- Paul Constant
The protesters of Occupy Seattle have real grievances, even if they’ve had a hard time articulating them so far.
So in the interest of promoting an informed public debate, we suggest the protesters look to the following talking points the next time they’re interviewed by a reporter from The Stranger or some other news organization:
We Want Fairness
Our nation is broken. We all know this. The gap between rich and poor is the widest since 1917, and growing. Our legal and political systems have been twisted to favor the wealthy and powerful. Washington State has the most regressive tax laws in the union, with the lowest wage-earners paying taxes at nearly seven times the rate of the top one percent. We want everyone to have the opportunity to enjoy the rights our Constitution promises, and to pay their fair share toward sustaining a working America.
We Want Justice
Wall Street caused the financial collapse. They are the ones who are responsible, yet they are the ones who got bailed out in 2009. Now, Wall Street needs to stop foreclosing on our homes, and start helping to bail us out. Washington Mutual’s suicidal recklessness nearly destroyed our state’s economy in 2008, and now Chase shows the same sociopathic lack of respect for Washington State homeowners, small businesses, and consumers. The laws that control the financial industry are insane. Wall Street needs to be properly regulated, its victims need to be made whole, and the banksters who committed financial fraud and other crimes need to be prosecuted.
We Want Jobs
Tax cuts, bailouts, cheap money, low interests rates—that’s been our government’s response to the economic crisis. And where are the jobs corporate America promised to create with the record profits generated by these pro-business policies? In low-wage markets overseas! Meanwhile, tens of millions of formerly middle-class Americans remain unemployed. It is time to put Americans back to work rebuilding America, creating good jobs at good wages building the roads, rail, bridges, schools and other crucial public infrastructure we desperately need. And it is time for corporate America to help pay the bill.
*applauds* Thank you.
I was very dismissive of this movement in the beginning, but your coverage here has brought me around. I hope there are other minds getting changed out there.
No mention of a reasonable, sustainable healthcare system? That people die in America from mundane ailments because they can’t afford routine procedures is something that we should be furious about. Not ashamed, but furious.
open use poster/stencil etc… for the movement.
info here: http://mollycrabapple.tumblr.com/post/10…
You know, I agree with these points, but the fact is if these protestors need SOMEONE ELSE to tell them what THEIR protest is about, their protest is a failure before it even starts. Protests are all about sending a message. That message needs to be something other than “we’re going to sit here until we can’t sit here anymore.”
no, that’s what YOU want. all that shit is dumb. unless this capitalist system, which repeats its crisis every 90 years or so, is completely destroyed, you might as well ask for the tooth fairy for some candy. read some more, guys. you’re really lame.
4 OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE. How about when what they’re protesting is so important, articulate people come out of the woodwork to help shape that message? This is the begining, you stubborn jackass. This thing could flame out, or it might not. But as long as you’re not a millionaire, these people are fighting for you too, so either HELP or get out of the fucking way.
@4: What was the Tea Party’s message before the Koch brothers gave them one?
The anger and frustration is genuine and deserved. It’s a movement that rose organically, with no top-down leadership, and any effort to impose a list of specific demands would splinter supporters and be misused by the press.
So just because some of the people on the street aren’t skilled wordsmiths, doesn’t mean their grievances aren’t real. We all know what they’re really protesting about, and give or take, this is loosely it. We’re just in the business of putting things into words.
Nobody’s “fighting for me”
I don’t consider these joke-ass protests “fighting”
They’re fighting to keep their tents in Westlake Center. This bullshit is going nowhere. I’ll be over here making sure to vote, you go have fun pretending you’re making a difference with your chants and being obnoxious to passers-by.
I’d say based on this, the Occupy (fill in the blank) folks have articulated their position rather clearly.
@7: Actually, the Tea Party’s message was pretty damn clear from the start. It grew out of an informal anti-tax movement in which people were mailing tea bags to their congressional representatives as a symbolic protest. Right from the start they talked about how “TEA” stood for “Taxed Enough Already.” It was a pretty clear and simple anti-tax protest.
That’s how good messaging works.
Protesting first and hoping to figure out a coherent message later really doesn’t work. Media outlets lose interest quickly if there’s no clear storyline for them to report.
Unfortunately, this is just another symptom of how bad progressives are at messaging and issue framing compared to conservatives.
@8 aww, are you upset cause their ain’t no taco trucks for you?
It’s Westlake Mall, where we’ve had protests for many many decades, either get used to it or move back to Cali.
@6: I get that they’re fighting for me. It just irks me that, as a progressive, the people fighting for me are always the gang that can’t shoot straight.
“I am not a member of an organized political party. I am a Democrat.” — Will Rogers
@12: They get that they’re fighting for you. It probably irks them that, as activists, they’re actually out there shooting — even if haphazardly — while most self-proclaimed “progressives” are too lazy to do much more than be sulky and irked.
@11
They’re already getting more concerned about not getting to camp out in Westlake than they are with getting their message out, which they’re already doing a terrible job of. I’ve seen plenty of protests at Westlake but I don’t think anybody’s tried the dumb idea of “occupying” it before for obvious reasons. Keep on trying to be a dick, though.
“a reasonable, sustainable healthcare system”
Funny, when I went by the protest I saw one crustie yelling about free healthcare while smoking a ciggie.
Half the people in that photo are juggalos, crusties and anarchists. You know, 0.0001 % of the population.
The technology now lets us link arms…without cubicle walls to corral us.
OS and OWS have shown that people can put on their own live news show…with news made by them.
They can report live in sentences and photos what takes half hours and hours to do.
Occupants are 21st century social entreprenuers shouting…we know how to do this.
Business occurs outdoors in plazas, or between living rooms.
But our political, housing and transportation networks are slow, tardy and can’t fulfill needs at the speed of electronics as our social networks can.
This is not just criticism, but counter-argument…on display, like the shop windows on the plaza.
These are revolutionary mannequins selling the garb of a new social milieu.
@9, that document is a ludicrous laundry list. 99% my ass. That list? The 0.001%.
The Stranger’s list — ooh, a list-off! — is more like an off-the-cuff attempt to, uh, gee, formulate a political platform. You know, like political parties have. Which has nothing to do with protesting in the street, and everything to do with the mundane political process that the bad guys are so good at and liberals tend to suck at really bad. Which is why the bad guys win; the good guys — like these protesters among others — want everything handed to them on a plate, because they’re making noise. But noise is unimportant.
This has to be one of the poorer pieces written on Slog as it’s completely ridiculously naive, but lacks the normal humor and entertainment that Slog posts have.
Wall Street is not a “thing”. Wall Street is incapable of performing an action and therefore is incapable of being held to any form of accountability. There were people who were on both sides of the financial equation that acted irresponsibly and illegally, but can we get away from the lazy finger pointing to some mythical entity called “Wall Street” and how it wronged us? You sound just as stupid as when politician talk about “Main Street”.
As for jobs, don’t you think that’s what people are trying to create? The large private corporations that you’re whining about are ultimately owned by their shareholders which are demanding returns on their investments. These people might be greedy and entitled, but that is certainly within their rights to be. You might want to understand the basics on macro economics (you’re insanely ignorant even for those who fall on more of the liberal end of the ME spectrum) before you complain about low interest rates and job displacement.
It wold have been nice to actually see an eloquent post on the root problems driving some of these issues instead of spouting off about nonsense that makes me feel like I’m listening to someone going to Seattle Central.
@17 I would like to be your friend.
You want change? You really want to bring the corporate state to heel? You’d better be willing to die for it. No, that’s not hype, that’s keeping it real. Look at Egypt (though they may end up being in a theocratic dictatorship before long) or Russia in 1917, or the social revolts in Europe in 1848, or Paris in 1789 or those crazy English colonies on the east coast of North America. When those revolutionaries swore to lay down their lives it wasn’t some sort of rhetorical flourish… They expected to be executed if they failed.
So you really want this corporate nightmare to stop? You’d better be able to put up REAL resistance because the corporate state will stop at NOTHING to keep their hands on the controls of state. Honestly, do you think some sort of Dr. King movement is going to bring the very basis of corporate power down or change it? Seriously? Allowing African Americans (at least on paper) equality didn’t cut into their corporate profits and the corporations kept their control of state. THIS movement is about a fundamental shift in how the country works that is equitable.
So if the protesters are serious then great but they better start putting up or shut up. As it is the Seattle protest was nothing more than a poorly run Boy Scout camp…TAKE SOME NOTES FROM THE NEW YORK BUNCH!! They’ve got the idea on how this is has to work.
The Federal Reserve caused the financial collapse. The government is the one who bailed out “Wall Street”. Why is it so hard to connect two synapses in a person’s brain? Protesting corporation control of government, while a good thing, doesn’t address the corrupt government behind the scenes.
Anyone who thinks building more infrastructure “creates jobs and wealth” needs to study some basic economics. How much wealth is created in knocking down an existing school and replacing it with a fancier school? How much wealth is created in the economy by building a bridge in the middle of nowhere?
The ignorance of the general public is embarassing. It’s no wonder that very little gets solved, very few people are even capable of putting together two logical thoughts.
I forgot, you protesters out there! Yeah, I’m lookin’ and YOU!! Get your hands on copies of works by John Locke and Thomas Paine and read them, memorize them. You need them in your head and in your hearts.
Seriously, If I go down to Westlake and don’t see copies of those books being read and devoured I’m going to kick your asses myself before the cops get to you!!
Dear editors–
Fairness and justice are feel-good slogans. Legislatively, they throw-away words. They are not policy.
This is policy:
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/10/0…
Says a lot about the protesters if you have to actually give them talking points.
A grievance is not a goal.
The substantive criticism of the Occupy Wall Street isn’t that the protests don’t have meaning or purpose, or that the protesters don’t have legitimate grievances.
The substantive criticism of the protest is that it doesn’t have even one concrete objective. Just one specific change in the world, no matter how small, that the protests aim to achieve.
You don’t get what you want if you don’t ask for it, and you have to ask for specifics, otherwise no-one will know how to give you what you want. Nobody knows how to give you abstract concepts like “Fairness” or “Justice”; you might as well be demanding “Civilization” or “Philosophy”.
The people who organized ad-hoc public transit in Montgomery wanted to be able to sit wherever they liked on the city bus. The people who attacked the police outside the Stonewall Inn wanted to be able to relax and enjoy a drink without the cops barging in on them. The people who occupied Tahrir Square wanted Mubarak ousted.
They all got what they wanted.
My suggestion would be to ask for an end to the practice of charging bank depositors for access their money, but congress already half-assed it, and it’s even been co-opted by bank advertising, so that one’s probably a few years too late.
“Tax 70% on income over one million” is a concrete demand I’d happily support. It’s class war, sure, but then we’re probably overdue for the protest chant, “This Is Class War! Whose Side Are You On?”
For those who don’t make it to the vid i linked above, here are the points:
1) Impose a financial transaction tax (a micro-tax on the sale of any stock, bond, etc). It dampens the speculative market. Basically, causes hedge funds to leak cash.
2) Eliminate the “carried interest” loophole. (Allows hedge funds to pay lower tax rates than people).
3) Raise the capital gains tax a bit. Leave it discounted, but not that discounted.
4) Increase financial regulation on banks.
Calling all designers in Seattle: Dunwich Type Foundry will give you fonts to design a poster, flyer, or sign that Occupy Wall Street protesters can use. http://www.dunwichtype.com/?p=1834
I think we should have so many regulations that they’re super confusing and basically unenforceable. Let’s regulate the shit out of everything, cause we all know that works real well.
@19, I would love to be your friend.
@26, I agree with all your points. How to achieve them? In congress. Not Westlake Mall.
The question I have for The Stranger writers who wrote this is pretty simple: did the protesters in Westlake make it more likely or less likely that Obama’s jobs bill makes it through congress? Or did they have no effect whatsoever?
Because if you can’t do even THAT, you can’t do diddly.
Excellent post.
@24: same thing has been noted about the Tea Party, and with them the trail leads directly to the Koch Bros, AEP and U.S. Chamber of Commerce…
of course when the left sort of does it, it is wrong, wrong, evil, bad and wrong. ’cause yay capitalism.
Spitballing specifics…
Fairness: Tax 70% of income over $1 million.
Justice: Finalize regulations called for by Dodd-Frank. Defend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Underwrite and fast-track principal reductions for under-water mortgages.
Jobs: Build infrastructure, fund highway, transit, and port modernizations. Invest in education, fully funding retraining for unemployed workers in relevant, modern skills.
and i’d venture, that this may be a thing that will prove to be more faceted than most of us realize now.
One of the things that is muddling the message is that when the protesters voice angst against “corporate America” – is that the middle class has jobs with the corporations the protesters are attacking and more often than not likes those jobs. Apple, Starbucks, Google, and Microsoft (good corps) are tossed in the mix of ExxonMobil, BP, Wal-Mart (bad corps) and seldom is the distinction made. Jobs are going overseas because it’s cheaper to produce the product overseas. We need to start demanding tariffs on Chinese goods and on other countries that play unfairly and harm the environment and having deplorable working conditions. The vilification of corporations is ineffective because it’s too broad, and is also rather sophomoric.
How many of these protestors are … building apartments for the homeless?
I’d wager most are just morons who spent beyond their means and when the piper came calling got pissed off. Most probably have no idea what they’re even protesting, I mean comments like “Wall Street caused the financial crisis” just proves that most don’t know shit about finances.
@34 Um, you do realize that increasing the cost of Chinese products would increase the prices everyone pays for … well … everything now, right? The only reason most products are made in China (even Microsoft’s discs) are because we are too strict on manufacturing here in the US.
seriously guys, read more. here’s an anarchist website called occupied london. its been around for years. this part of it is only about Greece. the greeks are way ahead of us and they make occupy wall street look like nothing. but you wouldn’t know that, would you, because you don’t care enough to figure out what’s happening in the world.
http://www.occupiedlondon.org/blog/
occupied london puts out a free magazine twice a year in an effort to combat the free daily newspapers in london that are like the stranger but worse. tides of flame, another anarchist newspaper, is doing a better job and putting it out twice a month.
http://www.tidesofflame.wordpress.com
The Wise Fnarf @ 17:
Thank you! If all this noise doesn’t produce that magical thing called VOTES for (a) change, it won’t do squat.
We keep electing the same folks time and time again (and that includes not voting), and somehow think things will be different. Basic common sense tells you that elected officials are not going to change if they keep getting re-elected. Start throwing out incumbents on both sides of the aisle, and you’ll see some movement.
P.S. Acting like Howard Beale and just yelling “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” makes for good pictures, but just gets you good news ratings in the end.
@34 – Apple does all of their manufacturing in China. Starbucks’ raw material comes from modern-day plantations. Google’s primary business is showing you different blinky ads based on the tracking data they collect while you read the interwebs. Microsoft would be out of business today without their core strategy of creating and maintaining monopolistic customer lock-in.
If you’ve got a personal formula for deciding whether a corporation is good or evil, more power to you, but please don’t assume everyone else is putting them all in the same baskets, or even dividing them up that way to begin with.
@35 – there’s also that “labor cost” thing, in addition to how the US is all “strict on manufacturing”.
Does anyone know what is going on tommorrow at occupy seattle as far as planned demonstrations or marches?
And until we stop running massive deficits — financed by China — we’ve got no leverage to impose tariffs. We’re gonna’ have to earn our way out of this hole, and at its very, very best the “Occupy” movement is naive, self-indulgent, parochial and hypocritical.
If you want to know the root of the housing crisis, don’t look to the Teabaggers. Look at the deliberate manipulation of the GSE’s by both Clintons and Obama (despite efforts by, ironically, McCain to regulate and contain Fannie and Freddie.)
Hillary (second only to Obama in campaign donations from the Freddie & Mannie) actively blocked regulation and reform, while Bill pursued the famous policy of “The National Homeownership Strategy: Partners in the American Dream” which included this gem in 1994:
“For many potential homebuyers, the lack of cash available to accumulate the required downpayment and closing costs is the major impediment to purchasing a home. Other households do not have sufficient available income to to make the monthly payments on mortgages financed at market interest rates for standard loan terms. Financing strategies, fueled by the creativity and resources of the private and public sectors, should address both of these financial barriers to homeownership.”
And look what happened:
http://theaffordablemortgagedepression.c…
@35: “Most probably have no idea what they’re even protesting, I mean comments like “Wall Street caused the financial crisis” just proves that most don’t know shit about finances.”
a derp and a sad meow? wtf is this really? just really pathetic kk.
again @24; see this about talking points.
from KittenKoder: “The only reason most products are made in China (even Microsoft’s discs) are because we are too strict on manufacturing here in the US.”
Free the Crusties!
@15: And this observation is worth mentioning because…?
I completely agree with the Stranger on this post. As for the We Want Jobs, well, keep the state liquor stores going. Nice posting, by the way.
@ 41, what role did that have in the field day of originating loans for their fees and then selling them as securities to other companies before they defaulted?
@47
You’re not going to make any headway with Zok. You’ve just encountered someone who hates The Bankers every bit as much as you do, if not more, but in a way that’s completely out of phase with your own Banker-hatred.
“Because if you can’t do even THAT, you can’t do diddly.”
Yes, forget about reinvigorating community or a sense of secular morality. They need to help Obama pass his the bone he threw to the base that he knew would have a snowball’s chance in hell of making it anywhere.
And you say you have no part in this country’s failure? Reasonable Liberals strike again!
@24 Focusing creative chaos is still worthwhile exercise. Look at how the fucking Republicans do their messaging. Talking points are what control the media’s perception of reality. It’s been fabulously successful for the Grover Norquist / Republican / Tea Party / Koch Brothers axis.
The “left,” if that’s what us centrist, pro-justice, reality-acknowledging, pro-science, supporters of rational-and-pragmatic-government types are called now, have a much more important message to deliver that’s relevant to a majority of our population, if we can just reach them. If it takes talking points, then fuck it, let’s make sure we have talking points, and stick to them!