You can’t Occupy Wall Street without Occupying D.C. It’s akin to focusing on half the tumor in a cancer patient without focusing on the other half of it.
As for the political solutions, the ONLY solution is Dylan Ratigan’s “getmoneyout.com”:
http://www.dylanratigan.com/2011/09/27/get-money-out-join-100000-americans/
It makes no difference how long a political term is or how many terms are served, a single politician in one 2 year term can easily demolish the economy or Democracy with a single vote for the highest corporate bidder.
Get the money out, create a system of public finance to inhibit any benefits for political favoritism or revolving doors. And it wouldn’t hurt to investigate certain members of the Supreme Court for their personal conflicts in the “citizens united” decision to allow unlimited bribery.

Posted by: Cynthia | Oct 27 2011 18:51 utc | 3

so
Brian touches on the real problem which #occupy faces everywhere it has become established.
That is eventually the new movement feels obliged to seek assistance from established opposition groups.
I dunno how much of what Brian claims about Tahir square is correct. From the little I know it seems that amerikan involvement was almost accidental, a result of the policy of putting a dollar on every horse, in the hope that some will be suborned and those that can’t can be exposed as amerikan agents.
Anyway the Tahrir Square endeavour went seriously off the rails when the bourgois students who had been getting their asses handed to them by the secret police, turned to the Muslim Brotherhood to supply youngsters with the courage and ability to get into a drop of street fighting. These primarily working class kids from the brotherhood, did an excellent job and they appear to be just as pissed about the cynical sell out by their leadership, as those original protesters who chose to stick to their principles.
The old hacks of the Muslim brotherhood leadership saw their chance and took it, in the process swapping the aims of the revolution, in return for legitimised roles in the military dictatorship.
Everyone is pissed but now that solidarity has been broken by treason the resultant lack of trust makes it nigh impossible for the anger to recreate the original momentum.
I see that early on in the piece the original Occupy Wall St gang made the error of getting too close to established trades unions. The membership of whom have done a sterling job in bolstering numbers but the leadership of whom is chocka with wannabe dem pols.
You know the mob who hang around the back doors of wall st looking for ‘donations’ in return for which they sell out ordinary citizens.
You only ever get one crack at genuine revolution a generation (a full generation with its associated defined culture occurs approx every 40 years).
If the Occupy mob screw this up by letting dem hacks assume the role of spokesperson -remember Tahrir Square the Muslim Brotherhood hadn’t been appointed by anyone but once they had soldiers on the ground they just acted like leaders and spokespeople The Tahrir square mobs made press releases saying they didn’t speak for them but they were ignored. It was convenient for those in power, so the status quo jumped at the opportunity to do business with a devil they knew -one whose foibles and weaknesses could be easily exploited.
Well, if that happens to the Occupy movement the kids may as well pack up and go home now.
Whatever happened to the amerikan Green party? ROFLMAO!
The energy will be subsumed by the hacks and all they will get out of it will be an Oblamblam equivalent – someone who talks the occupy talk but walks the Wall St shuffle.
So the question becomes does the Occupy movement have the willingness, the nous and the ability to keep the hacks out?
Remember that if they do keep the dems out, the amerikan media who preach there are only two forms of legitinate politics dem or rethug, will launch immediate, unceasing and ubiquitous attacks on #Occupy as long the dems are excluded.
Unless #Occupy hangs in for the long haul, that is. Do anything for long enough, with sufficient participants, & no matter how outrageous it is deemed initially, eventually it will be accepted by the host culture.
But that means both leaders and ‘footsoldiers’ will die. They will be locked in prison for decades, be tortured and made to endure all the attendant penalties that those who achieve a genuine shift in power have to suffer along the way.
I don’t know, has life got bad enough for sufficient amerikans yet? Or will it be in another 40 years say in 2050, that the ugly crass and inexcusable horror that is the amerikan empire is brought to its knees from within?
Which means most of us won’t see it, unless of course the empire is ended by forces from outside amerika.
Or-The third way. The Occupy movement could succeed in parts of europe. Without European support the empire would struggle to hold on to what it already has, much less increase itself.
The number one rule of amerikan corporate capitalism is expand or die, if amerika cannot expand, particularly into Africa, the last frontier, the empire will crumble. There are numerous reasons why european suport is critical to the african invasion.
Of course even if the invasion succeeds, since there is nowhere to go from there, amerika will be in exactly the same place as the assorted european empires were back in 1914. They fought each other – maybe amerika will fight itself again.
So 2050 is looking pretty good as the latest possible date the planet will still be suffering the amerikan empire.
But back to the original issue, what about #Occupy?
The only substantive issue is, has #Occupy got sufficient committed support from people who loathe both halves of the amerikan empire party, to stay the course and effect real change?
We shall see. If #Occupy have any sense they won’t be paying heed to anyone over the age of 25, which rules out most of this and many other forums -sorry forgetting my blogese – fora. Still I will be an interested spectator, barracking for revolution.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 27 2011 22:48 utc | 5

Unfolding History isn’t helping the Authoritarians, either.
In Oz, the most frequently expressed focus of the #Occupiers is Corporate Greed.
So what happens?
A couple of days after the Sydney and Melbourne protesters were booted out of sight, the National Australia Bank announces a 25% increase in profit. And a couple of days after that, the EU announces a fact-free bailout plan about one third the size of the fund the pundits thought might work.
If the 1% want to win this one they’re going to need more than lies and self-deception.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Oct 28 2011 4:19 utc | 7

Is anyone here old enough to remember the sixties? Those movements were riddled with self aggrandizing egos, shallow theatrical playing out, and provocateurs. The violence from demonstrators came almost entirely from these, and the serious violence from demonstrators almost entirely from provocateurs. Study Gladio. Cointelpro. This is the risk. Until true catastrophe arrives for the formerly comfortable middle class, en masse, they will not join a movement stained with violence. And in this society until they do join nothing matters. A ‘general strike’ must have been scripted by the 1%. Absurd. A ‘general strike’ of the homeless, the foreclosed upon, the degraded? Absurd. The world has been here before. Delusions of grandeur don’t make the French or Russian or Cuban or any other revolution. The 1% understand this, and will play you. You will lose, unless you think.

Posted by: Anonymous | Oct 28 2011 5:36 utc | 9

SONG OF THE SOLDIER OF THE REVOLUTION
1
I,the soldier of the Revolution,know
It makes no difference where I go.
Any room will do as somewhere to live.
However dirty or dark,I’ll make shift
To make it a strongpoint where i can put
My gun in a position ready to shoot.
2
I don’t care a bit what the area is like
I can see at once what p[people lack.
The average area’s not so bad
Only that lot who think they know how to lead.
That lot has got to be met fair and square
Then life will be bearable everywhere
3
I don’t need friendship either,since
I always report to my unit at once.
Those are my friends,those men standing there
Though I may have never seen them before.
I’d know them as friends by day or night
Because they stand by me ready to fight.
4
My friends will go out and fetch bread
They’ll din the new passwords into my head
They’ll bind up my wounds and relieve my pain
And guide back to the hole in the wall again
So I can return to the place once more
Which I had to abandon just before.
5
And supposing I can’t limp back that far
I’ll go on fighting wherever we are
By looking around me and trying to find out
Just what makes a victory and what makes a rout.
In that sense there are battle positions untold
Which a soldier of the Revolution can hold.
by Bertolt Brecht from Five songs of the Soldier of the Revolution,Later Svendborg Poems and Satirew 1936-1938.From Bertolt Brecht ‘Poems 1913-1956,Methuen,1979,ISB​N 0413152103

Posted by: lotsofnoise | Oct 28 2011 10:25 utc | 11

Sorry, here’s the link to the above post:
http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/2180-oakland-police-riot-the-imperial-boardroom-strikes-back.html

Posted by: Morocco Bama | Oct 28 2011 11:49 utc | 13

Eureka Springs – It is only when demonstration or strike numbers get very large and persist over a considerable period of time that they have any effect. A ‘General Strike’ which is not general just marginalizes the movement. Calling one for next Wednesday is in my view not a serious act.

Posted by: Anonymous | Oct 28 2011 18:52 utc | 15

@Lizard the same problems are being repeated everywhere. One of the reasons the state used when they bashed Occupy Oakland was because some disturbances arose between the chronic homeless and those unprepared to deal with the reality of humans who haven’t had a home for a very long time. There is no easy resolution to this especially with the pincer strategy of agents provocateurs.
You know from your shelter work that some homeless and ill people are too far gone to be able to be assisted at all within an under-resourced facility such as a shelter or an #occupy camp, but those aren’t the agents those are the agents’ victims & peeps need to contemplate that when things get tough -easy to say I know.
One style of causing chaos agents use is to stupidly interrupt public meetings will calls to arms, over the top suggestions of violence which can, depending on the degree of repressive law in the society you are in make everyone present liable for conspiracy charges as soon as anyone makes that one act which can be interpreted as furthering the conspiracy. The other is equally pernicious and comes from the other end of the spectrum, and that is to scare the shit outta everyone with tales of what the jackboots will do based on stories of “I saw huge fucking dogs back there man!” or “when I was at the blah martin luther king/mahatama ghandi love-in blah they bashed us and kicked us to shit away from the cameras” All that sort of talk is negative destructive and needs to be silenced, then who ever made it taken aside and checked out.
One technique which is effective but I still sort of despise it, is to have pairs of committed people moving through the group going up close to loudmouths and quietly telling them to keep public discussion free of talk about illegal acts.
The important thing is not to get into heated public debate with these assholes. These are oppositionist groups made up of citizens who distrust all forms of authority including that from within any opposition movement. Trying to assert too much control over them publicly will cause some to align beside them.
But Lizard you know all that, the moves against the agents have to be quiet right up until the moment you are sure the person is one. Debunk one properly and a lot of the issues will disappear.
There is not much to be done about chronic homelessness apart from acknowledging that the longer the camp lasts the more homeless and alienated the camp will accumulate. For that reason there need to be rules about intoxication agreed to by the group – not because anyone judges or disapproves but because it makes the group vulnerable to the pricks “out there”.
This is the worst part of the whole thing all the time that a group is trying to remain communal without a defined leadership, the oppressors create situations which are difficult to resolve without some form of authority.
Still it always comes make to investing all real authority in the group, and those times when peeps need to act they only do so within clearly defined limits and report back to the group.
As for peeps not hangin round because they can’t cope with the reality of poverty, the only way to address it is by making a safety an important issue whilst being careful to limit the peeps who inevitably surface that want to police everyone else. Once the chaos is reduced a little, more people will stay on and the troublemakers whose personal issues overwhelm the larger issue of why you are eventually do move on if they find their wind-ups aren’t getting a rise.
None of this is easy but it is achievable if there is a defined cadre prepared to work for the good of everyone without assuming individual power for themselves. That is the real challenge.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 29 2011 0:38 utc | 17

To include the rhyme 99% vs. 1% in any manner of comment or analysis (except as a campaign slogan) is fundamentally flawed reasoning. This is a type of Fundamentalism of thought, and ironically, used often by those who mock religious fundamentalists.
Just from the above post and thread comments.
“It helps to unmask and show the real face of the 1% state. ”
“The pessimists and defeatists are a little too keen to dream up reasons to surrender, apparently blind to the fact that the 1% are already falling into a few traps of their own making. … If the 1% want to win this one they’re going to need more than lies and self-deception.”
“A ‘general strike’ must have been scripted by the 1%. Absurd.”
Now I realize that the reference to the 1% is used to generally identify here with those in control by virtue of their wealth and/or position but then there is this comment a little further down:
“The 99% aren’t really the 99%….but the 1% are most certainly the 1%. ”
And to make matters even more crazy, there’s more:
“Wasn’t Bilmon part of the 1%…and a number of his followers? The guy who runs Calculated Risk is part of the 1%, as well. I have nothing in common with these types. In fact, I see them as worse than the more blatant of the 1% because they like to pretend they’re not the 1%. Last time I looked, none of them were giving their wealth, and thus their protected and privileged positions away.”
The wrong of our societies is not the percentage but the inherent wrong of the monopolistic state/corporate control and abuse of the mass population. And this is a moral, or in different terms, a religious fundamental wrong. It is not a wrong based on arithmetic. In the example above, Bilmon (whoever he is) may or may not be in the 1% of wealth, but is he a significant part, if any, of those that bind so many of us in chains?
I certainly am not part of the “1% that are most certainly the 1%”. I reckon my car debt , mortgage debt and credit card debt places me farther in debt than anyone I know. The property my wife and I have mortgaged has lost its dollar value like most. And I have zero control and little if any influence with those in control, even on a local level. But if I was part of that magical 1%, that would not, and could not, prevent me from helping to bring positive change to the masses.

Posted by: Rick | Oct 29 2011 12:07 utc | 19

@Horsewhisperer
Yeah but maybe it’s a lot less than 1% who are in control. At least I hope so.
1% of billions of people are millions and millions of people. In general, I have no doubt that more than 1% of the people are too greedy and selfish, but most of them have little power.
In any case, I hope this occupy movement keeps growing. It has a good chance as people are waking up slowly.
And your right, I am more like the guys featured in this story “Right to Remain Silent”
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/414/right-to-remain-silent
I never keep my mouth shut even when I know it would be better for me to do so. This episode of NPR’s “This American Life” is a must hear. It is somewhat related to the “occupy” topic.

Posted by: Rick | Oct 29 2011 15:45 utc | 21

@ Rick.
Yeah but maybe it’s a lot less than 1% who are in control. At least I hope so.
Good point.
But don’t lose sight of the fact that the ranks of the 1% are swelled, somewhat, by the people who have sold out to them and eagerly do their bidding.
High-ranking employees.
Spin doctors.
Congress critters.
Lawyers etc. You can’t chisel anyone, or protect a monopoly or patent, and stay out of jail without a big team of lawyers, ‘creative’ accountants and lobbyists.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Oct 30 2011 4:57 utc | 23

There’s a delicious irony hovering around the #Occupy movement. I look at it as a conflict between people who say too little and people who say too much (the mouth-pieces for the 1%). Nothing the One Percenters say makes much sense and everyone else will wake up to that before they wake up to it themselves.
That happens a lot to people who believe their own bullshit.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Oct 30 2011 5:33 utc | 25

b will like this.
Engelhardt’s tribute to #Occupy.
Wall Street by the Book
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175460/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_wall_street_by_the_book/

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Oct 31 2011 6:09 utc | 27

George Monbiot sets the tone for this critique of the forces lined up against #Occupy St Pauls in the opening phrase.
“It’s the dark heart of Britain, the place where democracy goes to die …”
The medieval, unaccountable Corporation of London is ripe for protest
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/31/corporation-london-city-medieval?newsfeed=true

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Nov 2 2011 6:07 utc | 29