by Buzz at IndependenceMinnesota.org:
Fed up with our current political system and interested in just what the Occupy movement is all about, a number of Independence Party members set off for downtown Minneapolis for the opening day of OccupyMN’s protests on Friday, October 7.
Among them were CD2 delegate Ted C. Williams and IP treasurer Sally Paulsen. They took the time to offer a few personal thoughts based on their impressions of the opening day’s events.
Sally Paulsen:
For anyone sifting through the diluted myriad of social and economic inequities the Occupy Wall Street movement is marching for, this is what they’re REALLY mad about:
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-wall-street-protesters-are-so-angry-about-2011-10?op=1
How is it that the 400 richest Americans hold more accumulated wealth than the lowest 150 million people? I’ll give you a small hint as to a catalyst: Congress.
For years, while Congress has looked the other way, corporate profits have soared to record levels, yet unemployment remains at a disproportionate levels for such economic boon.
How is that?
My meager sign at OccupyMN’s first protest on Oct. 7 read: “Money is not evil. Buying and selling Congress to protect Wall Street, is.” It got a lot of digital coverage.
More than $5 billion was “invested” in the major parties to defeat change and re-elect the status quo last election cycle. Special interests protect their profit margins, while the middle class deteriorates and American families living under the poverty level skyrocket. We can also thank the Supreme Court’s decision on Citizens United for their help in the matter.
The deeper I dig, the madder I get. Several hundred-thousands of people throughout the global occupied cites in their own countries this past weekend, standing in solidarity over global economic collapse over corporate greed. They feel the same betrayal.
There’s power in the 99 percent. We work. We shop. We bank. We vote.
The greater the unrest, the greater the opportunity for real change.
Ted C. Williams:
While I respect that there was some level of organization into the protests with sign-ups for activist groups and newsletters, I didn’t get the sense of anything really being accomplished with this gathering.
It felt like there were a lot of young people who wanted to show an anonymous enemy that they were mad but didn’t really have an answer for how they were going to do it. The only sign that I saw with a clear message that stated a problem and a solution was a fellow IPer, Sally Paulsen (“Money isn’t the problem, but money corrupting politics is”), I wished that there were more people at this event that wanted to address problems and then within that large gathering start coming up with solutions. Instead, there were many people with their signs and costumes sitting around with the desire to be seen.
The image from these protests should not in my opinion be the image of the Independence Party. The Occupy movement expresses the frustration, but we need to be the party with the answers. I think that we should welcome those from the Occupy movement into the party that want to take an active role in making change. But just in the way we aren’t a front for the Tea Party pushing a less-government-and-less-taxes-and-that’s-it platform, neither should we want to be a front for the Occupy movement where we say that corporations are evil and by just taxing the rich without other fundamental reforms we’ll be better off.
We need to be the party that sees the problem, learns from the mistakes that got us into this situation and finds the best way to get out of the problems. Meanwhile we will communicate with constituents and be as open as possible, because the best way to fix our problems will not be without unfavorable changes.
We also need to be the movement of open minds and ears. We need to be the group that wants to get into the budget numbers and detailed, proven research in order to come up with rational, long term solutions. We should harness the enthusiasm of the Occupy movement or the Tea Partiers, but we need to be loud AND have solutions.