Clarity

[avevale_intelligencer]

To the friend who told me that he could not see his way to supporting the Occupy movements because they had no clear manifesto, this is the response I was not intelligent enough to be able to give. It won't change his mind, but it explains to me why I found his reason unsatisfying on a subliminal level.

Comments

[rdmaughan.livejournal.com]

You are quite right, it did not change my mind at all. I hope the Occupy movement does achieve something but I still don't think it will unless it can decide what it wants to achieve.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Seconded.

And until someone invents a new system of economics that isn't either Capitalism or Socialism and works better than either (please, please, please someone invent such a system) saying what is wrong with the system at present isn't enough.

After me, lads. "Boom! Oo! Yatta-ta-ta..."

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Several alternative systems have been put forward over the last century. We don't know whether they would work better than either capitalism or socialism because they've never been seriously tried on a national, much less an international, scale. They won't get tried until and unless dissatisfaction with the current systems becomes so widespread and forceful that change becomes the only way to resolve the problem. And they'll never get tried if the protest movement which is currently doing a very good job of expressing that dissatisfaction becomes focussed on something that is, or can be subverted into, either capitalism or socialism.

You say it should adopt a position, but you don't have one to suggest, any more than do I. The chances are good that if it did adopt a position, you and rdmaughan wouldn't like it, or I wouldn't, or that a large number of the people who are now calling for change would object to whatever particular one was chosen, would feel sold out, would fall away, and hey presto, no more protest. Status quo continues. Personally, I would regard that as one of the worst of the possible outcomes.

I don't know what will come if the Occupy movement carries on as it is. I think I know what will come if it does what you think it should do. See the title of the comment.

[melodyclark.livejournal.com]

I support the movement simply because it is an expression of honest angst. Do I really think it will do anything? Well, I practically killed myself to get Obama in office and our monetary monarchs aren't allowing him to do anything. I don't think anything will do anything to help. All we can do is protest enough that the ivory tower feels threatened -- or help the protest. I can't go down to a population area large enough for it to matter, but I sent some money for water and food.

Meanwhile, my gardener Carlos is having to take Interferon injections for Hep C and then crawl out of bed every morning to do double the workload because his wife was just fired without reason. There's a lot of rage and pain and I think it needs to go outwards rather than impacting the people who are hurting.

FWIW, here's Keith Olbermann reading OWS' manifesto ...
http://current.com/shows/countdown/videos/special-comment-keith-reads-first-collective-statement-of-occupy-wall-street

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

And this is the part where I say "you have a gardener?"

But yes. The point is not to get sidetracked into talking about who's going to wear the funny hat and whether the bullet points on the list of demands should be asterisks or those squiggly things. The point is to shout "THIS IS WRONG!" as loudly as possible, for as long as possible, because the way the world is being run is indeed wrong. And this is what they're doing, and from the excessive violence with which the protests have been met, it would seem that the one per cent has a more positive view of its potential effectiveness, however defined, than even you or I do.

[melodyclark.livejournal.com]

And this is the part where I say "I'm disabled" and if we don't keep our yards up in my city, we get fined a LOT of money. So, yes, I have a gardener.

The 1% is rightly afraid of us -- we are multitudes, they are few, we have much to gain and little to lose, and for them it's the opposite.

That said, I'm a cynic about anything coming of it.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Good grief, that's disgusting. Whether you do it yourself or not, a garden should be something you have for enjoyment, not something you've GOT to keep up to on pain of punishment. I'm glad they don't have rules like that around here. Especially since the last time we could afford to try paying someone to help us with the garden, they pinched all our plant pots and our bench and (when we complained) brought the bench back in bits. We were not happy. Wish Carlos well for me.