Earlier today, I wrote a long article proposing that we unite under an OCCUPATION PARTY and that, through our combined party, we will be bigger than the Tea Party, and perhaps even bigger than the Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee parties of the Dems and Libs. So far, I have received an overall, very positive response.
Now, granted, the political infrastructure needed for a new party can be daunting, however, we already have OCCUPIES in most major cities in THIS country and many throughout the world.
Now, if we have a party, we must have a platform, and indeed, OWS has been working on their platform for a bit. What we will also need are CANDIDATES. We will need people who are dedicated enough to suffer the slings and arrows of campaigning.
Now, we have folks who have braved snow, ice, rain, batons, pepper spray and I believe that we should be able to find people courageous enough to suffer photo ops, sound bytes, and answering questions. Now, some will say, it’s crazy to start people thinking about being a candidate for a party not fully in place, however,
we want to have as many elements in place as possible, and I think that the easiest thing is to have local candidates running for the position of MAYOR. Certainly, I believe that in places like Oakland, San Diego, Los Angeles, and New York, there must be folks who are willing to run, with the backing of a huge percent of the population who may be supportive of the Occupy message, to possibly overthrow the same Mayor who ordered the police to attack and brutalize their Occupy.
So, Mayors would be the easiest, but, there are also other local / municipal offices, as well as State offices, even Governors.
We may be like Diogenes with our lamp looking for one honest man or woman who supports the Occupy ideals, but it is a search worth being part of I believe.
December 2011
40 posts
November 2011
105 posts
“I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world. I have my own State Department, much to Foggy Bottom’s annoyance. We have the United Nations in New York, and so we have an entree into the diplomatic world that Washington does not have,” Mayor Bloomberg said.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/69422.html#ixzz1fEEL59t4
And about that time..the Duke boys showed up to foul up Mayor Boss Hogg’s plans.
http://youtu.be/zRX4mlFi06A
http://occupythis.wikispaces.com/file/view/Bunker.pdf/280725900/Bunker.pdf
I really appreciate the kind words of support, and also those who have questions. Do I have all the answers ? No. Are my ideas carved in stone ? No. But, do I seriously have a sense of urgency that we need to make fundamental changes through legal and proper means to our government through electing our OWN candidates who are not bought and paid for by corporations ? YES I DO. So, if you agree, please start talking to fellow Occupy supporters. Time to quit being beaten, sprayed, arrested for legal actions of exercising first amendment rights. Time to change starts NOW !
http://www.salon.com/2011/11/30/occupy_protesters_branded_with_uv_ink/
If you read the article, it is not merely a blacklight UV marker, but invades the skin to some degrees as there as a metallic scracthing to leave the dye below the surface.
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WEDNESDAY, NOV 30, 2011 12:12 PM CENTRAL STANDARD TIME Occupy protesters “branded” with UV ink
Montreal police borrow tactic from club bouncers to stop protesters from returning to public square
An Occupy Montreal protester’s hand is shown under UV light after being marked by police. (Credit: Nina Haigh/Facebook)
TOPICS:OCCUPY MONTREAL, LAW ENFORCEMENT
Occupy protesters in Montreal were dismayed to find they had been marked by police with a special ink that is only visible in UV light after being arrested during a raidof Victoria Square Friday.
Police told CTV Montreal they borrowed the technique from bouncers at clubs and bars and it is meant to mark protesters who might return to the square.
But they apparently weren’t so forthcoming with at least one protester.
“They wrote on my hand with a permanent marker and then after I felt something pointy and metallic scraping across my skin,” wrote protester Nina Haigh on Facebook
http://matthewf.net/ The Matthew Filipowicz Show
Check out the Stitcher app for iPhone and Droid http://www.stitcher.com/download.php Stitcher app is free and cool, for streaming lots of good content like the Matt Filipowicz Show
“When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”
~Edmund Burke
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We live in perilous times. We WERE living hand to mouth, paycheck to paycheck, barely making ends meet, now, seemingly, no matter how hard we struggle, the ends don’t want to meet any longer. Unemployment grows, more businesses are laying off people, costs of everything from milk to gasoline is rising out of sight, and amid all this, the uber rich live lives of obscene extravagance.
Those of us who ARE in the streets trying to bring attention, are staring at Riot Cops with helmets, shields, and a battery of weapons, itching to do battle against the people who pay their salaries. We have seen Tony Baloney violate the rights of women and not be punished, Lt. John Pike III drench peaceful students in pepper spray and essentially get a mini paid vacation for doing it, seen Kayvan Sabeghi beaten by Oakland cops with batons at the station til they lacerated his liver and delayed him getting medical attention, and of course, seen Scott Olsen almost get killed in Oakland.
I used to be a Democrat. I was a Democrat because I was locked into the “Left and Right” Paradigm, and of the two, obviously the Democratic party seemed more sympathetic to the problems of the working man. But now, it has become clear to me that both Dems and Republicans are bought and owned by the same corporate masters.
I have two young granddaughters and for THEIR protection if for nothing else, I have to do something to change things. In my almost six decades of life, since I first encountered bullies, I have been interested in self defense. For that reason, I got into martial arts, and later, since I realized that one needs to know the law a bit for self defense there, learned a bit of law. But now, the need for self defense is on a larger scale, and for the first time in my life, I see the VOTE as an act of self defense.
I look around and see my Brothers and Sisters being pepper sprayed, beaten, shot with rubber bullets and bean bags, sound cannons used on them, flashbangs, and all for WHAT…for simply and PEACEFULLY exercising their first amendment protected speech and right to peacefully assemble for redress of grievances.
I watched an interview (post-arrest) with the retired Philadelphia police captain and when asked about the brutal tactics of police, he was clear that the message on how to handle protesters flows from the Mayor to Police Chief to White Shirts / Sheriffs / beat cops. Thus, ultimately, the Mayor of each city sets the tone for how poorly or how well, our Brothers and Sisters are treated.
Imagine that, instead of Quan, Bloomberg, and the rest, we voted in our OWN mayors, our OWN governors, our OWN senators, and yes, our OWN president, and by OUR, I mean the 99percent, the Occupiers, the good, honest people in this country.
We have the opportunity to do something unprecedented. We have Occupiers in not only most if not all major cities, but also in foreign countries. We have the chance to start an international OCCUPATION party that has the potential to make changes not just in our country, but in the world.
Now, some of the younger folks in Occupy have been reluctant, saying that if we have our own candidates, they will also become just another politician and corrupted. In ANY endeavor, there is the chance for failure, but there is an equal chance for success, and to refuse to TRY because one might fail, would have doomed ALL of the advancements in human history.
There are those who want to tear it all down and start from scratch. We do not have time for that. We need change now, and honestly, since most folks, most supporters are non-violent, some sort of grass roots, rifles against the firepower of the US military is doomed to fail. We have a vehicle that is not working, but to make it work, we do not have to reinvent vehicles starting by reinventing the wheel. We need to get our feet in the door and start initiating change NOW.
Some have talked about calling it the Pirate Party or patterning it after the Pirate Party. For those who don’t know about the Pirate Party, here’s more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party_(Sweden).
I respect the work the Pirate Party has done, and my reservation is based on semantics. Just the name would open us up to attacks and mischaracterizations we don’t need.
I like the name “Occupation Party” better and here are a few reasons why. America is and has always been a country which stresses hard work and the ‘dream’ that if you just work hard enough, you can do anything. The term “occupation” is something associated with ones job, ones work, what one does for a living, and yet, also has enough of a semblance to “OCCUPY” to indicate that the Occupy Movement is our root, is where we come from and what we support.
This is not a past time, not a twitter topic, this is our future we are dealing with. If you have environmental concerns, you should be involved. If you are gay, atheist, a down and out unemployed person, civil rights activist, teacher, nurse, lawyer, doctor, machinist, or any of a thousand other groups, OCCUPATION should be YOUR party.
I oppose someone getting into office by promising they will do this or that, or will NOT do this or that, and then, breaking their pledge and thumbing their nose at us by saying, I’ve got the job for four years, so screw you. I consider pledging to DO something (not try, but promising to DO it) and not doing it once you have a job, fraudulent. One can promise to try, and that is different.
We are bigger in numbers than the Tea Party. The youth today, the baby boomers, the elderly, are under attack if they are part of the 99 percent. There are young people getting out of school with enormous debts, debts that will not be erased under a bankruptcy, and cannot get a job, and are having to move back in with parents who themselves may be facing foreclosures.
There are many of you with serious health issues who have no insurance, and who themselves may be facing eviction from your house because of medical bills and the inability to pay.
I personally feel the pain of people who are ill with cancer, facing being thrown out of their houses, of people who must choose between buying medicine or pay their electrical bill.
Increasingly, the people who fought for this country, the Veterans, are having to live on the street. Austin Texas, my old home, has one of the largest populations of homeless Veterans in this country.
And, while all of this misery is going on, CEOs, even those who have driven their own companies into bankruptcy, get millions, get bonuses for failing miserably, and smirk all the way to the bank, laughing at the poor and unfortunate. And, we have become aware of sweetheart, hidden deals in which the Fed has made billions available to these fat cats.
We are headed for doom my brothers and sisters. We are seeing a neo-feudal state established where the 1%, the banksters, the hedgefund managers, the uber rich like Mike Bloomberg, like those at Goldman Sachs, such as Lloyd Blankfein, a few extremely, obscenely rich control vast amounts of the money in this country, while the 99 percent fight for the crumbs from their tables. The “trickle down” economic model is just them peeing on us and telling us it is raining.
Well, this man is saying ENOUGH. I’ve had it. No more fracking, no more
credit default swaps, no more “securitization”, no more derivatives. We must RE-INSTATE Glass-Steagall. We must get rid of this legal fantasy that corporations are people. Only someone drunk on corporate provided liquor, only someone bought off in back room deals, would go for this.
It is time the Supreme Court quit being a tool of Corporations to deprive people of their rights. Examine most of the recent SCOTUS decisions in which the interests of the individual are pitted against then interests of the Corporations and you will see a disturbing trend. You will see that in these contests, the individual rights usually lose. We need to have the Citizens United nonsense reversed. Money is NOT free speech. Money is Money.
We need to get the corporate control of politicians out of politics.
My position is one of advocating the rights of people, of animals, and of the environment. I consider this a reasonable approach.
With all my heart, I am serious about this. I get letters from people sick with cancer who , because we have no universal health care, may die. I get letters from single fathers in their 40s with young children who are scared to death about the what the future holds for their kids.
Unless we change things, unless we quit being fragmented with all kinds of proposals for possible solutions, but without uniting and presenting our own solutions, we are in for MORE repression, more cops in Darth Vader outfits saying we cannot protest, we cannot camp, we cannot speak our minds, we cannot take their pictures, and on and on. And, if you are a Democrat and think the DEMS have the key, remember that two of the most repressive police actions were in towns with Democratic mayors. Bloomberg (I am informed by my friend @mofoNose that now he calls himself an “independent”) and Quan were BOTH Democrats (Quan now and Bloomberg was) !
I cannot continue to watch our police forces becoming more and more militarized, more and more a tool for oppression of the people in service to the Corporations. We are definitely headed down the wrong road my friends.
I know there will be many who disagree, many who have other paths, other ideas, etc., but I believe our country is fast headed for an state of emergency with regard to finances, resources, our civil rights, etc.
We do not have time to quibble. We do not have time to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic while it sinks. This is a case in which we must unite, we must fight.
We must hang together, or surely, we will all hang separately.
If you agree with me on these basic ideas, if you believe we should move forward together and form an Occupation Party and start establishing ourselves as the only VIABLE grassroots party, then please RT this link
and please use the hashtag ” #timetoparty “
Thank you. Blessings to you. OCCUPY ! #timetoparty
