"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H.L. Mencken
With Camps Gone, Occupiers Prepare For New Fights
I'm glad to see the movement organize itself against Monsanto and the like, but I worry about the ideological underpinnings of the group as a whole. The left gets so controlling, interfering in people's personal choices and forgetting individual rights. I hope that those among us that are so inclined are able to infuse that movement with a love of liberty and the concept of voluntary association (rather than the dictatorship of the collective that the left always seems to fall prey to instituting).
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On the one hand I admire the OWS movement for doing something but in the end the movement just seems to me to want to displace the existing top down hierarchical system with one of it's own. This is a battle of statist verse statist so it comes down to picking which snake would be the least to be bitten by, rattlesnake or copperhead? I'd like to see OWS seriously begin to explore real alternative options and embrace counter-economics to by-pass the entire corp/state structure to begin with. Don't try to reform the current societal model, go in and take it's customer base of which it's discarded anyway and build anew.
Journalist Robert Neuwrith in his book, "Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy" points out that the so-called black market now fully employs half the global workforce and by 2020' will makeup nearly 2/3rds of the global workforce. In some sense OWS are hinting local and so close to it, now if they would only begin to truly act local by embracing real freed markets with agorism or counter-economics and drive the other 1/3 and it's 1% by our own voluntary action from the table altogether!
Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't the OWS members, for the most part, just redistribution-of-the-wealth-collectivists?
I would agree most are S :)
Greetings, Suverans2. It is always a pleasure when you chime into the discussion. While many, perhaps even most, of the Occupy group does seem to be of that ilk, there is also a significant portion that do respect liberty. I think that there is ample opportunity to shape the intellectual/ideological base of that movement, shifting it towards liberty and principles of voluntary association. Collectives are fine, as long as they are voluntary in nature, not mandated. If a group, for example, of homeschoolers decide to come together in joint education efforts, great. But, don't force those that don't want to participate to do so by law. If a group wants to come together to handle waste management in their area, great -- as long as participation is voluntary. Etc. and so on... People can manage themselves, I've seen it happen quite successfuly in small, remote communities.
Thank you, Sharon Secor; and it pleases me to be able to honestly say it is always a pleasure when you "chime in" as well.