Question about OWS and similar protests.

[Deep13]

While I am greatly encouraged to see that the middle class has finally woken up and increasingly rejects the big-money hegemony of this country, I'm wondering what the end game is. How do we go from popular demand to structural economic change?

[markpkessinger]

1. We are at the beginning of a long, collective dialogue ...

... so talk of an "endgame" is entirely premature at this point.

[Vincardog]

2. First we get all the 99% to demand that things have to change. Then we agree what those changes need

to accomplish. Then we wonder which economic changes are required.
You seem to be a few moves ahead of the game.

[Deep13]

7. and when we all agree, how do we make it happen?

That is really my question. Whatever we decide--whoever that "we" is--the corporate class still controls the system.

[Vincardog]

14. When we get ALL the 99% to stand up and demand the the Corrupt bastids be put on trial and

imprisoned, we will see what the corporate class still controls

[Deep13]

17. They will control the political, legal and economic systems. nt

[sabrina 1]

3. This is the beginning of a long process. There are no quick

fixes for the huge damage to our system so it will take time and ideas and effort to bring about change. I can see several ways developing already which are likely to make things happen sooner than we originally thought.

First though, they have to get a consensus, which they are doing, on what is most important and then on how to go about working on those goals. I have watched their assemblies and I am so impressed at how things are going so far, way faster than I anticipated.

But the people are now taking control of a system that is so completely broken, it really has to be built from the bottom up. And that's what this movement is, why it has not specific leaders, it is a true grassroots movement from the bottom up and everything is decided by consensus. Democracy in action. And don't forget how long it took for the FFs to finally write the Constitution and how long after that it took to fix things that the Constitution could not at that time fix. A true Democracy doesn't happen overnight. No sound bites to describe it.

But they are starting at the heart of what has destroyed our democratic institutions and that was a perfect choice of where to begin.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. The thing we call life in the moment and history in retrospect

does not come with endgames, nor with middles. It just starts and rolls on.

[Deep13]

8. So, you don't know either. nt

[Fire Walk With Me]

5. We would likely go to a way of life more concerned about taking care of each other...

[Deep13]

9. Yeah, but how?

The capitalists will still control the power structure even if 99% of us agree on everything.

[Fire Walk With Me]

11. Look at the donations to #Occupy. This is how we have to take care of each other.

Each person has skills to contibute. Each person will find fulfillment of need.

Certainly no one else will take care of us when we need it. We are starting to figure out how to do it ourselves. The need is too great to allow to continue so something is starting.

[Deep13]

18. I agree the need is urgent.

Right now the power structure tolerates the protests because they are not much of a threat. At some point, it will turn violent. One of our people out of frustration, sunstroke, previous mental instability or outrage over police abuse will do something violent. The police or the Nat. Guard will seize the pretext and respond with mass force.

Even if it were not so, I'm just wondering how popular desire for reform becomes actual reform. If it were simply a matter of voting for the right people, it would have happened in '09.

[tama]

6. Deconstruction of economy

just happens when we let go of it and go with the flow. I don't consider this game or end but beginning.

Add your own voice to our "one demand" and tell what kind of change YOU would like see and experience. Don't expect everybody to agree on every detail, or anybody else to have all the answers, but if you speak from your heart, true to yourself, you are listened with compassionate attention and you are making a difference in the minds and hearts of those who listen, and in our collective will.

[Deep13]

10. I am actually wondering how we get from popular will to social change,

Just because most people want something doesn't mean it will happen.

[tama]

16. Should I tell?

We get what we will, all the time and each moment - granting that time kinda funny and wierd concept and impossible to fully comprehend. Willing is doing, at now it is my will to sit at the computer and write these words, though I can simultaneously wish many other things.

What you are asking is not so much about willing but about wishing, and wishes come often in the form of "I wish that others would..." and with those kinds of wishes reality often bites back as you are also object of similar wishes from others, and wishes can be also mutually exclusive choises and preferences.

Yes, we wish for social change, and I believe our wishes are in the same general direction. Social change happens as we will it each moment, and the question of what kind of social change depends from what kind of change you will in your self.

[Deep13]

19. I'm not wishing. I'm asking about political mechanics.

Change comes through an act of power, not will. We are starting to get the public on our side. I figured that would happen as the depression crept into the middle class. I also figured that many, especially formerly middle class whites, would turn to a proto-fascist movement and many have. But, the legal, political and economic systems still belong to the rich. That means the police and army belong to them too. I'm just wondering how we get from OWS to political and social change and if it can happen w/o mass violence. I really, really want OWS etc. to succeed, but right now I don't see how it can unless it turns revolutionary and violent. For the record, I do not want violence (although to a small degree the police have taken away that choice), but I can foresee it.

[tama]

22. OK

I can't answer your question in the way that would satisfy you, I'm aware of the risk of sounding like the annoying hippy mystic I am. :)

Your question brings now to my mind a riddle I recently read in a sci-fi novel:

How do you capture a beautiful bird without killing its spirit?

The "beautiful bird" is this movement spreading its wings of change. How do you capture it into political reality without killing it's spirit?

The "officially" correct answer given in the book was: By becoming the sky. :)

But there can be also other correct answers, I've been asking around and heard these two:

1) You can't capture it without killing it.
2) By just loving it without asking anything in return.

And I came up also with my own politically (in)correct answer that describes most aptly me myself:

How do you capture a beautiful bird without killing its spirit? You talk the talk and walk the walk with your fly open.

[Deep13]

23. LOL. I hope that's metaphoric.

Becoming the sky I suppose means the movement gets so big that there is just no one left to offer any opposition and the working people simply take over the instrumentalities of power. Sadly, about 30% of us (guessing) can be counted on to resist and collaborate with the fascists.

[EFerrari]

12. The last time this happened, the outcome was The New Deal. n/t

[Deep13]

21. Hopefully, history will repeat itself...

...but without another world war.

[bemildred]

13. OWS is about lighting a fire under the ass of our ruling "elites".

Policy comes later and ought to come out of the reformed political process that OWS aims at, not from polling the crowds.

[Vincardog]

15. I believe the OWS movement realizes that the political structure is as corrupt as the social one

[Deep13]

20. That's good, because it is. nt