Quote:
Originally Posted by atomiczombie
I just want to say that it seems like its just a handful of us who are regular posters in this thread, which saddens me. I wish we could get a lot more participation, because this movement is about ALL of us. Perhaps we can each pm our friends and invite them to join us here and participate?
|
Drew:
My reasons for being uncharacteristically quiet on this thread are covered pretty well in this post at HuffPo by the law professor Lawrence Lessig:
[begin his words]
Here's the fact about America: It takes an insanely large majority to make any fundamental change. You want Citizens United reversed, it is going to take 75% of states to do it. You want public funding of public elections? It's going to take 67 Senators to get it. You want to end the corruption that makes it impossible to get any of the things liberals push? It's going to take a broad based movement that cuts across factions, whether right (as in correct) or Right (as in not Left).
It's great to rally the 99%. It is a relief to have such a clear and powerful slogan. But explain this, because I'm a lawyer, and not so great with numbers: Gallup's latest poll finds 41% of Americans who call themselves "conservative." 36% call themselves "moderate." Liberals account for 21%. In a different poll, Gallup finds 30% of Americans who "support" the Tea Party.
So who exactly are we not allowed to work with, Dave? 30% of America? 41% of America? All but 21% of America? And when you exclude 30%, or 41%, or 79% of Americans, how exactly are you left with 99%?
Talk about wanting to have it "both ways"! How can you claim to speak for 99% but refuse to talk to 30%? (And just to be clear: the 30% of Americans who support the Tea Party are not the 1% "superrich." I checked. With a calculator.)
And finally as to one of the commentators on Dave's essay who finds me "poisonous," and said I said: "OWS needs to drop the 'We are the 99%' slogan because it might hurt the feelings of the rich." What I said was not that the movement should give up the slogan 99% because it offended. I said it should instead talk about the 99.95%. That's the percentage of Americans who did not max out in giving in the last Congressional election. That is the percentage that becomes invisible in the money-feeding-fest that is DC.
So if you really want to rally the 99%, you might begin by identifying those things that 99% might actually agree about. That the 30% of Americans who call themselves "supporters" of the Tea Party are racists is not a statement likely to garner the support of at least that 30%. (And again, as ABC found, it's not even true).
On the other hand, 99% of America should be perfectly willing to agree that a system in which the top 1% -- or better, .05% -- have more power to direct public policy than do the 99% or 99.95% is wrong. And must be changed. Before this nation can again call itself a democracy (for those on the Left) or a Republic (for those on the Right). This "Republic," by which the Framers meant a "representative democracy," by which they intended a body "dependent upon the People ALONE," is not.
That, too, must change. Meaning, in addition to all the things we Liberals want, we must change that as well. And my view is that if we changed that corruption first, we might actually find it a bit easier to get those other things too.
[end his words]
-----------------------
I am a Liberal but I'm a Liberal that does not believe I am living on 'occupied' land. I am living on land taken by conquest over a century ago but that cannot be changed and so to call America 'occupied' land is to make me a foreigner in my own country, the only country my family has known since at least the early 19th century. I've read a number of OWS statements that were decidedly anti-capitalist. Some of the stuff at People of Color Organize invokes the 'petty bourgeois' and speaks of destroying capitalism. This turns me off for two reasons.
As a college educated professional, I am the 'petty bourgeois' which has to be 'swept aside' in order for the poor and working-class to be free. Secondly, there is simply no way to have a *socialist* society without seriously restricting freedom and liberty. We can have social democracy but we cannot have socialism. I have also noted that skeptical or dissenting voices are written off not caring or being fine with the ways things are. I think that people of goodwill can disagree with certain rhetorical flourishes (presuming that the people using that rhetoric mean it) while still agreeing that the system is skewed toward the rich and that this creates injustice which leads to instability.
I don't want to create a socialist utopia because I know of no better way to create a dystopia than to try to create a utopia. I would argue that one of the causes of our current suffering is that the Right has been pursuing a libertarian utopia. I want to create a society where someone who is born into poverty can get an education, find themselves a job, work their way up a career ladder and perhaps retire as solidly middle-class. I want to *expand* the ranks of the 'petty bourgeois' not see them swept away.
Right now, I'm seeing the Left talk to the Left and only certain segments of the Left at that! I do not see anything that leads me to believe that people of the Right (of which I am not) are welcome nor have I heard or read anything here to make me believe that Liberals (as opposed to radicals) are at all welcome, that our voices would be heard, that our ideas would be given due consideration, or that our experiences would be considered at all worth listening to. I might be wrong but I've been reading this thread since the very beginning and I don't see a great deal that leads me to believe otherwise.
Lessig is right, we are the 99% is a great slogan. The problem is is that there isn't a concerted effort to bring most of that 99% into the fold.
Cheers
Aj