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

[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.