Wojtek
On Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 6:58 PM, Shane Mage <shmage at pipeline.com> wrote:
> No need to repeat all the valid arguments why the formulation of "demands"
> is the wrong way to go.
> The Great Revolution didn't start with "demands:" it began with the "Cahiers
> de Doléances"--lists of Grievances formulated by the people in every part of
> the Kingdom.
> The Doléances summed up all that was rotten in the Ancien Régime, so when
> the time came for the spokesman for the Tiers État, Abbé Sieyes, to some up
> the demands of the people he could meaningfully express them in a single
> word: "Tout!" "Everything!"
>
> 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
>
>
>
>
>
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