Thank you shedding-light.

Thank you shedding-light. Very good suggestions. Maybe these could take the form of neighborhood assembles. I understand these are happening in Spain right now.

One disagreement. Her views -

One disagreement. Her views - and those of the CP of Chile are not "far left". They are no much different from what social democracy used to be before it threw in the towel and opted for neo-liberalism. The real far left in Chile are the anarchists and their student group the Frente de Estudiantes Libertarios (FEL) which as groups all throughout the country. See http://www.fel-chile.org/

Democracy is The Key...

"I would like to suggest that most of those who show up to or support these Occupy demonstrations are looking for a practical way to participate in genuine self-governance. There is no formal infrastructure in current 'democracies' anywhere in the world, as far as I know, to allow citizens a continuous and meaningful experience of self-governance. As a result we have lost cohesion and connection within our communities, and we need to re-establish the commons and effective face-to-face communication with each other. The political party system has added to this problem, rather than providing a solution, by encouraging divisive factions and win-lose strategies instead of cooperative ones." shedding light.

I absolutely love this piece of yours, sheddng-light. I suspect, if this movement is successful in this time, your idea itself just may find a home. I kind of suspect too, that this is the kind of direction in which it all needs to move. Though we are going to have one hell of a fight to get there.

Though I also agree with anarcho about "charismatic leaders". This is the last goddamn thing we need. Too much betrayal from this kind of notion has already occurred across working class history. What we really need is the people in motion, engaged, taking responsibility for themselves and their communities, and organized in a profoundly democratic "power arrangement", wherein they are not dependant on "good intentioned" charismatic leaders. Indeed, "Down With Charismatic Leaders!"

Occupy, I think, has started out on a good foundation. First: opposition to the "Corporate State", Secondly: concensus building and all in General Assembly decision making. There is no confusion of goals or organization, as the corporate media and State would have us believe. Thus far at least, it is a broad based People's Power that is being built. It is they, the enemies of this movement that would have us tie ourselves to "charismatic leaders", whom they could then work to intimidate and corrupt, and who would "tell us" what we stand for.

Uh uh. This is a new time, a new movement, and a new revolution being built. Be careful who you hand your power and decision making authority off to. It is yours. Hang onto it jealously. Don't be persuaded to hand it off to ANY "charismatic leader." That is the road to treachery and betrayal.

You are sovereign, even while in a co-operative movement with your fellow 99% citizens. Real democracy is the key to this, at every level of society and the economy.

shedding_light - re: formal structure

QUOTE:

There is no formal infrastructure in current democracies' anywhere in the world, as far as I know, to allow citizens a continuous and meaningful experience of self-governance.

~ shedding_light

First, I absolutely agree with the tenor of your post. We need democracy at all levels of society, sharing a vision of a society we truly want to live in.

As for formal, meaningful democratic structures elsewhere, they do exist in pockets in South America. Here is a quote from Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine* (2007) [pdf link]:

Despite the overwhelming cult of personality surrounding Chavez, and his moves to centralize power atthe state level, the progressive networks in Venezuela are at the same time highly decentralized, with power dispersed at the grass roots and community level, through thousands of neighborhood councils and co-ops.

In Bolivia, the indigenous people's movements that put Morales in office function sim­ilarly and have made it clear that Morales does not have their unconditional support: the barrios will back him as long as he stays true to his democratic mandate, and not a moment longer. This kind of network approach is what allowed Chavez to survive the 2002 coup attempt

If one is unfamiliar with the details of the coup -- such as the contemporaneous lies made by Western/US governments about what was actually going on in order to further its corporatist agenda, thus further illustrating our western government's contempt for democracy itself -- an Irish film crew on the scene at the time made a documentary called The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (2002)

* an absolute must read

(continued below)

continued from above

Where we will wind up from here by any date I haven't a clue. My fear is Canadian's are unable to think beyond the capitalist paradigm. The furthest we able to ponder, at large, is a sort of welfare-state capitalism, which is easy for the propaganda to rail against as theft from the contributors.

I think it could be helpful to brainstorm a rough draft of a manifesto. Nothing new, just a sort of compass to direct our thinking:

At the base must be full employment; sustainable economic development planning integrated with cooperatives, diversified trading partners with no alliances with anyone, desist the standing military, abandon NATO, free education and health care for all, the end of private monopolies and oligopolies in Canada, land reforms (eg, nobody can own more than 100 acres), limits on individual wealth, and a strong and sovereign central banking system come to mind.

Truth is, this Marxist-socialist sort of thinking is shunned by people at large. And if people cannot even allow it into their indoctrinated heads, we will have a weak compromise at best. And this compromise will again be drowned by the forces of accumulated wealth and power as they always are in our country.

Of course, if we could find the desire to carve out a peaceful, fulfilling society, it would not come easy. No doubt there would be a backlash from foreign banks and the USA, to start. Heck, the USA might even contemplate an invasion to free us from ourselves. But I think that would be at a very heavy price to them, as the international blow-back might be enough to bring the Empire itself into jeopardy.

It really boils down to whether we want to be an intelligent, sovereign nation providing an exemplary example to the world of what life can be, or is we desire to continue our life-long role as lick-spittle to Empire?

Just a bit of pondering ... :)

I am not so sure "We don't need a charismatic leader"

We are rudderless and all at sea, morally and economically. Camila Vallejo would be preferable to Stephen Baird, John Kent or Peter Harper. Changing the names around emphasises their sad, mediocre interchangeability.

YES! we need a leader!

The sad fact is that very few people vote for principles!

They all look for some charasmatic leader to look up to--- even if all he/she has is style!

It is unfortunate that people cannot think for themselves, but seeing how people change political preferences according to who happens to come across the best on TV, proves my point!

Some people, alive!

Some people need a leader, true - the sheeple we will always have. But neither the Occupy folks or their supporters (running anywhere from 59 to 70% of the population by the polls) seem to care about leaders. This is a DIY revolt.

Leader or Lighthouse?

A Leader marching around in the dark, or someone carrying a lamp so we all can see?

I know what I prefer.

Kreditanstalt

"EVERYBODY wants more money. The protestors simply don't understand basic economics.."

I always read your criticisms of the Left but you never put forth your own ideas. I'd be interested in hearing your solution to the problems the protesters are giving voice to.

Tear down tents

As blathering Bill stated one morning Gregor has some splaining to do because those rich people in the hotel don't like looking at poor people. Now NW is inciting the police to tear down the tents and rough up the protesters . At least that is the impression they give.

Camila Vallejo or Camilla Parker-Bowles?

Prince Charles got it wrong again!

Camila Vallejo is the kind of girl that makes one think of crawling ten miles through barbed wire on your belly just to see her smile.

Camilla Parker-Bowles is the kind of woman who makes you want throw up.

The Sheeple and The People...

"Where we will wind up from here by any date I haven't a clue. My fear is Canadian's are unable to think beyond the capitalist paradigm. The furthest we able to ponder, at large, is a sort of welfare-state capitalism, which is easy for the propaganda to rail against as theft from the contributors." Igbymac

Legitimate fears, of course. And a good programmatic analysis overall. But like Anarcho says, the "sheeple" are NOT the entire story. Even the lowest class orders I live within, as my sea, have a better understanding of the real state of this society and what it is going to take to change it, than many, certainly most of the upper "professional" middle class tend to grant them. Indeed, there are probably more "illusions" about capitalism and "misidentification" at this latter "relatively privileged/educated" strata/class level of the 99%, in my experience. Seen here on Tyee, one finds it here all the time.

Again though, as for "charismatic leaders", leaders "can" unify and are likely going to be needed to some degree... tightly controlled, with rules in place that allow for their speedy removal, and ever required to secure and submit to profoundly democratic decision making structures, where the real power is at the bottom. But mostly, it is "the people" that must be organized and empowered as the centrepiece of the new democratic and "co-operative" political and economic culture. This latter is the pivot, in my view, around which all else must move, and to which it must be tethered. (Which is not to say, that this will not be an imperfect learning curve process for the masses, over which some additional bitter lessons may have to be learned, about the nature of real power and its tendency to corrupt, the importance of vigilance, and a speedy and decisive response to corruption and betrayal. (For ruling class dominated societies across "civilized" history have treated "the people" as "children" for a very long time... which leaves its mark, no doubt.)

BUT still, the Sheeple are NOT the People... who are in their greatest number more complex, with a better understanding and capacity to learn than this negative characterization.

Frank, some thoughts...

MY fear is that Canadians are unable to think beyond the entitlement paradigm. They seem to have NO understanding of where real wealth comes from, or why it is not simply the same thing as "more money!"

And their leaders are completely inside-the-box types...

PRINT! You beggars...

As I write this, gold is trading again at over US$1,700/oz. Japan will now start printing yen. The U.S. and Canada, like every other Western nation, issue new debt DAILY in an effort to continue their insane spending on bailouts, subsidies, social programs, the military and their growing surveillance states. The end caan't come soon enough.

BUT...this is a crisis of the welfare state, the mixed economy. NOT of "capitalism"...such vestiges as we still have.

Wealth production has been discouraged, taxed, and demonized at every turn for too long. Why start a business in B.C.? Simple example: here in Port Alberni, there are signs on unleased storefronts LIMITING what kind of business activity a lessee can engage in! Why bother? And there's NO return on fixed income either, courtesy of the Bank of Canada and their paper emissions we are forced to call "money".

My easier to speculate...which is what bankers and governments WANT us to do. Bid up risk assets! I'm a proud two-day holder of Taseko Mines, Kinross Gold and some junior resource companies. But two or three days tops...

I'll be the first to admit this is not "investing". But it is a necessity.

What should we do, you ask? Not that anyone is ready for this, but:

We need major cuts in government spending and payrolls. We should simultaneously reduce personal income taxes, business taxes and property taxes and cut programs and spending correspondingly. To save public money, city, provincial and federal employees' jobs should be forcibly put out to tender and contracts renewable year-to-year.

The Bank of Canada should be abolished and the commercial banks made to sink or swim. Interest rates should be thus left to market forces, in order to make housing affordable. Legal tender laws should be repealed and a free market in money allowed.

With productivity in the ditch long-term, government borrowing should end. Pay as you go.

We need entrepreneurship! Let's deregulate life: free up zoning regulations, business licenses and building permits. Allow people to live in their business premises and to run home-based businesses free of taxation or harrassment. Allow all kinds of vending, roadside selling, backyard chickens, in-law suites, B&Bs, market gardens, open liquor sales, tax-free private sales and end any and all legal requirements to force people to buy insurance, be it business, home, medical, dental...

Canadians ~ worshipping guarantees, insurance, security and reliability, even if it doesn't exist in the real world ~ DON'T like change. So, wish me luck...!

Jerry Munro

QUOTE: "there are probably more "illusions" about capitalism and "misidentification" at this latter "relatively privileged/educated" strata/class level of the 99%, in my experience."

How could it be any other way? Capitalism starts outwardly devouring the people from the bottom of its food chain on up. The peons getting shat on know it is a bum deal out of the gate. Further up, those making white collar, professional money don't tend to see the systemic problem for all the usual reasons.

Kreditanstalt, QUOTE "this is a crisis of the welfare state, the mixed economy. NOT of "capitalism".

I could hardly disagree more. The problem IS the last forty year drive toward unfettered, free market capitalism. The evidence is overwhelming. Of course the libertarian view is it just isn't free enough, erroneously thinking freedom for people entails them being free to do what they want in the marketplace, and that the state can exist in some mysterious manner without any involvement in the market. Their philosophy of free market converges with the corporatists but for different reasons. But the result is the same, much like both communism and capitalism merge into fascism.

Kreditanstalt, Capitalism and The State...

Capitalism from the beginning understood the importance of its control of the State... from right out of the gate of the 17th century Cromwellian Revolution that, over a tortured history saw it finally overcome the resistance of and ultimately replace the power of the old nobility/monarchist order. Which revolutionary victory for the mercantile/nascent industrial capitalist class enables it in due course to carry through its great Industrial Revolution. While capitalism from its infancy has out of one side its mouth decried "state interferences" in business and the unfettered pursuit of "profit" theft, nonetheless never hesitated to use the State to "enclose" the land from the peasantry, forcing them into the cities to become their industrial working class, as well to use it to protect their "free market activity" from the organizing and resistance actions of the working class, and to put it forcibly down where and as necessary.

Capitalism has always needed and used the State to stand in between it and the working class, and to help it control the latter. Later of course, to use it to underwrite the cost and guarantee the profits of the great infrastructure projects of canal, railroad building ad infinitum down to the present. The likes of Kreditanstalt are the hypocritical face of capitalism, advocating for their much vaunted bullshit "free market" while at the same time ensuring that the State has in place, laws and the police authority necessary to limit, restrict and where it can, roll back and prevent the working class exercising its "freedom" to organize and get the best price for its labour etc. But then Kreditanstalt and his ilk are "the enemy". I and we all of the 99% need to expect and understand that... and to organize and by any means be prepared to fight them and overwhelm them. It's as simple as that to me.

I'm not interested in a debate with these folks, anymore than they really are me. We know and understand each other very well.

Evidently it's "Post-Occupy"

Evidently it's "Post-Occupy" in Oakland, California.............

The big picture is not pretty.

Wealth generation - and rising standards of living - are just not happening. You're right - it's not about "money"; it's about productivity.

How do you measure that? Not in inflated phony dollars, please...all one needs do is look around and see the octopus of government spending taxing, regulating and sucking the life out of the wealth-generating, employing, innovating entrepreneur and businessowner. All six of them remaining... We, pulling out hair out about the inequality of life, waste fortunes on doomed-to-fail social engineering attempts.

Ah, that age-old belief that the economy is a man-made construct that can be tinkered with and tuned like an engine!

We're not productive because our prices are too high. Our wages are too high. We're unaffordable. Many things Western nations produce cost 3, 4, or 10x what they cost in economies featuring lower, more reasonable standards of living. Standards more in tune with their productivity levels.

We're not productive because we have too many government employees, too many entitlement-dependent tax eaters (INCLUDING "big corporations"), too many real estate agents, bankers, retailers, clerks, secretaries, cashiers, baristas, bartenders, maids, receptionists, salesmen, insurance agents, lawyers, lobbyists...

...and not enough farmers, fishermen, loggers, manufacturers, miners, repairmen, plumbers, pipefitters, welders, electricians and builders.

We're not productive because we PAY people who fail. We reward the unemployed. We reward failing banks. We reward failing bankers. We reward high-cost local farmers. We reward high-cost manufacturers. We reward, via mandatory health insurance schemes, those who do not take responsibility for their own health. We reward single mothers with other people's money. We reward (handsomely!) government employees who retire early. We subsidize mortgage-holders. We subsidize students studying "history of film", "art history", clothing design and who-knows-what...

We reward consumers. But not producers. We subsidize high wages through "minimum wages". But we punish, punish and punish again capital formation - saving.

This isn't "capitalism". It's socialism - for the rich, the poor, the masses, the bankers. So don't joke that Western nations are "productive". Just walk down any street.

Kreditanstalt

QUOTE: "You're right - it's not about "money"; it's about productivity."

Yes, we all know productivity and efficiency are the rallying calls of capitalism.

So whose buying all your productivity when the jobs are all performed by machines and robots? The super-consumer class at the top like now? Those guarded behind their fortressed walls living in decadent luxury on the spoils of their deviously created security state? It surely isn't going to be the non-working crowd rotting outside the barricade.

Your ideal economic model is found currently in Baghdad. Try to follow your own thinking a little further along, beyond the talking points you've been convinced to believe and which you consider need no further scrutiny.

Can you not see that the guy who produces nothing extra and just manages to live on his little plot of land is worth nothing in your economic paradigm? Do no bells go off inside your head at all considering this? Sometimes one could point out the sky and others still wouldn't see it.

Kreditanstalt

Thanks for responding. Wow, so Harper is a Lefty compared to you eh?

Not sure why you give capitalism a pass because I think without government the level of crime and general unrest would be unreal under your system.

To Credit Kreditanstalt:

He is saying we live in a consumer society, and not a producer society.

Perhaps the OWS movement is saying we shouldn't be consumers anymore. Now wouldn't THAT put a crimp in the 1%!

I don't think they are so different, Frank

Harper and Kreditanstalt are on the exact same page when it comes to economic ideology. Their mutual strategies are directly out of the Chicago School of Economics playbook: privatize, deregulate and cut (especially social) spending.

"We need major cuts in government spending and payrolls" CUT SPENDING

"We should simultaneously reduce personal income taxes, business taxes and property taxes and cut programs and spending correspondingly" CUT SPENDING

"To save public money, city, provincial and federal employees' jobs should be forcibly put out to tender and contracts renewable year-to-year" PRIVATIZE.

"The Bank of Canada should be abolished and the commercial banks made to sink or swim." PRIVATIZE

"We need entrepreneurship!" PRIVATIZE

"Let's deregulate life: free up zoning regulations, business licenses and building permits" DEREGULATE

This is the laissez faire economic philosophy Ed Deak talks about being taught in universities as the gospel. This has been on the table since Milton Friedman taught his disciples at Chicago in the 1950s, and lectured about by Dean Clarence Manion, the Godfather of the neocons.

This thinking has permeated nearly the entire western business mentality, and it is entrenched in political thinking as one way of administering capitalism. Unfortunately, all capitalists like to toy with it at some level because it sounds right. It plays off of the word 'freedom' -- something everybody loves -- and applies it to entities called corporations. It bastardized the language for its own purposes, and few notice.

It the end, it is a formula for social disaster. It's history starts with the coup against Allende in Chili in 1973. Later it was implemented in Indonesia, Poland, South Africa, Israel, Poland, Bolivia, Russia, Venezuela, Brazil and many other nations I cannot cite off the top of my head. It now takes root in the 'freedom' projects going on in Baghdad and Libya.

One only need look and compare our national and provincial economic tactics with this thinking and, Voila! it becomes clear that our Canadian governments are well on the way to destroying our nation through conservatism.

Read either Thomas Frank's "The Wrecking Crew" or Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine", or both since they compliment each other well. A thousand pages later, a reader will get a pretty good idea of how conservatism has been tearing our world apart the last half century or so.

igbymac

Since you're here, our argument has been bothering me. I wish to sincerely apologize for my childish comments towards you.

the politics of money

I'm not sure when politicians began using the "economy" to justify almost every action or inaction. We must do this, it's good for the economy; we musn't do that, it will hurt the economy.

Clearly, they really don't know, and spend most of their time engaged in actions that benefit themselves or their business buddies.

Even the most fundamental economic tenet - staying out of debt, is ignored when it's inconvenient. Taxation is out of control while all levels of government increase spending and debt.

The "occupy movement" could do well to focus on the failure of the capitalist economy - the signs are everywhere. In his appearance before US Congessional hearings, former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan was "publicly questioning the philosophy that guided him throughout his years as the world's most powerful economic policymaker".
He said was "was wrong to think financial markets could police themselves. He incorrectly had expected the discipline of the market would prevent financial institutions from taking life-threatening risks".

Here is the reference from which those quotes were taken:
http://articles.sfgate.com/2008-10-24/business/17135182_1_economic-policymaker-financial-system-fed-chairman"

And after handing them a trillion or so taxpayer dollars, I don't believe much has changed in the US or in Canada. In one of their quarterly financial statements around the 2008 financial crisis, the Bank of Nova Scotia took a 500 million dollar writedown due to their exposure to Lehman Brothers.

Of course the one percent want us to believe their mantra about the destruction of the world should the banking system fail. Change is difficult, but it must happen. Hopefully more citizens will replace apathy and fear with action.

I appreciate Crawford's pointers to parts of the world where such action has begun.

forget about it, Frank

...I'm just hoping you aren't Irish.

Revenge of the Self-Entitled

The Vancouver occupied movement is just a convenient gathering of self-entitled whiners who fail to understand the issues and cannot come up with a focussed and defined set of demands.

Worst of all, Canadians are way better off than the Americans so the Vancouver movement is just an opportunistic gathering, a chance for local malcontents to get in the face of downtown employees. And that's what the Vancouver protesters and homeless just love to do- flaunt their poverty and get in everyone's face like society owes them a living, more money and a place to live.

Luckily they are blessed with a foolish mayor who doesn't send in the police to clear up this eyesore downtown. Occupy is accomplishing nothing.

You can't even identify who are the evil banks and corporations. And you don't even understand that they employ thousands of people who unlike the Occupy protesters value their jobs.

You need big and profitable banks to withstand today's problems- like it or not. None of you could even begin to propose a system that works better than today's banking regime. Alot of the protest is motivated by jealousy and envy rather than social justice.

fake numbers

Once again - and again - we have that fake, arbitrary number, "the 99 per cent", with its dishonest suggestion of mathematical accuracy. One might as well take "the 73 per cent" or the equally worthless "the 54 per cent". This capriciously chosen number, "the 99 per cent" is a worthless as "laissez-faire", a phrase coined in the 18th century to describe an economic regime that specifically did not exist (not then and not now(.