Take 'Em to Task: Occupy Obama

[Smiley and West]

		A listener from Occupy Seattle takes West to task about his openness to voting for Barack Obama in this year’s election. Read Mark Taylor-Canfield’s Open Letter to Dr. Cornel West, originally published on dailykos.com. Occupy Seattle website

[Jeff 4 Justice]

Jon Raymond I don't think distracted from " the real issues of war, education, healthcare, foreclosure, bank criminals, police state, erosion of rights" applies to any of us on this forum.

Next, survivalists like the Amish, the off the grid types, the Ted Nugent types are likely the best equipped to endure this world.

Working with what we have to work with, not voting is silly to me. You have the ability to be discerning about who's truth telling and who's not. You know you're mostly getting talking points from the 2party phonies. The alternative parties have nothing to gain becuase they've never been in power. You know some of the do not take corporate donations.  If you choose to accept the idea you have no power in a democratic republic then so be it. But you do.

Also, the electoral college only applies to presidential elections. I'm in CA and votes on ballot measures like Prop 8 and Prop 14 certainly did matter.

[Jeff 4 Justice]

Cool Ricardo Jones . Me too. Still undecided here. Who do you like?

Ricardo Jones said:

Yes

Jeff 4 Justice said:

Amen Ricardo Jones . Will you vote for an alternative party?

[Ricardo Jones]

Lets see how it plays out. A lot time till November. We the people not the media and/or the president must shape the agenda to be addressed during the final campaign. Most are only voting a popularity contest not presidential election. I don't want another obama to surface like in 2004. This on the job training doesn't work well.  

[Jon Raymond]

If we were not distracted by the media agenda we wouldn't be discussing elections. We'd be discussing what can be done to stop foreclosures, what can be done to break the banks, what can be done to take back our rights to walk freely in the streets of America without being shot for wearing the wrong clothes or arrested for taking pictures of police doling out street justice. We'd be talking about the removal of due process by this government. We'd be talking about the low ranking of America's education and healthcare in the world. No government official can address these things in this money run system.

No. instead we talk about who could be elected to work within this corrupt excuse of a government at any level. You think a third party candidate could do squat? For one thing, it's likely if anyone tried to go up against this system they'd be shot. Jesse Ventura resolved to that fact when he was considering it.

What we need to talk about is how to remove this system, remove bank run government issued and controlled currency, remove this plutocratic corporatist financial system. There is no democracy. There is no capitalism. To ignore these facts is to stick your head in the sand and carry on as if this election was like any other in the past 30 years, which it is, and which it's outcome will be. Who you vote or don't vote for matters not, because in America your vote does not count. Wake up. Any small tokens of appeasement they pass are just that. Meanwhile our society crumbles.

It's funny you mention Prop 8 because that makes my point. The fact that government is in people's bedrooms attests to the fact that this government has gone too far and has got to go. The government has no business in who marries who. They have no business in issuing marriage "licenses". The problem isn't that gays can't legally marry. The problem is that government has any involvement in marriage at all. Marriage is personal, not a public legality.

[Jeff 4 Justice]

Jon Raymond I totally disagree with the idea that people are not talking about the things you mention. Occupy is a great example of people talking. Next, I agree government should not issue marriage licenses at all. However, they do, so should it be discriminatory or should it not be while they do. If you think people have no power with their vote what power then do you think people have to advance liberty and the well being of as many as possible?

[Jon Raymond]

Jeff, this is exactly the conversation we should be having - not who you don't want to vote for. Yes, people are talking about these things on some occupy sites, assemblies, and live streams, but not here. Here we talk about who not to vote for (until now). Give me a break.

Yes, people have no power with this government and will have none no matter who is elected, local, state, or federal. History tells us this is fact. Those who ignore history are destined to repeat it.

How should we then advance liberty? Thank you so much for asking that question. This is what we need to address. Smiley & West address these things regularly. The election is a distraction (a media agenda).

What we need to do is to talk about what we need to do. There are no simple solutions. We are talking about doing the work that our useless money hungry sick government should be doing; but is not. It is quite a tall order. But we need to go there. Occupy has already done this eloquently, and has made great strides.

For example, can you envision an America without government control, without government issued currency exchange; a world organized through consensus of all who wish to be heard? Communities with libraries and child care and food for the hungry for anyone who asks for it; a world with healthcare for anyone who needs it? I can envision this world.

I have seen this world flourish here in America. It is the occupy camps that sprung up organically throughout this country. This was organized anarchy - a beautiful thing. A world that required no money but existed and flourished on human resources; a resource based economy. Yes, it flourished until the U.S. government police state controlled by Wall Street paid Homeland Security coordinated thugs in riot gear were deployed to destroy and break these beautiful here-to-fore non-violent people. Occupy is the answer to your question as best it can be answered for now. But it is just the beginning of a movement.

This movement will continue to flourish with or without you. I believe the elections and this entire government will be marginalized by occupy, one way or another. I think we need to prepare for a world without government control or government issued currency as the main exchange standard. Perhaps government money could exist as a secondary standard. Perhaps there could be local personal issued currencies. I don't know. But I do know that capitalism has failed. No election nor government will save it. It is over.

This is not a call for violent revolution or coup. This is non-violent accelerated evolution. It's now time for our government to catch up with reality. The forces of nature (human nature especially) will make this happen, regardless, no mater what. It cannot be stopped any more than can a psumani or tidal wave.

I M A G I N E. People begin to trade by barter or local exchange economies outside the government, outside Wall Street. People live without government. Government then becomes dependent upon people to subscribe to their monetary system. The IRS does not have any enforceable provision for bartering, or does it? Live without money and the government looses control. it's that simple.

We don't need the government to survive. it needs us. Starve it. Make it beg. Competition is the foundation of true capitalism. Give the government and Wall Street some real competition like occupy did before the corporate cops busted their heads in.

I'm just one guy, with some ideas. Multiply me by the millions of the 99%. We have the true power.

[Jeff 4 Justice]

Jon Raymond Reminds me of the movie Zeitgeist.

[Mark Taylor-Canfield]

The last time I checked the US Constitution, it says we are the government!

"We The People"

Somehow that message has been forgotten by most folks...

[Jon Raymond]

Zeitgeist is pretty cool. I hadn't seen it before. It follows the logical conclusions. I also love the model city ideas. But that is long term. The film correctly identifies the problems and situation. But it does not offer viable ideas for the next steps. The ending is absurd and farcical. People are not going to throw away money and suddenly start to live without it. People will live without money out of the necessity of not having it, as occupy groups have. The occupy model of resourced economy is based on finding what people need from existing places. Much was donated in both materials and labor to make it work, and continues to be.

I don't think we have to (or can) sit around and come up with comprehensive solutions. We should discuss the problems and ways to address them one by one. But over time things will take care of themselves. We just have to accept and embrace the nature of this evolution. That means we have to accept occupy and we should pressure government to provide lands or real estate for them to live on. We should stop foreclosures. We should seek to end the growth paradigm where money is lent with interest and inflates artificially. We should prepare for and accept that money will self destruct and people will have to live without it eventually, or with much less of it.

[Kris Buxenbaum aka Chemoninja]

Many of the parties in this thread are discussing this like Obama's not able to be pushed towards responsibility for undoing the damage incurred by his enacting the entire old republican platform. I think he is somewhat, as demonstrated by his rejecting Keystone Excel, and hydro fracking, willing to take stronger stands with public support. Obama did express concerns with NDAA before signing, and because there wasn't a similar uproar to Keystone quietly passed it. I strongly feel that if we show that type of political will that he will have to modulate his position's to be re-elected. That will not accomplish all that we need, but america hasn't been this close to de-facto fascism since perhaps the McCarthy era.

The ponsey scheme known as the Federal Reserve that could just print 7.7 trillion dollars for the banksters, while the 70 billion dollar bailout just served to pay bonus packages for the companies that caused the problem. That private banking controlled charter is up next year, and that's why in my opinion the federal government has passed NDAA, and these new executive powers. The bankers can't due without the corporate welfare.

We also have a huge problem with the state of food in america, the possible links to eugenicists within the halls of power such as White house science czar John P Holdren (I know this sounds crazy, but there were 7,600 forced sterilizations in North Carolina alone. See the links below), and the links to the food industry's toxification of american food allowed by an FDA that's being run by Monsanto. We need mandatory labeling of GMO food's that have already been linked to organ damage, the evolution of super bugs resistant to pesticides, and super weeds that are pesticide resistant. As well as contributing to america's startling explosion of cancer victims now estimated at 1 in 3 americans.

Because of Obama's 2008 platform that he abandoned, I posit that we have more leverage with him than with any other candidate.

It will take a lot of organizing and restructuring the movement to start from scratch with a 3rd party that has no coalition behind it, or network while humanity as a species is in a crisis moment. We have a world wide push towards representational governments, and at the same time that international banks and corporations are consolidating their hold on civilization.

I know first hand about the food issue's because I have been fighting pancreatic cancer successfully (I'm within the 2% that survive) by eliminating GMO food, and other food like substances, distilling my own water (bottled water only needs to have 10% of whats labeled) and using probiotics. This along side a high protein diet free of the 80% of cloned GMO, and sickly animals (80 to 90% of all chicken, beef and pork).

Responsible scientist's are saying that we have a 1 year window to stop global warming before ice flows melt and we start to lose maybe a 3rd of the earths land mass on top of cooking the continent of Africa.

Occupy Wall Streets format has answered a lot of questions about sustaining a movement thats not revolved around a cult of personality, therefore vulnerable to assassination ending its progress as many other movements in american history. We have many difficult choices to make, and OWS's meritocracy approach fills me with great hope for our future!

America like myself at the point of diagnosis (August 26, 2010), has a huge cancer growing, and we need our best minds, and to empower our youth who will inherit this mess. To figure out where we can get the most bang for our buck's.  

As a child of the ciivil rights, and anti-war movement I feel we need to form a template for developing and sustaining small community cohesiveness. Oriented around food, water, and environmental issues, as well as corruption, and de-facto racism. As we join hands with other communities strengthened in this fashion a third, or fourth party can have a base to form from. 

I am a Harlem resident and have been working to start a small healing community on Strivers Row in Harlem. I have a personal training business called StriversFitness,  and am working with a neighbor who has just opened Foundation House a Yoga based health, and wellness program on the same block. My partner Dr Sara Jenkins is leaving medicine for cancer coaching. I whole heartedly endorse her as she's why I'm still alive and agitating for change. I am working towards steering urban youth into the growing, and lucrative health and fitness world through mentoring and community service, in conjunction with assisting elderly Harlem resident's with shopping and providing information on food cooperatives , etc. 

I feel that if we remain focused on vividly clear issue's at first before tackling the more difficult ones, like the prison industrial complex. We can unify a lot of the resentment of middle america, that now has become the working poor. The nation wide crisis of murdering men of color by police, and it's natural progression to civilians. Is a clear issue to stand on as well as food issue's that once people are educated on they become incensed at, are the starting point for this next step in human evolution 

This format and others like it will help people such as myself remain sane in the face of oppression, and focused towards uplifting our communities. Thank you all for your time, and courage towards organizing for needed change. If anyone would like to contact me about working together towards these goals feel free. I'm posting links to my website, and an article on my neighbors Yoga center.

Due to my illness I am 2 years behind schedule with my apprenticeship program, but I am about 3 to 6 months away from total cure and recovery from toxic chemotherapy.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/WomensHealth/north-carolina-compensate...

http://www.waragainsttheweak.com/ 

http://www.wellandgoodnyc.com/2012/02/20/foundation-house-a-yoga-ho...

http://www.striversfitness.com./

[Kris Buxenbaum aka Chemoninja]

Hey John, 

 Thrive the movie is going to be free soon, and it has similar themes to Zeitgeist, but with better answers to problems in my opinion. Their website also has a resource page on which I've already located some fellow progressives to network with. Here's a link to the Thrive movement website with information on this movie and when it will be free to watch. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did, and feel free to contact me through this site.

http://www.thrivemovement.com/foster-gamble-announces-thrive-movie-...

Jon Raymond said:

Zeitgeist is pretty cool. I hadn't seen it before. It follows the logical conclusions. I also love the model city ideas. But that is long term. The film correctly identifies the problems and situation. But it does not offer viable ideas for the next steps. The ending is absurd and farcical. People are not going to throw away money and suddenly start to live without it. People will live without money out of the necessity of not having it, as occupy groups have. The occupy model of resourced economy is based on finding what people need from existing places. Much was donated in both materials and labor to make it work, and continues to be.

I don't think we have to (or can) sit around and come up with comprehensive solutions. We should discuss the problems and ways to address them one by one. But over time things will take care of themselves. We just have to accept and embrace the nature of this evolution. That means we have to accept occupy and we should pressure government to provide lands or real estate for them to live on. We should stop foreclosures. We should seek to end the growth paradigm where money is lent with interest and inflates artificially. We should prepare for and accept that money will self destruct and people will have to live without it eventually, or with much less of it.

[Mark Taylor-Canfield]

People need to start thinking about things differently rather than just going along to get along.

Just "getting along" is not working anymore.

On April 25th students all over the nation will be protesting the one trillion dollars in student debt in this country...

The 99% have a lot in common.

We're all in the same sinking boat desperately looking for a life raft..

Folks will be marching two more black men shot by police - Kenneth Chamberlain and Kendrec McDade

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/3/29/killed_at_home_white_plains_ny

http://www.scpr.org/news/2012/04/03/31894/family-slain-teen-kendrec...

Something is seriously wrong in this country...