Now, here's a simple message for you, a message that 99% of the citizens of this country can understand and can support. Here it is:
We're going to occupy Wall Street until the first CEO of a major financial institution goes to jail.
That's it. It's tangible. It's concrete. And more than that, it cuts right across political lines and goes right to the heart of what has gone seriously wrong with this country.
Obviously there needs to be more than one who goes to jail. But you need a pithy message. And you need a tangible goal.
So here it is again: We're going to Occupy Wall Street until the first CEO of a major financial institution goes to jail.
For more info on just how badly we've been had and how badly we need criminal prosecution of those who got us where we are:
"In the Savings and Loan crisis which was one seventieth the size of this crisis, our agency made over 10,000 criminal referrals and that resulted in the conviction on felony grounds of over 1000 elites in what were designated as major cases. . . . In this crisis the same agency that I worked with that made 10,000 criminal referrals in a tinier crisis made zero criminal referrals. They got rid of the entire function. And so there are zero convictions of anybody in the elite ranks of Wall Street. And if they can defraud us with impunity then they will produce crisis after crisis and they will produce maximum inequality."
Occupy LA Teach In, William K Black
See also: Where are the Handcuffs?
5 comments:
Sound advice. I might amend it to: "We're going to occupy Wall Street until the first CEO of a major financial institution *and the first politician* go to jail. It seems clear that the collapse was a function of a corrupt, political-financial collaboration."
** Note: the last quotation mark was supposed to come after the word "jail".
And I suppose they would also be well-advised to start acting, um, a bit less looney and extreme (including public urination, trashing and littering all over their protest sites, etc). Even liberal mayors -- the very ones who should be most sympathetic -- are evicting them. In addition to a coherent message, maybe that would have earned them more broad-based support and sympathy.
Agreed on both counts, adding the politicians into the mix--as we've discussed, see e.g.
http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/prudent-man/2011/nov/29/barney-frank-flees-scene-his-fiscal-crimes/
--and about some of the extreme behavior.
The main thing is that this movement really needs a cohesive message. Love 'em or hate 'em, you can summarize the Tea Party's message in just a few words: Less government, lower taxes. If the Occupy Wall Street crowd doesn't "brand" themselves in a similarly concise way, they're going to disappear without accomplishing anything significant.
This Occupy Wall Street Movement is way too global and way too organized to be so seemingly "disorganized" and by that I mean they appear to lack any particular political goals. There are no milestones or clearly stated objectives associated with the movement, other than to wreak havoc in as many large cities as possible. It seems like their true goal is to weaken and break down the very institutions that hold this society together, rather than to target for removal corrupt individuals, whether they be politicians or businessmen. On top of it, their activities are putting a lot of financial and other strains on cities where the police, the local government and other safety, law and order folks have to divert their resources into crowd management and the attendant vandalism and disorder. For example, the Oakland CA city government has been really strained to the breaking point in being able to do their "normal" jobs because of all the problems the OWS folks create with their ongoing demonstrations. How does this do anything to fight the corporate oligarchic structures they are supposedly standing up against? For that reason, I am very suspicious of the whole movement.
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