IMO without some real action of consequence all this occupy stuff is all for naught.

[Bandit]

By action of consequence I mean a National Strike.. Shut this country down.. Stop the movement of all freight, by truck, by plane, by barge, by train. Shut er down and then something will change.. Until then it is all starting to become a big joke....Night time comedians are already making it so...There has to be an end game, and the ONLY one I can imagine is a Strike....If Unions did not inspire fear then Republicans wouldn't hate them so much...We need to give them something to fear....If Unions don't stand up now they may as well sit forever because they will become nothing but paper tigers..:shrug:

[mmonk]

1. Movements take time.

There are no short cuts.

[dkf]

2. It beats me how that makes the jobs situation better.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

8. If you can't see how the fair redistribution of a few trillion in wealth would

help the economy and the jobs market, I can't help you.

[dkf]

14. A general strike does not equal fair distribution.

It equals lost revenue.

[Scuba]

3. Wrong. If nothing else OCW has already changed the national discussion ....

... from the debt to income inequality.

[Kahuna]

4. If you want to lose the support and good will, OWS has earned..your

suggestion is a good one.

:sarcasm:

[pintobean]

5. "The Unions are not going to fight back..

It is way too late for that... If they were going to fight, they would have done so when Wisconsin and Michigan were getting their Public Union stripped of everything... If Unions really wanted to they could shut this country down... Everything you have gets delivered by truck. Unions could conceivably stop all trucking in this country if they truly wanted... They won't because they have had all their teeth completely pulled....All they can do is spit and sputter...."

Bandit - Tue Sep-06-11 11:53 AM

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1885527&mesg_id=1885636.


Which is it, can they do it, or not?

[valerief]

6. People are still getting aware. And laid off. And foreclosed. Word hasn't fully spread yet.

[RegieRocker]

7. National boycott would be best.

[Proud Public Servant]

9. Terribe idea, as others have said

First, note that OWS has already succeeded at doing something that is incredibly difficult to do: shifting the media narrative away from the corporate-dictated party line and toward the concerns of real people. Was there a national discussion of unemployment, income disparity, or the role of money in politics six months ago? Hell no; it was all debt/deficit/spending cuts, all the time. That has changed.

Second note that the relative success of OWS has been based on its inclusiveness. "We are the 99%" is a brilliant device; it casts aside ideological differences and unites people around their common economic plight. People who are not progressive, are not activist, are not even political are expressing support, however tentative, for OWS and the role it is playing in our national discourse.

A National Strike flushes all of that away. It will NOT be supported by the majority of Americans. It WILL be seen as radical, divisive, and frankly un-American, and will squander the good will (and fragile coalition) OWS may be building. Ordinary, struggling, frightened Americans aren't going to stand with you when they're fighting with their neighbors over the food that's left in the grocery store or wasting hours in long lines for gasoline that has to be rationed (and the 1% isn't going to be inconvenienced at all). To think otherwise is to utterly misapprehend this moment.

[Kahuna]

11. You said it better than I did...

:applause:

[pipi_k]

10. Just how long is this huge shutdown

supposed to last?

One day? Yeah, that'll scare the shit out of them, for sure. :eyes:


A week? A month? Same thing.

The economy stinks. You think there are not people out there who are desperate for a job who wouldn't step in to do one of those jobs?

And if nobody does, that the 1% don't have ways of getting their own needs met while the rest of us suffer?

They have enough money to last for a long time. And, like someone else pointed out above me, how much goodwill is going to be generated when people are out there in the stores fighting over the last scraps of food?

And another question...what about the utility companies? Shut them down too? Turn off gas and electricity to millions of people in order to "hurt" the big guys?

Yeah. Right.

[justiceischeap]

12. The only reason the Montgomery Bus Boycott worked

and calling for a national strike is similar, is because it was a small community and people didn't lose jobs over it (whole scale). People are not going to do anything that will jeopardize their jobs, particularly when the lack of jobs is one of the main issues in this country.

[randome]

13. Still fighting the wrong enemy.

The enemy is not corporations that follow the path of least resistance. The enemy is not 'rich people' (good luck on defining that one.)

The enemy is our legislators who utterly failed to do their jobs and regulate the economy. We need tighter, more people-centric regulations in place to ensure a breakdown in the economy like this never happens again.

Without delivering the right message to the right people, OWS will not accomplish much except 'talk'. And that so far has not done much good.

[sabrina 1]

15. You should pay more attention to what they are doing.

A worldwide strike is planned for May of next year.

How foolish it would be to try to rush into something only a month after joining a global movement that is still relatively new. But other countries have engaged in strikes, France eg, and Greece and now the movement has grown to include the US.

A one day strike in Oakland is planned for Nov. 2 to protest police brutality.

To be effective we don't need impatience and sound bites. Had enough of that already.

By May of next year the movement hopefully will be ten times as big as it is now and far more effective.

Meantime building the movement is the plan. Worldwide demonstrations are planned by what has become one of the most popular movements ever.

So far, there are Occupiers on all Continents in over 900 cities worldwide and growing and in 82 countries. Imagine the power of a movement that is ten times that, considering how they have already had so much effect in just one month (for the US).