I don’t think it’s necessary to replace any system we now have. It is necessary to clean up all the systems we now have. Money shouldn’t be put above what is good for the common people. Greed shouldn’t be running this world.
That’s why you indict them under RICO statutes. They invented RICO to get a guys who were previously untouchable for offences like, for instance, organised racketeering. The Feds got to basically write any definition of organised racketeering they wanted. It’d be easy to make a claim that buying off politicians and regulators to allow you to bankrupt the country taking huge financial gambles was racketeering.
Mother of Mercy, is this the end of RICO?
Only if by “easy” you mean “virtually impossible”.
Turn your banker upside down by the ankles and shake, and a leather pouch will fall out, full of Congressgits testicles, some marked “D”, mostly “R”. All he need do is reach in and squeeeeze.
An inchoate but sincere and enthusiastic set of protests won’t change that. But it might start something. Hey, you tryin’ to start somethin’? Good. Lets start something.
And this just in from our good friends at Daily Kos (yeah, lefty as all git out, so sue me…)
Over 500,000 “likes” for Occupy Wall Street Solidarity events, 40 percent growth since last night. Since last night!
Wall street whores
Better start shakin’
Todays pig
Is tomorrows bacon
- Burma Shave
OK, that’s a bit much. But then again, so am I. And maybe you.
My only demand is that once this movement follows a similar path to the Tea Party on the right (attack the political system from the wings, get co-opted by the Democrats, then press their agenda as a congressional caucus) that they be referred to as “Owls” (a smart abbreviation).
You would have been a Tory in the American Revolution. “But who will replace the King? The Americans have not nominated a King, there is no point in revolting until you have a new King and aristocracy ready to take the reins!”
Campaign finance reform would do the trick, all by its lonesome.
Hey, one dollar, one vote, its the American way. So far.
This is why SDMB must always exist.
I suggest the following three demands.
Campaign finance reform: Get the Money out style publicly funded elections.
Revoke/redefine corporate personhood to reflect a sane and resonable level of “rights” for such institutions.
Immediate moratorium on all foreclosures while we decide where the money is and what to do about the problem.
Those three should be enough to get the ball rolling in the right direction, and are a clear, concise set of demands the public can understand. They are also the three most important things we can do immediately to effect large scale change. Other progressive issues are just muddying the water.
Some good secondary demands might include the following:
Creation of a clear, concise, regulatory system whose highest priority is the public health and safety. Regulations should be written to be as lenient and sensible as possible while keeping the prime priority in mind.
Creation of an industry IP “bank” that is used for new products and procedures that are sensitive to industries. When a new process, material, or product is developed that may have impact on the public health, corporations will use the bank to deposit their idea on record with this confidential office. It will have complete disclosure, but otherwise the IP will remain internal and confidential. The workers here are responsible for acknowledging receipt and review of the new IP and either approving it for private use/research or flagging it as a probable hazard. Hazards are placed on a no implement list until they can be determined to be reasonably safe. This procedure should be based on a set of simple, concise principles and results swiftly returned to the companies. The goal is to create accountability, and ensure that someone outside of the industry knows about a new procedure/ material/ product before it is implemented.
A tax code that is fair, simple and easy to understand and administer.
An investigation into the medical industry to see where the abuse is coming from. We can afford to wait on this issue a bit, and it is so complex that it needs a proper look at everything involved to find a good solution.
Can you translate that into English? 
There you go with the “revoke” again. Not gonna happen, nor should it, unless you want to turn back the clock on the economy about 300 years (at least).
That’ll do wonders for the housing market. Might was well forbid the banks from giving out any new loans, because they won’t under those conditions.
Here’s the thing. Demanding to turn the economy completely upside down and eliminate centuries of progress in certain areas because you just don’t like how much money certain people are making is a non starter. It just puts your demands in the loony fridge bucket.
As I think about it, I don’t think the financial issues we are dealing with lend themselves to this kind of protest.
End the War.
End Jim Crow.
US out of Afghanistan.
Repeal Obamacare.
Those are all things that can be compartmentalized and protested. But “End greed” is so vague and amorphous as to be completely useless as an operational goal. Perhaps something like:
No more Too Big to Fail.
But I’m not sure that would be very catchy. It would get my vote, though.
I’ll take it more seriously when I see a ratio of less than 50-50 hippies, maybe.
Also when I stop seeing signs that say: Down with authority, up with anarchy! Yeah, that will help with more fair wealth distribution.
Hmm, maybe it will since the Tea Party people are the ones with the guns. Naw, they hate hippies too, never mind.
Even if this is the case, write a new fucking law that says that anybody in business of any kind who paid any money in whatever way to politicians, regulators etc. over the past two decades is guilty of a crime of bribing the government (or whatever you want to call it) and is thus eleigible for a mandatory sentence of a hundred and fifty years. Even better. They can have a choice between either a full one fifty in the slammer, in which case they’d be old men by the tiome they got out, or serving a reduced twenty five year term follwed by execution. Would it be fair? The law is there to provide justice and if some fucker can be given fifteen years for robbing a bank of a hundred dollars, feeling remorse and returning the money the next day
http://digitaljournal.com/article/265402
then a hundred and fifty years for the gentlemen on Wall Street is a very lenient sentence.
I’d love to see this thing get bigger and bigger. None of the corporate news will get behind it though, but the whole 99% thing has potential to grow over the years, as let’s face it the 99% are going to get increasingly shafted. If they could just elect a rump hardcore who do to the Dem party what the teahadists are doing to the GOP it would be a wonderful thing.
Gave it a lot of thought and that’s what you came up with, eh?
Sure sounds like the wise and realistic objective of a mature and well-informed movement to me, no doubt borne out a well-developed conception of “how it’s supposed to be.”
The “organizers and law team” have asked that you stop telling people what it is they want until they’ve figured it out themselves.