Occupy the Oligarchy

iyraste1313 wrote:

..the target cannot be the oligarchs...as they are but the symptom of the system they created and controlled over the millenia...

Let's say for the sake of argument that we succeed in shutting down the pipelines and blocking expansion of the oilsands.

Do you think the oligarchs will just sit back and take it? They will make Canada scream for mercy through stock markets and other financial vehicles such as credit agencies. They will make us hurt until Canadians insist on pipelines to stop the pain.

Oligarchs are not the symptom of the system they created. It is logically impossible to be a symptom of something you created. Oligarchs created the system to serve themselves and it is working as intended.

Corporations are organizations through which oligarchs act. The tools used by oligarchs around the world differ but the guilt belongs to the oligarchs not the tools.

iyraste1313 wrote:

what unites us is that we are being screwed by a system, a financial system, a corporate controlled economic system..

Oligarchs are hiding behind these systems and they hold all the levers. They managed the crash of 2008 to ensure that they came out whole and taxpayers paid the price. The debate became about how to adjust the systems to better prevent financial breakdowns not how to overthrow it. The same people are in still in charge. Banks are still too big to fail.

iyraste1313 wrote:

No doubt the mass protests will erupt...but hopefully within an atmosphere of discussions over fundamentals; globalization vs. community and bioregional autonomy, corprate technology vs. human, community oriented appropriate technologies, and a political system based on integrity not the corrupting powers of money and their corporate controllers....ultimately bottom up grass roots politics vs. so easily corruptible hierarchal control, by the elites through their financial institutions, economic development corporations and their so called regulatory government agencies...

It's fine to hope but what makes you think that is even a possibility? Why wouldn't the oligarchs simply tweak the system? Placate the majority of protesters with some small improvements, flood the system with more money than usual, create a minimum income program and voila, no more mass protests.

What percentage of Canadians do you think are interested enough in politics to pay any attention to discussions over fundamentals?

The 2008 crash didn't result in neoliberalism suffering anything other than a tiny setback.

The environmental movement found the Achillies heel of the oil company in pipelines because locals all along pipelines are against them. National environmental groups worked to create/connect with the local movements to create a national movement and to promote fighting climate change as the target not just pipelines.

If the movement succeeds in stopping all pipelines in Canada, but the States approves Keystone, the demonstrations will shrink or end. I don't believe the majority of Canadians would fight Keystone.

Activists can all unite their movements but that doesn't mean they can inspire Canadians to unify and even if we unify it doesn't mean we will stay that way once the oligarchs begin punishing us. They can't do what Germany did to Greece but that doesn't mean they are helpless. They can can cause enough of an economic downturn to get the general public to back off and let the experts fix everything.

This... an atmosphere of discussions over fundamentals; globalization vs. community and bioregional autonomy, corprate technology vs. human, community oriented appropriate technologies, and a political system based on integrity not the corrupting powers of money and their corporate controllers....ultimately bottom up grass roots politics vs. so easily corruptible hierarchal control, by the elites through their financial institutions, economic development corporations and their so called regulatory government agencies...

...is not something most Canadians have any more than a passing interest in, if any at all, which is why we don't have any political parties campaigning from that perspective. 

Oligarchs did not go about trying to convert people to neoliberalism by discussing the philosophy and why it is better than socialism. They never denounced Keynesianism as a philosophy.

http://www.canadianprogressiveworld.com/2014/09/28/130-civil-society-org...

More than 130 civil society organizations on both sides of the Atlantic have reiterated their continuing rejection of the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement or CETA.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso signed the deal during an Canada-EU Summit in Ottawa on Friday. That’s after 5 years of secret negotiations....

The coalition said its statement was supported by “important social movements outside Canada and the EU, including Public Services International, a trade union federation of over 500 public sector unions in over 140 countries, the Citizens Trade Campaign, a wide coalition in the United States that contributed to stop fast track, and many organizations in South America that successfully blocked the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).” The group added that its opposition to CETA was “an additional step towards the greater articulation of social struggles on the free trade and investment regime, and its most recent expressions like the Transpacific Partnership (TPP), the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA).”

I don't see how more of the same is going to stop CETA or reverse it any time soon.

Mr. Magoo wrote:

So the original "Occupy" mostly occupied parks or other public spaces.

What shall "Occupy the Oligarchy" occupy?

It's a bit of a play on words. Instead of occupying physical space we would (eventually) be occupying them through opposition.

Mr. Magoo wrote:

I'm putting my tent back in the garage then.

You strike me as a realist.

I was completely shocked that Bush won a second term. How did he do it? Why do so many Americans support the right?

I concluded that public ignorance has allowed the right to blame the poor for everything instead of the oligarchs who are the real culprits.

Rightwing propaganda is a beautiful thing to behold if you don't think about it's purpose.

They have developed ideological arguments but that is not what they present to the public. They present ideas in a few words as possible.

"Right to work"

Who could be against that?

Right to keep the money you earn.

Sounds good to me.

Government is corrupt so we should privatize as much as possible.

A free marketplace keeps prices down through competition.

People who are willing to work get ahead.

Giving people money for nothing makes them lazy.

The number one issue people vote on is the economy.

The left is fighting all of this by trying to convince people we should fight climate change and oil companies are bad and we can have a green economy.

People are all, yeah, climate change is a huge problem, I wish governments would do something about it. If I'm not too busy maybe I will go to a demonstration.

Oh wait, Canada is only responsible for 2% of global emissions!  We aren't the problem!

Scientists will be able to do something, everyone is always claiming the sky is falling. Remember when they were saying we were running out of oil?

Or how about this conumdrum that the public doesn't seem to care about:

We needed tempoary workers because there aren't enough in Canada, but we must support business and keep taxes low so they will create more jobs.

I have to say I am surprised. If it were up to people here Occupy would not have happened because it was unnecessary given all the existing organizations we have + the NDP.

Either that, or it's usefulness is over, or you think it's dead. Or maybe it is just fatalism, you don't believe we can succeed so why bother trying?

If someone had linked to the call to occupy Wall Street when it was first announced and suggested we do it in Canada too a few members would insist it couldn't be done and/or wasn't needed and/or it wouldn't be any use and everyone would agree and that would be the end of that silliness.

So, I don't agree that it can't be done but I do agree that babble is an unlikely place to start anything. It's no wonder that it is students that usually start things. They believe they can make a radical difference and without that there really is no point in trying.

"If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat."

Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986)

So why bother?

wage zombie wrote:

Yet, you are arrogant when people try to explain things.

You don't believe you could possibly gain any meaningful knowledge from me. You are at least as arrogant as I am. You just think you are entitled to it and I am not.

wage zombie wrote:

You rail on and on about the oligarchs yet you are smitten with Justin Trudeau.

Must every thread be a bash Trudeau and supporters thead to satisfy you?

I'm interested in addressing the problem of global oligarchs and thinking about how to disempower them through appealing to the 99%.

What is your purpose in participating in this thread?

iyraste1313 wrote:

My point is to focus on the system itself, that the oligarchs most of whom benefit from, from time to time!

The system is an integrated whole consisting of its key players, the corporations especially the financials and a system of rules and regulations, all based on the logic of money, confidence and privatized credit creation....yes the stock market and its system of privatized money creation is a key one....

These are their weaponized tools. To destroy the weapons would also destroy our lives as we know them. Even if that would mean huge improvement within a decade the initial pain for the majority of people would be high, higher than most people appear willing to pay.

I think that is one lesson to be learned from Greece. No matter how badly the system has abused them, no matter that they know it is the elites of Greece and Europe that have destroyed their economy, they would still rather subject themselves to abuse of Europe than take the risk of separation from the Euro. They may even be right. It is easy for us to call Tsipras a traitor or a failure but he was right about one thing. He did not have a mandate to leave the euro. It's also easy to be critical of the people for not giving him one, but I suspect if Greece had dared to leave the Euro enormous powers would have been brought to bare to ensure abject failure or at least as much pain as possible before success could be achieved. Preparing humanitarian aid was a not so veiled threat.

iyraste1313 wrote:

These are the institutions that must be targetted! Boycott the corporations...invest your subsistemce income in the community alternatives...in global fairtrade alternatives! 

Boycotting is not harmful, it is even useful against some targets, but boycotting won't touch Dupont or Halliburton. All the alternatives being created are absolutely essential. We need the new model to transition to. The more established it is the easier it will be to expand it expotentially. There are individuals and institutions all over the world creating solutions.

iyraste1313 wrote:

yes they will make Canadians scream....so precisely why we must build an alternative bottom up community based alternative...perhaps marginal at first...but will accelerate in growth as the system continues to fail into collapse...

Look at Greece and even the States. Collapse doesn't necessarily result in revolution.

iyraste1313 wrote:

if we don't have such a system in place when the collapse date happens (stock market crash, real estate bubble burst, ad nauseum...) (October?)...we will be under a horrific martial law with C-51 as our official constitution

C-51 will never be our official constitution. It will be contested in the courts and our courts have proven to be quite robust in that regard. The courts are also being used to challenge the government's right to be borrowing from private banks and paying interest which is against the best interests of Canadians.

The collapses will happen but that doesn't mean people will be willing to risk whatever they have left to transition to a radically new system.

The situation in Quebec is instructive. The corruption is so deep and endemic that people thought it was normal business practice. 30% higher prices for payoffs isn't exactly subtle. In Montreal we were asked in an online referendum if we were willing to give the same asphalt contractor who had supplied us with subpar product new contracts. We voted no. They still got hired because there were no other companies available. They had a monopoly. I think they should have been told they would get no contracts and been given an opportunity to sell their plants to the employees who had not been involved in the corruption. The government could have sponsored co-op development.

I don't think it will be possible to have as sudden and severe a rupture as revolutions have caused in the past in ostensibly democratic countries under capitialism especially in the wealthier countries like Canada.

The alternative is to have a fast (50yrs?) but orderly transition based on changed priorities driven not by allegience to a particular party or leaders but through understanding how we are being screwed over and by whom. How planned obsolescene, manufactured scarcity and charging what the market can be forced to bear rather than by the value of goods robs us and fattens the coffers of oligarchs.

We don't have a common currency with the US, but we do have NAFTA and we do have the North American Security Perimeter. What do you think would happen if we try to get out of those?

There are gazillions of solutions that would allow us to live in harmony with each other and with the Earth with all our needs provided for and more with no net degration of lifestyle for the 99%. They are spreading at a glacial pace. Who is in the way?

Mr. Magoo wrote:

Quote:

We certainly do and as this is brainstorming I am certainly willing to listen to your argument that we should target the 1% rather than just the oligarchs.

I wasn't actually arguing that.  Just making the point that the 99% already outnumber the 1%.  Outside of, say, Monaco, I think the poor outnumber the rich anywhere you go.  We don't need to define the 0.01% in order to outnumber them.

Quote:

I don't know much about the French Revolution but I think they just targeted aristocrats not the merchants that grew wealthy off them.

Guillotines were slow and inefficient.

Hmm, well this person seems to agree with you.I don't agree with everything in this article but there are some good points.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/revolt-of-the-rich/

Since the first ziggurats rose in ancient Babylonia, the so-called forces of order, stability, and tradition have feared a revolt from below. Beginning with Edmund Burke and Joseph de Maistre after the French Revolution, a whole genre of political writings—some classical liberal, some conservative, some reactionary—has propounded this theme. The title of Ortega y Gasset’s most famous work, The Revolt of the Masses, tells us something about the mental atmosphere of this literature.

But in globalized postmodern America, what if this whole vision about where order, stability, and a tolerable framework for governance come from, and who threatens those values, is inverted? What if Christopher Lasch came closer to the truth in The Revolt of the Elites, wherein he wrote, “In our time, the chief threat seems to come from those at the top of the social hierarchy, not the masses”? Lasch held that the elites—by which he meant not just the super-wealthy but also their managerial coat holders and professional apologists—were undermining the country’s promise as a constitutional republic with their prehensile greed, their asocial cultural values, and their absence of civic responsibility.

Lasch wrote that in 1995. Now, almost two decades later, the super-rich have achieved escape velocity from the gravitational pull of the very society they rule over. They have seceded from America.

mark_alfred wrote:

Pondering wrote:

The 1% really isn't our target. Our target is a much smaller group of people. So small that we easily out number them and their minions in every country. This is a class war but we aren't up against the middle class, or the upper class, or the merely wealthy. It is a subset of the uber-rich. We can't fight an enemy that doesn't have a name.

Here are the names:

......

So, once we round up these enemy oligarchs, what do we do with them?

I don't think there is any need to "round them up" or do anything at all to them in order to disempower them but all ideas are are worth putting out there during brainstorming.

At least theoretically in a democracy oligarchs can be overthrown without violent revolt.

http://rabble.ca/comment/1516762#comment-1516762 From post 816

socialdemocraticmiddle wrote:

There's an addage in American politics repeated by everyone left and right: if you're explaining, you're losing.

Not just for political parties either, for any attempt to influence the masses.