@marchelo: Nice find on the video from Bristol. It is amazing how different countries have the same greivences as we do. Greed is global.
-Solidarity-

Hey just joining. I only hope that this movement does not become the beast it fights to eliminate.

@deerspeak I am right there with you. As I see it, the foundation of horizontal (consensus based) decision making is our best defense at reacting emotionally and repeating the cycle of corrupt power in the hands of few.
Solutions which include a limitation of power via dispersal seem to have the most traction and that is a very positive sign (as opposed to electing a leader and trusting their judgment).

Hey 23 year old male. Named mike, new to the movement. Ive been waiting for something like this to come along. Please let me kno what I can do to help, im going to be standing up for the 99% from my hometown flyers and shirts maybe il start a group or join one. My email is mmarino1987@gmail.com

Updated with new and improved news sources. Enjoy!

I agree with Whitefeather's comment that 'Greed is Global'... I actually think it's more than global, it's human nature for some individuals, and really can't be eliminated. the problem is, and the reason which the Occupy movement is needed, is that some of the 1% are greedy AND corrupt and that is affecting the 99%, you know?

When you are a child your parents teach you 'share and don't be greedy!'. They are trying to help you learn a 'value'. Not everyone has the same 'values' though. If it was possible... if I decided to buy every ticket to a local concert in my city and go and not give any of the other tickets to anyone and just horde them, that would make a lot of people mad and me look like a greedy ignorant idiot. BUT, did I do something 'illegal'? or do I just not have any decent values? I don't see anything illegal with the example, but just something morally wrong to do.

It's when the 1% and their greed affects more than just an entertainment event, as in my example, and starts affecting health, jobs, investments, savings, homes, children, food, transportation, safety... THEN IT'S A PROBLEM ! .... That's why people need a Boston Tea Party when the greed can not be taken any longer from the tyrants.

I just hope that the Occupy Movement does not fall victim to some propaganda-based event that comes up (and may be conspired by the 1%)... or... someone does something radical enough to hurt innocent people/children and then the 'Occupy Movement' becomes a monster.

Remember back in the 90's, there was a movement of people who got tired of the Government trampling over their rights and they started forming groups, having town hall meetings to discuss their grievances reguarding the 2nd Ammendment and the Government's handling of Ruby Ridge and a few other events? They actually were gaining support from Democrats, Republicans, Independents, news organizations, local support, statewide support, etc... They were called the 'militias' and started in Montana and Michigan at about the same time. The militia movement was demonized the day Timothy McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma City federal building and killed all of those people and was tied to the militia movement because he had attended a few meetings. After that.... that was the end of that movement... The news, politicians, and public that supported the movement turned 180-degrees and crushed the movement. Were they a scapegoat? Maybe, but the movement died overnight.

All it takes in one Timothy McVeigh type to ruin the Occupy Movement, and let's hope that doesn't happen.... Some times change has to be radical, but there are different forms of radical change. Let's just hope everyone polices eachother because we don't need an Oklahoma City II

avete

two days? what do you know that I don't?

Share the love. Zero aggression and violence. Responsible people with good examples of respect for others and their surroundings. Peace and love.
www.circleoftheearth.com

empty

@Durandus Restrict participation in anyway and you can count me out.
Infiltrators will always be present, no matter how hard we try to exclude them, it's kinda their job. If we make it hard for regular people to participate, fewer people will. The fewer people involved in the discussion, the more isolated our perspective will become... you can see where I am going with this.

The Occupy movement is appealing to a lot of people because it is beginning to be seen as REAL democratic representation. Honest grassroots, open to all and fully transparent- everything our current government is not. The second you start to exclude the public from the process we invite corruption unto ourselves. Our proposals would no longer be crafted to appeal the people at large, but instead to appeal to the members of the smaller group.

Occupy together or not at all.

caveat

I do not buy the false division you are selling with the "let the chips fall where they may...[see] who gets to the Goal first" mentality. It is this attachment to ego, the notion that any ONE of us has 'the solution' for ALL of us, that is eroding the solidarity of many fledgling occupations. Be it extreme feminists who refuse to be "led by a man", or black flag anarchists who refuse to remain peaceful in the face of police oppression- the refusal to negotiate or compromise is toxic to the movement at all levels.

As for the consensus you believe to be elusive, broad consensus has been achieved on the single unifying notion of 'getting the influence of money out of government'.
It hasn't been easy, nor was it achieved by fiat. It was arrived at through open dialog and honest discussion among people concerned for the public welfare. The answer to this unifying problem will require our cooperative and selfless effort. It can not be about "your" or "my" proposed solution because none of us has any right to speak for the 99%. We will live or die by our ability to unite and co-create a better world. Internal division will serve no one but those who oppose us and your tacit refusal to participate in an open forum sows deceit.

referring to strategy

@Durandus *Knocks politely* It was not my intention to close anything.

I am having a hard time understanding your proposal or general position from your posts. Care to enlighten me?

PS- Deleting your posts is counter productive censorship, but they are your words to stifle should they leave a bad taste in your mouth. Soften and sweeten them my friend. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. :)

avete

@Durandus take two (this time sans any distracting advise on my part):

I am having a hard time understanding your proposal or general position from your posts. Would you mind clarifying it for me so we can better understand one another?

avete

Thank you for this helpful post. I'll be visiting the links to broaden my understanding of the movement. Much of what you said, though, about it being a movement of the people fits well with my own answer to the critics of Occupy Wall Street in which I pointed out that they were criticizing the movement for not being an organization with a leader and clear goals and that such criticism is entirely misplaced. It is NOT an organization, so criticizing it for not looking and acting like one is like criticizing a duck for not looking and acting like a swan. It is a MOVEMENT of people:

http://thegreatrecession.info/blog/2011/11/occupy-wall-street-now-unoccupied-but-stronger/

--Knave Dave

@marchelo...you're right. I apologize. Avete

Right-ness is not important, only that you are still here. :)

I went to the San Diego Zoo today. I saw the wall at the front of the park and it lists all the folks who have donated to the Zoo the past 100 years. Guess what....it was the 1% Yup, if they did not donate we would not have the best most fantastic zoo in the world. Then I checked Children's Hospital in San Diego. A 1% couple named the Radys donated millions to the hospital. In other words the 1% give to universities all over America.. Also CITY of hope hospital and ST Judes childrens hospital. Bill Gates foundation gives millions to charity. We would not have the fantastic schools and hospitals if it were not for the 1%. Also, here in LA one of the best art museums in the world was built by a 1% guy named J Paul Getty. He wanted to have everyone enjoy fine art. And guess what? It is free to go in and enjoy.

Seems like it worked - i.e., their advertising. As long as people like you and the rest of sheeple fall for these "charities" which are nothing but advertisement and tax breaks for the thieves, why shouldn't they "donate"? The money they "donate" is nothing but stolen money anyway, from the hard labor of the working class here and around the world, and if they come to fool people like you that somehow they are being "generous" well then why not "donate"? How do you think these guys get so filthy rich? By giving their stolen money away?

They know the value of money better than most others, certainly much much better than the sheeple to waste any. The institutions you mentioned (i.e., the zoo, the hospitals, and the museums, etc.) are their also anyway, legitimizing the very ways they do business i.e., steal, by "entertaining' people as in the zoo with so many caged animals, keeping people dependent on a parasitical health system as in the hospitals, and indoctrinating them politically and culturally through their museums and schools. And then they give themselves a "tax-break" anyway, so the only cost to them if any is what they choose it to be. If that is not plutocracy (welfare for the rich) I don't know what is.

How many people do you think would fall for this crap anymore? They teach these things even in a standard business class. How could you not see or deny such obvious schemes? 21st century now!

I can see now Slave that no change or even a new government will not satisfy you. You are right , the whole world is wrong. I watch your posts with other folks and it is always the same thing. There is no hope with you. We are all sheeple and there is no way out. OK, here is the truth. Can you handle the truth? The oil companies rule the world. Hands down, they are the boss. And they will continue to be the boss for the next 100 years. All we can do is kind of learn to live with them like we always have. There is nothing you or anyone can do about it. Not even a war. Big oil is not just in the US, it is global. No matter how many EV or hybrid cars we get, the world runs on oil. Everything we use is made from oil. Everything. From electronics to our shoes to tires to fuel for everything. We need oil and they know it. You cannot change big oil because they are the king. The top dog. And I think you know it and that is why you are so mad. My point is we can have a huge uprising and even change governments....but there will still be big oil and they will really still rule the world. Sorry. Sad but true. Governments do not tell big oil what to do, it is the other way around.

" Governments do not tell big oil what to do, it is the other way around." That is right. But what if there was no private ownership that people recognized. That would mean big oil, could not be big. Neither oil can be pushed down our throat as the only source of fuel, just because it could be monopolized unlike the sun, and the wind. So big oil would vanish, and its government, and similarly any government, since all government is backed up by PRIVATE interest / private power / private ownership.

Now you might get scared, and think oh no, people can come and start living in my house, and use my Porsche / Audi / etc. But they still cannot deny you using them also because you will own those as much as they will. Plus you can do the same to anyone else. So private ownership soon would become meaningless. People would have to stop abusing someone else, because they will have the same power to abuse them (no more, and no less) - all based on common ownership. So if you realize that all this structure you see around you in the society, from the religious / spiritual / moral and ethical at the top, to the cultural, political, and at the deepest and broadest level economic, all this is founded (has as its FOUNDATION / BASE) on ownership, you could know what kind of global structure (i.e., "system") we could have just based on the type of ownership itself. Because everything else in the society is filtered through this "law of nature". Why is this a "law of nature"? Because in addition to LABOR, we need resources derived from nature to survive and these resources are derived based on PROPERTY OWNERSHIP.

So unless you are at the top 1%, you will most definitely gain not just a little but immensely by "common ownership", because you wouldn't have to support a corrupt parasitic government based on e.g. "big oil", not have to worry about war / crime / insecurity in general, pay for insurance and all types of waste, be feared or have to cause fear / have "friends" as long as they can eat off of you and be left for dead if you cannot profit anyone, wonder how you may be getting poisoned by the toxic and infective "externalities" of corporations (e.g., water / air / food pollution and epidemics) and who might be conspiring against you and your "wealth", how the big oil and their coconspirators might do away with you / your family / your race including by current "weather events" such as floods / fires, etc. etc. etc.

I know you are a businessman. All you need to do is to do some "SMART ACCOUNTING" rather than the fraudulent accounting that the mega businessmen / gangster capitalists are doing selling their scheme to you. Then you would see the writing on the wall. The more impoverished the rest of the 99% get, the closer they get to YOU. Even or maybe I should say "especially" on purely "selfish" reasons, you should understand that the odds are stacked against you. You don't need to be an "altruist" to understand that we can't expect any more than EQUALITY in the long run. The "strong" of today will be the "weak" of tomorrow. Even a "lion" falls pray to the vultures and hyenas if it is not killed by its own kind.

As social animals with potential for a huge consciousness, not just limited by our significantly superior cerebral cortex individually but expanded many multiples by our intergenerational communication technologies of writing adding to our "social memory", we are physiologically evolved to be "egalitarian". Furthermore, if we note that "inequality" is not just "bad" / "immoral" by itself but also leads to eventually undermining our survival as a species, as capitalism has proven, we must insist on establishing an egalitarian system / society, where any form of domination including a "government" (i.e., private power) is not just not permissible, but impossible. Such a situation can only exist in an environment of COMMON OWNERSHIP, where work / production is cooperative, exchange and distribution is also common based on need and ability to work. Here "governance" will be correspondingly common, "communal", shared by all members of society who intimately know each other / their environment and resources / their needs distinguished from "wants". In a federated association with other "communal societies" these could then "govern" the entire species and the planet "communally" as an alternative form of world governance free from private power and interests. This is now possible after 10,000 years, only due to the incredible productive powers of "science and technology" which are themselves "derivatives of historically cumulative labor" which produced them but remain currently hostage to the private shackles of capitalism.

Dear slave
I think there are some other important subjects that they have strong connection with economic system. we should speak about them parallel to economic system, but you like speak about ownership so briefly I can say:
we all are humans with many difference ability and work position so common ownership is not good starting point for a global society, maybe it can be like a dream end point after finishing many programs.

Slave, you are talking about Pure Communism. It will never fly . There will be civil war first. I hate war but that is where we would go. Opinions above has it right, there is a ton of stuff to work on . Common owership is impossible. Already been tried. Failed.

@mando61 Regarding charitable donations: Philanthropy from the super rich does not excuses the massive wealth they selfishly accumulate. If we look at the numbers as a percentage of income, we see that the museum and zoo funding by the 1% amounts to the a lower percentage of charitable donation then low and middle income individuals.

• Average tax filers with $25,000-$50,000 in adjusted gross income (AGI) made annual charitable donations of $1,340. This amounted to 1.61% of their $83,275 in estimated investment assets.

• Average income tax filers with $5 million to $10 million in AGI made annual charitable donations of $274,798. This amounted to 0.60% of their $46 million in estimated investment assets.

• The conclusion: If average filers in the “upper class” had donated as high a percentage of their investment wealth as did average filers in the lower wealth groups, then total individual contributions to charity in 2001 would have been $41.6 billion higher. This would have increased total individual giving by 23%.

———

The average charity of the 1% amounts to less then 1% of their incomes- less charity then lower class citizens donate from their significantly lower incomes.

Even if we look past the disparity of charity as percentage of income, can we say with any certainty that were this money instead paid in taxes (perhaps as part of a higher tax rate for the super rich) that the same schools, hospitals and museums would not have been constructed by the state instead an individual?

Don't get me wrong here, the charity of the 1% is a great force of good within the communities that are lucky enough to have a wealthy benefactor, but what of those underprivileged communities who lack a billionaire philanthropist?
I love the Getty Center, they have one of my all time favorite paintings (Impression: Sunrise by Monet) which I would frequently visit when I lived in LA. The architecture is awe inspiring, with stone imported from Italy to give it that iconic white hue. But is this exorbitant house of art justifiable in a city with the highest homeless population in the country, one that is closing schools for a lack of funding? Consider the location of the Getty Center, tucked away on a hill just north of Bel Air and Brentwood - super wealthy communities. What impact do you think building the Getty in the heart of LA, along side skid-row, would have had on revitalizing the down-trodden and overlooked communities? Instead, the wealthy who donated to its creation have greatly benefited from huge tax deductions and a sharp increase in property value.

I would prefer to have these kind of community improving projects decided by a democratic body of the people instead of being left in the hands of wealthiest among us. It takes more then a kind heart to determine how to create the greatest good with the resources available.

Dear mando6l
1- I hope that you understood what I mean. I believe we need combination of common ownership with private ownership together, because common ownership in every thing is not a solution for problem, it means for example when we don't have good rules for cars traffic, we decide to forbid the driving. I mentioned my opinions in:
http://www.occupytogether.org/discuss/#/discussion/2152/ideal-global-society-part-iv
I hope, you read it and send your comment.
2-For reaching to some points that I mentioned in above subject, I believe we all are one and many bad situation comes from bad theories(capitalism) and most of 1% (you named them) try to achieve more benefits according to capitalism theory and they are not enemy with others. so if the global society want to put some issues in common ownership, we must put 1% in top incomes framework of new society with their family(just their childern). With this way 1% record their names in human history. Also there are other ways that I hate to speak about them.