Sunday, October 23, 2011

Occupy Wall Street: My Idea Of Obama 2012




Occupy
Sales Tax, Wealth Equity Tax
The Conversation Is The Revolution
Tahrir Square In America

There are people who are saying Occupy Wall Street will not survive the New York winter. They obviously don't know the difference between a political movement and a camping trip. This is no camping trip.

This thing is just getting started. Within a month this movement has gone national, has gone global.

I want to emphasize. This is not about seeking confrontations with the police. The police are part of the 99%. All they want is information. They want to know beforehand if you are going to come out into the streets. Tell them.

The Occupy movement is about finding one public space in every town, every city, and then filling it up to capacity - in New York I believe that number is 1,000 - and maintaining that number by having people camp out in rotation. You are looking for volunteers who will show up for one 24 hour period and then will stay on stand by after that. The more people you can thus "process" the better. Because all such "processed" people will join the online army. People who have been there, done that will be more enthusiastic.

If the number is 1,000 in New York City, in a small town that number might be 50, or even 20. That would work.

The important thing is for all such occupations to stay connected to each other. Create a Twitter account. Create a Facebook page. Create a YouTube channel. Create a LiveStream page.

The ultimate idea is to occupy the first 100 days of the Obama administration in 2013. And then we can go home.

Stay at capacity. If the capacity in Zuccotti Park is 1,000 people, stick to 1,000 people. Have people sign up online. There likely will be a core group of about 30 people, but even that core group can rotate.

Do march. It is important to come out into the street. But inform the NYPD beforehand. One march a month would work. And one big march next summer. Summer of 2012. A million strong march into Central Park from all parts of the city, into one big convergence.

The number one agenda item is to take money out of politics and to turn America into a one person, one vote democracy that it is not today. Total campaign finance reform. The rest follow from that.

Keep the White House. Take back the House. Acquire a super majority of 60 plus in the Senate. And demand that Obama and Pelosi carry out the agenda during the first 100 days of 2013.

Occupy Wall Street also is to do with the global spread of democracy. We have to uproot one dictator after another. We can do it.

Stay connected. Stay communicated. The conversation is the revolution.

(1) Total campaign finance reform.
(2) Universal health.
(3) Universal, lifelong education.
(4) Global democracy.
(5) A Global Marshall Plan.

(6) End the Bush tax cuts.
(7) A wealth equity tax. The American people, represented by the US federal government, own 10% of every company that has a market value over a billion dollars.

(8) Put up 20 satellites at a cost of $400 million each to ensure universally global broadband, ad supported. As long as people anywhere can buy/borrow/share/receive hardware - laptop/tablet/smartphone - and are willing to watch ads, they have broadband. This 20 billion will be recouped. This is an investment, not an expense.
Enhanced by Zemanta

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Gaddafi Helped Mandela

Imran Khan, December 2007Image via WikipediaIt is important to maintain perspective.

I have always believed in democracy, and I have never thought of it as some kind of a western thing.

The day 9/11 happened I compared it to the start of something along the magnitudes of the Cold War.

Gaddafi is like Castro in that he saw a lot. He saw colonialism, the Cold War, the aftermath, the War On Terror. This guy stayed in the news for half a century.

I was doing school in Kathmandu. We were amazed about this guy who seemed to drive Reagan crazy. Who i-s this guy? We read up on him.

One of the details that has to be noted is that Gaddafi helped Mandela when nobody helped Mandela. Dick Cheney was opposed to imposing sanctions on the apartheid regime and I don't think he has ever course corrected that stand.

I have often wondered what a Gaddafi like political animal functioning in a democratic set up might look like. Because the world does need people who will speak to the west on their own terms.

I am thinking Imran Khan might emerge that welcome voice, someone who is a democrat, a son of the soil, intelligent beyond belief, and someone who simply can not go corrupt.

Gaddafi was a dictator like Saddam was a dictator. I would not put Castro in the same basket. Castro was never a mass murderer. And the US could learn from some of what Cuba has done in education and health. Castro exported many a doctor to Third World countries over decades.

A new world order asks for personalities like Imran Khan who will ride the world stage on behalf of their peoples, democratically elected, and subject to peaceful recall once every few years.

Imran Khan
Enhanced by Zemanta