So I'm a huge fan of the OWS movement and for the majority of what it stands for. After all I truly believe that cooperate money in politics needs to stop. One thing however I wish would happen is that there would be a little bit more unity and communication between those in the OWS movement. I really believe that there can be many leaders and everyone can have a voice, after all thats what a democracy is, but I get really frustrated by how separated everyone has become. Yeah I agree Obama has not been able to get everything done that he wanted to in the past four years, but do you really think that anyone could have done this? Especially with the current house and senate?
I feel like there are a ton of OWS'ers out there that feel the same way I do and will vote for Obama in the upcoming election, but I'm afraid of having another election like when Nader ran in 2000 against Gore and Bush. He took enough votes away from Gore for Bush to win. When in truth the majority of the country voted for Gore in the popular vote and even more in addition to that way more people didn't vote for Bush because they voted for Gore and Nader over Bush. Yet Bush still won.
It seems to me at this point that we need to take a look at the electoral college and thing about is it really helping things here? But even more so we need to think about those who are running the election process. It seems to me that we need to have both a Republican and a Democrat looking at the votes in every district and at every vote to make sure that people aren't "frauding" the system.
In addition to all of this as I mentioned before you shouldn't be able to buy an election. When I was in middle school we had a policy that if you gave anything to anyone, including candy, while running for office, you would not get elected. You became ineligible for office. that being said I understand that elections take money, but I wonder if maybe these people could show that they support the people by acts of kindness and community service, or if they could put the money for an attack ad into the community and helping the poor, or building a bridge, or a park.
I have to run for now, but I want to talk more about this later.
Jason
You make a great point about the unity issue in terms of political clout/change....the movement is full of many voices, many geographies, but that is what makes it wonderful in some ways. The #occupy or #ows hashtag and concept has become fluid and fluent and has proven to have staying power, which is intriguing. Most other protests die out after messaging around a given march or event, whereas #Occupy is now in a phase of overview, rehash and interpretation in galleries, online and in major publications. "We are the 99%" will no doubt be heard again and again throughout this coming election season....
ReplyDeleteYeah. I really do love this and I remembered reading an article about Iceland and how they're re-writing their constitution together via the internet. http://newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-news/3057-a-story-missing-from-our-media-icelands-on-going-revolution There is also a disputing article as well so I'm not sure where the facts are.http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/24/1010295/-Naomi-Klein-buys-into-the-Iceland-Revolution-mythos But I really like the idea that normal rational people who are uninfluenced by politics are voted in to really be the voice of the people. I think that is why I am so drawn to the OWS movement.
ReplyDeleteI remember when I was 17 and standing in front of the Massachusetts State Capitol in Boston fighting for marriage equality and thinking how wild it was that people could know where to go and how to find these events. Now with twitter it's so easy to organize a moment or protest and continue the conversation that was so much harder for Mass to do back in the day.
Twitter to me is the ultimate activists tool!