I think it would be appropriate for the OWS General Assemblies to model themselves on their Gallic ancestors. Every GA should discuss and reach consensus on what they consider the [let's say] ten most important and flagrant of their Grievances, circulate them to all the other GAs, and after national discussion involving the whole movement agree on a national list of major Grievances (not, of course, limited to only ten).
Off the top of my head, I would offer this list.
We condemn:
--A health-care system dominated by giant insurance corporations that should not even be allowed to exist, a system that denies a huge part of the population its right to full medical and dental care.
--Official lawlessness symbolized by President Obama's program of assassinating and imprisoning and deporting people in violation of the constitutional right of people not to be deprived of life or liberty without due process of law, of trial by jury.
--Imprisonment of millions for nonviolent offenses, victimless "crimes" created by the forty-year "War On Drugs."
--Waste of hundreds of billions of dollars to maintain a military establishment grossly disproportionate to the defense needed to protect the country from foreign invasion.
--Official secrecy hiding hundreds of millions of documents completely unrelated to any immediate military necessity, enforced by the vicious persecution of whistleblowers like Bradley Manning.
--The total absence of prosecution, or even criminal investigation, after they have been bailed out to the tune of trillions, of the banksters involved in the control fraud that precipitated the current economic crisis.
--The criminal failure of the President and Attorney General to enforce the laws against torture, arbitrary imprisonment, and making war of aggression despite the boasting admission of their crimes by Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, et. al.
--The ongoing failure of the Democratic Party, despite sixty+ years of promises, to do anything at all to repeal the Taft-Hartley antilabor Law--resulting in the tragic decline of the Labor Movement to its present state of economic and political impotence.
--The imposition of crippling debt on a whole generation of young people when education should be established as a basic right and should be provided at public expense.
--The ongoing shift of the tax burden from the rich and their corporations to the working and middle classes while tax reductions to millionaires are perpetrated by Bipartisan politicians like governors Cuomo and Christie while they cut back any spending aimed to benefit poor and sick people.
Obviously, this is far from "complete." The point is that everyone's Grievances should be listed in this sort of way and the final list should express a consensus as to the most pointed, important, and *effective* formulations of our Grievances.
Shane Mage
> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos