The below guidelines for protestors can be found at occupywallstreet.org. I list this as a random sampling to show how a single excerpt CAN be taken to show this movement/group simply as a politically active group that is seeking to march and protest peacefully and make their desires and vision of specific change within our country known. However, if you will take the time to read to other excerpts below this first one, I think you will see there are profoundly mixed and disturbing messages coming from the closest thing to leadership and organizers that you can find in this group. There is so much to say about this whole Occupy Wall Street thing, but I thought I'd start with this post that gives a real taste of what they are about based on their OWN words. I welcome interaction about this with anyone who is interested.
Note especially the #2 and #5 of "calls to act" of the final excerpt listed.
March Guidelines
Posted Sept. 25, 2011, 12:23 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
1.Stay together and KEEP MOVING!
2.Don't instigate cops or pedestrians with physical violence.
3.Use basic hand signals.
4.Empowered pace keeps at the front, back and middle of every march. These folks are empowered to make directional decisions and guide the march.
5.We respect diversity of tactics, but consider how our actions may affect the entire group.
Excerpt from August 12 @occupywallstreet.org
"Strategically speaking, there is a very real danger that if we naively put our cards on the table and rally around the "overthrow of capitalism" or some equally outworn utopian slogan, then our Tahrir moment will quickly fizzle into another inconsequential ultra-lefty spectacle soon forgotten. But if we have the cunning to come up with a deceptively simple Trojan Horse demand ... something profound, yet so specific and doable that it is impossible for President Obama to ignore … something that spotlights Wall Street's financial capture of the US political system and confronts it with a pragmatic solution … like the reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall Act … or a 1% tax on financial transactions … or an independent investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice into the corporate corruption of our representatives in Washington … or another equally creative but downright practical demand that will emerge from the people's assemblies held during the occupation … and if we then put our asses on the line, screw up our courage and hang in there day after day, week after week, until a large swath of Americans start rooting for us and President Obama is forced to respond …"
A Modest Call to Action on this September 17th
Posted Sept. 17, 2011, 9:46 p.m. EST by agnosticnixie
This statement is ours, and for anyone who will get behind it. Representing ourselves (not the movement as a whole), we bring this call for revolution.
We want freedom for all, without regards for identity, because we are all people, and because no other reason should be needed. However, this freedom has been largely taken from the people, and slowly made to trickle down, whenever we get angry.
Money, it has been said, has taken over politics. In truth, we say, money has always been part of the capitalist political system. A system based on the existence of have and have nots, where inequality is inherent to the system, will inevitably lead to a situation where the haves find a way to rule, whether by the sword or by the dollar.
We agree that we need to see election reform. However, the election reform proposed ignores the causes which allowed such a system to happen. Some will readily blame the federal reserve, but the political system has been beholden to political machinations of the wealthy well before its founding.
We need to address the core facts: these corporations, even if they were unable to compete in the electoral arena, would still remain control of society. They would retain economic control, which would allow them to retain political control. Term limits would, again, not solve this, as many in the political class already leave politics to find themselves as part of the corporate elites.
We need to retake the freedom that has been stolen from the people, altogether.
1.
If you agree that freedom is the right to communicate, to live, to be, to go, to love, to do what you will without the impositions of others, then you might be one of us.
2.
If you agree that a person is entitled to the sweat of their brows, that being talented at management should not entitle others to act like overseers and overlords, that all workers should have the right to engage in decisions, democratically, then you might be one of us.
3.
If you agree that freedom for some is not the same as freedom for all, and that freedom for all is the only true freedom, then you might be one of us.
4.
If you agree that power is not right, that life trumps property, then you might be one of us.
5.
If you agree that state and corporation are merely two sides of the same oppressive power structure, if you realize how media distorts things to preserve it, how it pits the people against the people to remain in power, then you might be one of us.
And so we call on people to act
1.
We call for protests to remain active in the cities. Those already there, to grow, to organize, to raise consciousnesses, for those cities where there are no protests, for protests to organize and disrupt the system.
2.
We call for workers to not only strike, but seize their workplaces collectively, and to organize them democratically. We call for students and teachers to act together, to teach democracy, not merely the teachers to the students, but the students to the teachers. To seize the classrooms and free minds together.
3.
We call for the unemployed to volunteer, to learn, to teach, to use what skills they have to support themselves as part of the revolting people as a community.
4.
We call for the organization of people's assemblies in every city, every public square, every township.
5.
We call for the seizure and use of abandoned buildings, of abandoned land, of every property seized and abandoned by speculators, for the people, for every group that will organize them.
We call for a revolution of the mind as well as the body politic.
