Occupy Wall Street on the Waterfront

Occupy Wall Street needs to shut its stupid mouth.
How dare they count every person in the ninety-nine percent they talk about as in with them.
They do not have a right to speak for me.
I like the rich.
Many of them started with nothing or almost nothing.
Steve Jobs and countless others became VERY rich after being very poor.
They did not complain.
They had ideas and went with them.
The top one percent creates jobs.
Our companies, stores, firms and on and on that employ millions were not started by poor people.
They were started by the wealthy.
Now, OWS states that the rich are our enemy.
Great, go against those who create so much.
Occupy Wall Street has got to be the most stupid bunch of idiots to ever band together.
They have no real clue as to what they are doing.
In Los Angeles, they accomplished nothing and left a mess that cost the city a lot of money.
In Seattle, OWS blocked docks and tried to prevent people from going to work.
Yet, they claim they want people to go to work.
The entire Occupy movement is a joke.
They talk for the entire ninety-nine percent, but of those ninety-nine percent of the people, about ninety percent are working.
I live in Beverly Hills and I'm doing fine.
I don't need Occupy Wall Street to tell me what to do.
 
George Vreeland Hill

OWS doesn't need George V. Hill to tell it what to do. Or what it stands for.

The comment by Mr. Hill only illustrates his lack of knowledge. Most of the rich got their money the traditional way: they inherited it!

And whether individual rich people created their own wealth or not (the reality is that the people who worked for them created their wealth, and the rich appropriated it, after rationalizing that part of the deal), the problem is a system that allows the 400 richest Americans to have as much wealth as the bottom 150 MILLION Americans.

But not only is income inequality a threat to our very democracy in and of itself, but the rich have used their resources to buy off almost all of the politicians, so the politicians are passing laws that benefit the rich at everyone else's expense. Thus, supposedly "in our name," in reality, the politicians are acting for the rich only. (The Dems are terrible, and the Repugs are much worse! Both are as corrupt as the day is long.)

This situation has our elected "leaders" refusing to address growing social problems in the US, but this failure is being done by stealing from social problems, and using it to feed the US Empire, which is the only guarantor of the US Empire. We need to reject and defund the military and the Empire it supports.

The clever ruse of the 1% is to get people on their side, with "no new
taxes" and "big government". They actually, with favorable tax rates and
regulations, bought and paid for by their lobbyists, they are doing very
well. Top 15%: They are laughing at your gullibility.

If you have never managed hedgefunds or derivitives, or moved jobs in your company offshore, you are most probably NOT in the 1%.

All Powers to Their Lowest Appropriate Level, A HOW-TO
 
Ranked Ballot (“RB”, voters ranking candidates in order of preference) will put an end to war & all other forms of violence, ongoing effect, or “brand new”. A biggest source of all the world’s problems, & thus ours to fix, is the horse & buggy two-party system. RB is the solution. The world is on the precipice of a whirlpool that it has only just begun to climb out of, & it is not yet clear whether we will be falling back in, to kill, torture & exploit each other to the end of time, not having a second New World to save us again, be that descent by overpopulation, high-tech dictatorship, literalist or gangsterist contretemps (OR economic, environmental or tectonic collapse). While certainly all powers to the indivisible individual, the unifying effect of Ranked Ballot (aka IRV, Preferential, Australian or Choice Voting) will give us the answer to ALL these things, whether desired or feared, even if not necessarily in the form imagined, & that virtually instantaneously. All the while recognizing that Justice, is the redress of past violence, Freedom its current absence & Non-Violence the basis of all morality, be the violence by individuals, groups or the state (except, of course, in cases of self defense).
The “additive” form of RB is counting the first choices & if no-one has 50%, the next choices are added in, & so on ’til someone finally does. Because this gives an equal chance of winning to not just all parties, but all combinations of programs, RB has brakes, reverse, 3D, hyper-drive, subtlety, light-footedness, objectivity, & so is the only thing that’s truly simultaneously both most Just & most Free, & will give us instant, TRUE Democracy for all the world, no matter what ladders they pull up to prevent it. Because it always picks the candidate most exactly in the middle & because of its shining example of great equality to all of the world’s poor, RB is more top-dead-center counter-extremist than all the many recent retrenchments combined. Both more Freedom & Justice (free market & community) can be found in RB than in any ideology. Brakes & Reverse mean no more need to suppress popular movements around the world. Light-footedness means that the concerns of both passions, (both Justice AND Freedom) will have input & be given consideration at every point in time. RB is to the horse & buggy two-party system as shopping at the Mall of America is to shopping in Soviet Russia.
All that’s needed is for people to run on the SINGLE ISSUE of RB, promising a citizens’ advisory board, based on Organized Communications (”OC”), to guide us in the rest. OC is small randomly assigned discussion groups electing reps to higher & higher randomly assigned levels, by means of RB, till one small group, exactly in the middle of all participating, remains. Within the movement for RB, a committee chosen by OC would, by its mere invite to speak, indicate the next winner of the next election. (They’ll be falling all over themselves before we even get organized.) This is the instantaneous part. RB would be equally useful for all systems, parliamentary or presidential (the parliaments by picking their Prime Ministers by RB (from among their members) so as to prevent the rise of yet another extremist monster such as Hitler) coops, collective leaderships, tribal groupings, religious confessions, political parties, associations, or even cabals. RB is the sole unchangeable plank and bylaw of the Preferential Ballot Party, the only practicable third party. Of course, it’d mean lots having to let go of their nut (to get their fist back out of the tree) resting in the knowledge of RB’s sure aim, as if anyone could then care. Or, we might just go with satellite solar collectors to fulfill everyone’s dreams, but then, we’ll only boil the atmosphere away before we’re done. Putting any program before needed reforms to the system means you’ll get neither, but RB will give us both.
Americans really only have debt to Blacks, Native Americans, & now, subsistence farmers (because of the dislocations resulting from dumping of high-tech corn). No woman ever got pregnant to have an abortion. Some of the complex things that might result from RB might be a perhaps more practicable solution for health care than the current Rube Goldberg contraption would be single payer for generics & free market for all else. Single payer for generic & Wild West for all else. The single payer side of the coin because of convenience, like that of the interstate highway system, another natural monopoly. (Tolls are really just spinning wheels & electronic tolls, so anti-freedomist as to make the Libertarians look autistic). Full employment is an economic fiction not corresponding to the real lives of actual people. As long as health insurance is tied to employment, there will always be those between jobs & so without insurance &/or healthcare. Also, single payer will yield the greatest worker (& thus economic) mobility & undercut the last excuse for all-too-often-conspiring-in-restraint-of-trade-parochial-&-extortionistic big labor. We could start with the biggest health care users, & curing them, learn as we go how to prevent these conditions. All anyone should need is proof of identity & the location of the nearest primary care clinic. Electronic records would prevent any doctor from claiming more patients than is humanly possible. The Free Market side would be because of the great innovation that that provides, & as a message to the world to not do away, or interfere with, the right of individuals to make agreements with each other. While landlords (& others) need to be forbidden from charging late fees that amount more than a thousand % on an annualized basis, we need to lay the housing shortage, & hence ethnic conflict, as well as the gutting of America’s industrial might, at the feet of the unions (who bid themselves out of existence). Letting them use food stamps at soup kitchens & so self organize & take care of their own housing needs cooperatively. Subsidize food storage, not production, & educational infrastructure, broadband, distance learning, standardization of rote subjects & classrooms, not tuition. Everyone works hardest when they work for themselves, so the greatest good is to be found in the greatest # working for themselves, even if we still need an adequate, howsoever minimalist safety net, till we finally work out the up & downs of free markets. Thus a greatly expanded & targeted Small Business Administration is the way to go for the statists among us.
A geothermal heat pump ban to prevent greater tectonic activity. Committee Chairs chosen by members of committees, not seniority, & random committee assignments. Let those with special interest testify, not rule. Cable Choice, so we can all walk among each other without fear & anger, blissfully ignorant of our divisions, ’til that choice brings us all to laughter. Half of all legislatures women, ie: two seats per district, since gender is the only permanent affirmative category. A No Strike for Wages Pledge by all unions, especially if card check passes & everyone gets unionized, & because it’s just chasing your tail to be const6antly trying to get one up on the other guy. Paying for Defense with an Import Tax, on oil, & all other imports as well. (Gradually, over a generation. They’ll long since have got the point before we get to too high a barrier.) Treat boo like beer & save billions a year, to totally end the unnecessary & wasteful Police-Industrial Complex & turn three whole generations since WWII from cop haters to warriors against the truly dangerous drugs. Prioritizing Bills in all legislatures by #/cosigners, & not dictatorial, deal making leaderships. A Random Primary Process, one state eleven months before the next election & one more than the previous month, each successive month, till the remainder votes in the month before the actual election. Tax consumption, not investment, so as to spread the productivity around. Social Security should not be done away with short of making all invested income tax free 100%. A supermajority for major appointments, like the Supreme Court, Defense & Law Enforcement.
We could go silent, shut out the lights & disappear into the cosmos. It’s not like we’re going anywhere soon. In any event, the fiercer the history of the planet, the sooner it would have arrived at a state of ethnic homogeneity, & been blissed out behind Democracy. How can we ask it of others if we do not have it ourselves? It must be in somebody’s interest. Ten to the power of ten (ten levels of groups of ten) would be sufficient to include, organize & unite all individual members of humanity, not just elites. If you’re paranoid, do the same, from the most local on up, wherever you are. Unless all the world’s women have total control over their own bodies (not yet necessarily permanently assured anywhere) no program or condition will ever amount to anything because over-population will just eat it up. Good enough for New Zealand, Australia, Kerala India(?), Iraq (if not quite instantaneously, for the selection of its President, by the parliament, not the people& then only in the first round, with a contest between the top two in the second, ie: regular run-off), London, Ireland for the selection of its President, Cambridge Mass, Burlington & 95% of the townships of Vermont, Pierce County Washington, the Twin Cities, the Utah Republican Party for the selection of statewide candidates (even if only once upon a time) the platforms of both the Green & Libertarian Parties & many college student bodies across the US, with more coming every year, but not good enough for the rest of us? All human evil is due to the out of phase fluctuation of population & food supply, so no-one alive is responsible for the mess we find ourselves in, except for what they do here & now. Just go out & collect signatures to get on the ballot, asking those who sign to collect them for you as well. “Consider that which is common in the sight of all men.”
All things being equal, nothing should prevent individuals from entering into agreements with each other, or to engage in activities the collective does either. Dems (& Reps & 3rd Parties) need to start running their own primaries, using RB, Organized Communications & progressive party dues, in the case of leftwing parties, or, in the case of right wing parties, bidding for seats on the board, or buying partnerships in the party, or stock in the party. This will save vast sums, as TV & radio ads will no longer be needed, especially once the candidate has been named. It would be impossible for big media to ignore one, no matter how much they want to hold the parties up for the coverage. No-one should be allowed to own stock in any type of broadcast station who doesn’t live within that station’s broadcast area, or no-one should be allowed to own more than one share in any station, or no-one should be allowed to be a partner in more than one, but public finance of culture is the same as that of religion, really unseemly. The percentage difference between a 40 hour week & a 35 hour one is greater than the current unemployment rate. Yet the economy only needs to be a little more free market than all the rest, no shock therapy required. Greater global competition will not hurt anyone. We’ll just end up with better goods at lower prices. They’re investing in whatever they think is most productive, which just may not be locally. Do away with free trade & everything will cost way more. Companies buying other companies can result in economies of scale, in which case it is a good thing. One of those economies is the need for fewer of the hated managers & administrators per worker, but now that great computing power is available to all, that trend should subside. There is a short list of things that will increase productivity & hence wealth & employment, such as: man-hours, technology, skill levels, savings, efficiency & raw materials, energy, lack of corruption & predictability, not spending the wealth of our grand children. A golden opportunity is being missed to suggest a straight line progressive income tax from zero %, for some low point, where all the Congress can do is set the slope of the line, essentially producing an infinity of rates, not the two or three tiers they came up with, at the start of the computer age. Norman Thomas’s actual platform was to the right of the Democrats of today. Otherwise, taxing consumption, not investment, or a simple property tax, based on the total square footage of all land and floors for each property, regardless of improvements, would be the most efficient & incorruptible way to go. Good ole two-party system is only good in a crisis. A hundred years ago we had no cars, or indoor plumbing, land was cheaper, cobblestone streets, practically no one went to college, we had no third world competition & most folks worked way longer just to feed themselves, so that’s the best we could do then, but time to upgrade to RB. Just cut 5 or more % across the board & work out the adjustments later. Just withdrawing from the world will only make us have to pay more down the road. Crucially now, with all the inevitable (US) talk about “independent” (read bi-partisan through duopolistic) redistricting commissions, a worthy yet apparently unmentionable possibility would be to limit the number of changes of direction of legislative districts’ boundaries, & give the task to a computer to create them.
RB will give us a perfect marriage of Freedom & Justice, Tradition & Modernity, Palestinian & Jew, as members of worldwide coops, instead of struggling with each other over a sliver of desert, Free Market & Communalism, all the fairness, payback & make-up one could wish for, clean back to the Cro-Magnons, a real solution to terror, ecologically sustainable politics, what’s best for all workers, instant global women’s liberation, world-wide luxury, a rationalization of the drug wars, human unity, ultimate retail politics, perfect compromise, “phantasmagoric subtlefaction”, real-time alternatives to all proposals, from wherever: market, coop or social, or tribal, theological or universal, an answer to infinitely more questions at a time than the two party system’s “who’s less bad”, an adequate safety net, no more need to suppress popular movements around the world, both more Liberty & Justice than can be found in any ideology, subtlety, responsivity, light-footedness, long-sightedness, economy, accountability, an end to all the various forms of hegemonism (whether up front, subterranean or unconscious, in exchange for the so great burden of leading the world to the light) no more need to fear self expression, politics as if a family discussion around the kitchen table, no more jumping back & forth between extremes, with its consequent absence of the economists’ requirement of predictability for growth, the Freedom of Justice & the Justice of Freedom & perhaps eventually, more than inadequate global confederation (but with all powers to their lowest appropriate level). Perhaps it might result, at least economically, in some combination of The World’s Wasted Wealth II: Save Our Wealth, Save Our Environment by J W Smith, Institute for Economic Democracy, Cambria, CA & Grand New party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class & Savethe Anerican Dream by Ross Douthat & Reihan Salam, Doubleday, Planet Earth, but with all our other inputs as well. This is what is known as the formlessness of forms.
All human evil is due to the out of phase fluctuation of population & food supply, from the time the first hunter remembered the first fight over stray game in a bad year, so none is responsible except for what they do now. One’d hope there’d be a RB Caucus in the Democrat-ish party at least to start. Occupy the Universe, or at least the solar system... Help put this idea, in time, to as many as possible. “zoe” “morgan” z, preferentiality@gmail.com, USA