#OCCUPYWALLSTREET
Alright you 90,000 redeemers, rebels and radicals out there,
A worldwide shift in revolutionary tactics is underway right now that bodes well for the future. The spirit of this fresh tactic, a fusion of Tahrir with the acampadas of Spain, is captured in this quote:
"The antiglobalization movement was the first step on the road. Back then our model was to attack the system like a pack of wolves. There was an alpha male, a wolf who led the pack, and those who followed behind. Now the model has evolved. Today we are one big swarm of people."— Raimundo Viejo, Pompeu Fabra University
Barcelona, Spain
The beauty of this new formula, and what makes this novel tactic exciting, is its pragmatic simplicity: we talk to each other in various physical gatherings and virtual people's assemblies … we zero in on what our one demand will be, a demand that awakens the imagination and, if achieved, would propel us toward the radical democracy of the future … and then we go out and seize a square of singular symbolic significance and put our asses on the line to make it happen.
The time has come to deploy this emerging stratagem against the greatest corrupter of our democracy: Wall Street, the financial Gomorrah of America.
On September 17, we want to see 20,000 people flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months. Once there, we shall incessantly repeat one simple demand in a plurality of voices.
Tahrir succeeded in large part because the people of Egypt made a straightforward ultimatum – that Mubarak must go – over and over again until they won. Following this model, what is our equally uncomplicated demand?
The most exciting candidate that we've heard so far is one that gets at the core of why the American political establishment is currently unworthy of being called a democracy: we demand that Barack Obama ordain a Presidential Commission tasked with ending the influence money has over our representatives in Washington. It's time for DEMOCRACY NOT CORPORATOCRACY, we're doomed without it.
This demand seems to capture the current national mood because cleaning up corruption in Washington is something all Americans, right and left, yearn for and can stand behind. If we hang in there, 20,000-strong, week after week against every police and National Guard effort to expel us from Wall Street, it would be impossible for Obama to ignore us. Our government would be forced to choose publicly between the will of the people and the lucre of the corporations.
This could be the beginning of a whole new social dynamic in America, a step beyond the Tea Party movement, where, instead of being caught helpless by the current power structure, we the people start getting what we want whether it be the dismantling of half the 1,000 military bases America has around the world to the reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall Act or a three strikes and you're out law for corporate criminals. Beginning from one simple demand – a presidential commission to separate money from politics – we start setting the agenda for a new America.
Post a comment and help each other zero in on what our one demand will be. And then let's screw up our courage, pack our tents and head to Wall Street with a vengeance September 17.
for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ
Adbusters #97: Post Anarchism – How To Live Without Dead Time (with #OCCUPYWALLSTREET campaign materials inside), hits newsstands on August 2. Go to adbusters.org/subscribe and subscribe!
534 comments on the article “#OCCUPYWALLSTREET”
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Cesar Siroco-Mistral
We The People is empowering, unifying and denounces the current perversion of our misrepresentative system.
Cesar Siroco-Mistral
We The People is empowering, unifying and denounces the current perversion of our misrepresentative system.
Anonymous
yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Life/Death
Anonymous
yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Life/Death
Jennifer2011
A reminder, for inspiration:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
Jennifer2011
A reminder, for inspiration:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
Joe DeLuca
Thank you, Jennifer Jefferson. I would add:
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure." THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to William Stephens Smith, November 13, 1787
To wit, we must not engage in esoteric arguments over policy, particularly economic policy. We need to be done with money. And be done with buying happiness. They need to know the game is over. We need to get serious and quit pretending we're not getting raped.
Anyway - I'm a father of 3 beautiful kids. I live in Kansas. I'm traveling to NY to occupy Wall Street. So, lest any right wing ideologues assume this movement is a fringe movement, let it be known - I am Main fucking Street.
Joe DeLuca
Thank you, Jennifer Jefferson. I would add:
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure." THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to William Stephens Smith, November 13, 1787
To wit, we must not engage in esoteric arguments over policy, particularly economic policy. We need to be done with money. And be done with buying happiness. They need to know the game is over. We need to get serious and quit pretending we're not getting raped.
Anyway - I'm a father of 3 beautiful kids. I live in Kansas. I'm traveling to NY to occupy Wall Street. So, lest any right wing ideologues assume this movement is a fringe movement, let it be known - I am Main fucking Street.
Anonymous
The whole point of this is to transcend political boundaries and put forth a common goal that everyone can agree upon, but good job keeping the divide there in "calling out" right wing individuals. Your post was great until the last sentence, and then you took a shot at half the population, for no apparent reason whatsoever.
Anonymous
The whole point of this is to transcend political boundaries and put forth a common goal that everyone can agree upon, but good job keeping the divide there in "calling out" right wing individuals. Your post was great until the last sentence, and then you took a shot at half the population, for no apparent reason whatsoever.
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