an oligarchy.

Add to this an inefficient educational system that no longer teaches critical thinking, guaranteeing somnolent constituencies unequipped to derive fact from fallacy.

Change those things and we may get our democracy back.

For all practical purposes, there is only one political party in the United States and it has no interest in representing the people.

Our democracy has all but been stolen from us. Our elected representatives work for the interests of corporations that fund their campaigns and not for the citizens that elected them to office.

Not wanting a wealthy minority fueled by Wall Street capital to dominate our government does not necessarily make the Occupiers anti-capitalists any more than being anti-fascist in the 1930s automatically made a person a communist. Most Americans, if asked, would not want any entity other than the American voter to control their government, whether it be socialist, fascist, or purely corporate—none of which are run on the fundamental tenet of universal suffrage. Most Americans believe in Democracy. Most Americans don’t begrudge a person who becomes wealthy, whether it be through hard work or even inheritance, but when that individual along with like-minded peers unduly influence the government in order to maintain and perpetrate their wealth at the cost of the individual voter’s right to self determination, a line has been crossed. What the Occupiers are saying is that they believe there is a preponderance of evidence that this is the case.

What they are saying is simple and fundamental to American political beliefs”
Power to the People

No meaningful change—in any political direction— can happen without it.

Nullo's avatar

@Blackberry @HungryGuy
Every last law on the books reflects or is otherwise based on someone’s idea of right and wrong. Many of the laws made so far reflect good morals. Many of them do not. I would like to see more of the former, fewer of the latter. Progressives tend to want things to go the other way.

YARNLADY's avatar

I guess I’m just too disillusioned. This has all happened before, with very little positive change. As soon as the people have a financial advantage, they become the very thing they are supposedly against.

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Ron_C's avatar

I would like to see a resurgence of democracy in the U.S. Democracy and the middle class have both decrease since Reagan was president. Bush put the final touches with the Patriot Act, Homeland Security, increased Presidential prerogatives, and increase discretion of the National Security Agency. Ironically, all of these changes were to combat terrorism while the U.S. has become an increasingly terrorist nation. We now can remotely kill anyone while the pilots of the drones are in a comfortable building in Nevada. It is really disgusting.

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