Wednesday, January 04, 2012

ELECTION 2012 - OWS INFLUENCE

New Years Rose Parade with Occupy Wall Street's participation has prompted recent commentary here. OWS continues to be active in my community and elsewhere though media coverage of their activities has diminished in news prominence. Before my upcoming blog content focuses on other topics I want to mention OWS's future plans and potential significance for the 2012 elections pending continuing needed public support.

Occupy Wall Street continues to thrive with planned actions in 2012 you may track through the months ahead with the link provided here by clicking on the organization's name.

Today I stopped by my local OWS city hall site described in the immediately preceding two posts. A young man who participated in the Pasadena Rose Parade described the enthusiasm experienced by "Occupy" marchers and parade stand viewers. Their action received only token news coverage. He noted that ongoing "Occupy" activities will continue including a major national event planned for May 1st.

The Young Turks Network features a video in which they report:

"Hundreds of Occupy Wall Street protesters created a 'human float' at the Tournament of Roses parade and unfurled giant banners of the constitution an a giant octopus made of recycled grocery bags. Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks discuss."

TYT Network


Here's a very short video of the "Occupy" marchers "Octopus" seen from Rose Parade stands. A full cohesive photo of the octopus tentacles and gigantic copies of the Constitution aren't clearly defined.



This Presidential election year is a prime time to bring pressures to bear on candidates to address the nation's issues which OWS can do. All too often candidates speak in generalities, avoid the pertinent topics, distract the focus to religious and social issues, or become enmeshed in launching and defending themselves from negative campaign attacks.

Unduly complicating the election process has been Supreme Court decisions recognizing corporations as individuals (there's an effort to correct this obvious injustice.) This constitutional interpretation invites undo influences contrary to a real actual persons best interests -- like yours and mine. Criminal amounts of $$$ are now allowed to be spent on behalf of candidates. We the people will be drowning in those advertising $$$. Just a thought, but wouldn't it be more helpful to the financial recovery of this nation if some of those $$$ went into the U.S. Treasury as taxes???
Yes, I know, it's all about power, control and money.

The outcome of recent Iowa Republican caucuses confirmed a fact proven in California's most recent campaign for Governor -- the candidate spending the most money does not automatically win an election. I suggest those excessive campaign $$$ serve primarily to create static, muddy the waters for disseminating the facts and alienate many toward politics and government.

Occupy Wall Street offers an opportunity to bring to bear pressures for desired legislative and government action benefiting that 99% championed. OWS needs citizen support to reach full potential for influencing the focus this 2012 election takes.

Link

5 comments:

  1. The OWS folks have converged on Washington DC from all the sites closed down across the US. Mostly they are fighting the cold and rats these days. Dianne

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  2. Hope you don't mind if I share this post on Facebook. I applaud your excellent work to keep #OWS in our view. I'm pretty knocked out by their creativity, too.

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  3. Schmidley: Appreciate your input about what's happening with OWS in D.C. as has been little in news about that area I've seen. Perhaps survival is all one can focus on in the winter climes.

    Nance: You're welcome to share this credited post on your Facebook. I don't link ATW to my Facebook which I rarely visit or even use. I've been skeptical of FB especially with the periodic emergence of instances of privacy concerns. Few family and virtually no old friends use Facebook, or even computers though the number is slightly increasing. I established my FB for that very limited number of those who might wish contact through that account.

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  4. Whether one actively or passively supports the OWS folks, or opposes their tactics, they have served to frame some of the big issues for this election year. My take is that we will have a clear choice between two quite different approaches to the best way to guide the U.S. in both the short- and longterm.

    In a way, both groups of protesters are doing us a service. It will be an interesting political year.

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  5. Occupy seems to be losing their compelling message. They need to be even better organized and do more than just occupy.

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