Hello,

Last night’s general assembly perceived a need for a simple & unified statement to widely and effectively propogate the Occupy message.

There are many more complex issues.  This message is consciously brief and simple.

1.  War
We are here to express support for the October 6 Freedom Plaza Occupation.  After 10 years of continuous war it is time to end U.S. military actions in Iraq, Afghaistan, and Libya.  Bring the Troops home now.

2.  Banks & Debt Slavery
We are here to express support for Occupy Wall Street.  We do not accept the manipulation of our economy by corrupt banks and financial traders.  We oppose the manipulation of U.S. and world economies by central banks such as the Federal Reserve and IMF which expand their power by driving a majority of the U.S. and world populations into Debt Slavery.

3.  Democracy & Corporatism
We are here in recognition of the fact that our democratic electoral process has become corrupted by corporate and banking interests.  The majority of elected officials no longer serve the American people.  We seek true democracy free from the manipulation of corporate and bank agendas.  We seek government By the People For the People.

4.  Non-Violence
We are committed to peace and non-violence.  Our strength is through numbers and consensus.  We do not use force or aggression to achieve our goals. 

This document is offered Open Source with Love for Occupy LA and all Humanity

Here is a suggestion:

1. The General Assembly has posted their minutes. I think the Demand Committe should do the same.

Committee Agenda Template

1.     

Introduction of facilitators and explanation of their roles (Moderator, Stack Keeper, Timekeeper, Note-taker)

2.     

Reminder of hand signals and their meanings

3.     

Reading of the minutes from the previous meeting

4.     

Updates (GA Assembly meets, Research info, etc.)

5.     

Discussion/Debate/Proposals of the topics at hand (items to be included need to be discussed before close of the previous meeting and agenda drafted immediately thereafter)

*Note: Members have asked that most pressing topics be dealt with first.

6.     

Wrap the meeting (confirmation of points/updates/proposals/temperature/vote TBD at GA meeting if applicable)

7.     

Draft Agenda for next meeting (including identifying facillitator)

*This is the agenda template that we agreed upon and utilized yesterday to keep us informed, on track and productive. If there are no concerns we can continue to use this model. If any arise please bring up in the next meeting.

I've said this several times before. But we NEED to identify the root of the problem. Yes we are all protesting Wall St. greed, we're protesting how the financial sector bought and paid for preferential treatment and bribed its way out of accountability. 
 
But what does that mean? The system failed us! but how did it fail? Simple, there is one problem: Money! 
 
Money is an inherently coercive force, it's the grease that keeps our economy and lives going but at the same time money and pursuit of money must be seen as what it is, inherently a tainted pursuit. That however DOES NOT mean I am anti-capitalist or advocating any radical alternative to our current system. But what I am advocating is this, we must remove the ability of money to influence our institutions of power. 
 
To that end I have analyzed how we got here, how we were sold out and became stooges to the entire corporate world.

1: Money in Politics (How the laws get written) 
1a: Mandatory public financing for ALL elections 
Why: If money determines one's ability to be elected, one is naturally beholden to those with money, which is an abdication of an elected official's patriotic/official duty. 
 
1b: Ban soft money 
why: Issue ads are a way to launder money and peddle influence deceptively. Issue ads should only be allowed for ballot initiatives, be publicly financed or outright banned. One's voice in politics must NOT be determined by the size of their wallet. This is a primary way to silence good ideas and subvert democracy. 
 
1c: Declare elections day every two years a national holiday and make voting compulsory. 
why: We cannot consider our republic to truly represent the will of the people if half of the nation does not vote.

1d: Some form of proportional representation and instant runoff voting for ALL elections. 
why: We must break the two-party system to be free from this tyranny. Even if it is not necessarily a direct cause of our current situation its continued existence greatly enables it and its removal would do wonders to further our democracy. We need to lower the barriers to entry in politics so that people can gain legitimacy and the public can express finely nuanced support for who they want in power. 
 
This lets the best ideas win and the best candidates get elected. We must reject party ID, the big two cannot represent America. 
 
 
2: Money in the Courts (How the law gets enforced and how people are able to pursue claims under it.

2a: Expand and improve the public defender program for civil cases. 
why: One of the ways that companies have subverted our essential freedoms is through manipulation of the civil court system. One's ability to pursue a valid legal claim is entirely dependent on their ability to finance a legal team. I REJECT the idea that JUSTICE should EVER be determined by money. Every time a person appears before the court we must provide them with equal legal representation to their counterpart. 
 
It is only through having a fair and equal ability to pursue a claim under the law that justice can be served. 
 
2b: Damage Caps against individuals and families. 
Why: We need tort reform! Not for big business but for families! Did you know the RIAA can sue you for up to $150,000 per file downloaded from your machine? They then use the fact that with little evidence they have the ability to reach for a damage award that works out into the billions of dollars if they so choose.

They use this threat to force families who have no money to defend themselves to settle out of court and it only hurts everyone involved. Court awards are meant to be consumerate to actual harm done. We've used statutory damages in many cases as an excuse for a business being unable to tell us how much they were really harmed and now families are suffering. 
 
2c: Bankruptcy reform 
Why: Going with the above we must make it easier for individuals to escape onerous debt. Many bankruptcy reforms passed recently have reversed this trend. Making it easier for the wealthy to escape their debts but not those most vulnerable. We must ensure that no human is ever forced into generational poverty or debt slavery by big business. Especially when considering the ridiculous litigation that can be brought against families.

3: Money in the Media (How, as gatekeepers of our national discourse the media can manipulate and directly shape public opinion.) 
 
Preface: This area is most contentious. But we MUST reform the media. While a private enterprise we must understand again, that the objectives of journalism, insightful, hard-hitting reporting that shakes people up, is at odds with the for-profit motives of a business. Thus I advance we must consider News and journalism a public good. It's utility is vital to a functional democracy and we cannot deny that the media whether or not it did so knowingly did not set off warning bells sooner and is by and large doing more to protect corporate interests then to foster insightful dialog in the people.

3a: Clear Media Labeling 
why: One of the first ways media has gotten around lying and misleading us is to blur the line between News and entertainment. We allow people to drink and smoke tobacco, but we clearly label each for the harm it does to our bodies. As such I advance that we must clearly label "entertainment news" versus actual journalism, for the irreparable harm so-called "entertainment news" can do to one's mind and perspective. 
 
If someone wishes to push an agenda it is their first amendment right to speak about it. However no person should ever be allowed to institutionalize deceit in the pursuit of their agenda. If they want to lie then it is their right, but it is within our rights to declare that anyone wishing to do so cannot legitimately claim they are their to inform and educate.

We must label all "entertainment news" clearly and prominently wherever it appears, and clearly label all honest journalism where it appears. 
 
3b: Bring Back the fairness doctrine. 
why: The second danger in the media is how it can practice viewpoint discrimination and shape public opinion by presenting dishonesty and rhetoric as honest debate. People parroting talking points are considered "experts" and never questioned on their credentials. We must not allow people to create their own "media fiefdoms" where they dehumanize their opponents. This does not serve any legitimate public interest and as history has now shown it fosters a real danger in forwarding eliminationist rhetoric as valid.

All journalistic news must be considered a good to serve the public interest, and an honest debate of ideas always does that. Business will tell you this is discrimination and that it is restricting their free speech rights. But think about that for a second, what is it they're saying they want to do? 
 
They want to use their "free speech rights" to deny another person's ability to speak in defense of themselves so that the business can proceed to lie, call them names and tell people how they 'ought to be shot in the head. Since when does freedom of speech mean freedom to capture an audience and then preach they should violently overthrow those you dislike? 
 
Again, it is one thing for a person to do this. It is another for any business that wishes to be legitimately journalistic. These are not restricting the rights of the people, only the rights of companies to divide and conquer the people.

3c: Empower the FCC to investigate and fine news organizations if they are proven to be intentionally lying, misleading or otherwise pushing an agenda. 
why: We empower the FCC to do many things and it does them well. Despite its mandate to protect children from ever knowing the human body exists it does not somehow drown under complaints. 
 
As news organizations have a duty to inform the republic we must create mechanisms for the public to bring legitimate grievances against news companies. We must provide avenues to ensure, just as we do with every other institution of power, that they might be checked in their excess should other checks fail. 
 
3d: Mandatory disclaimer or source reporting for all articles of news.

Why: Another critical avenue to detect faulty journalism is in evaluating one's source of information. We must know when someone is basing their pieces on their own opinion, on research, on interviews, etc. For simple interviews listing a first and last name of the interviewed is fine. 
 
That said it is also crucial that we enable whistleblowers and others to provide anonymous information to the press. As such I forward also that any time an anonymous source or whistelblower is used for an article of news we simply put a disclaimer on the piece and then list that of course an "Anonymous" source contributed to the article.

All of these proposals are non-partisan, all attack our core problem, money and greed have taken complete control of our country's power structure. Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, whatever you are, YOU believe in a prosperous America. YOU believe in freedom, liberty and justice and YOU know what's wrong and that we haven't been doing what we should to fix it. 
 
So rather than get into an argument about ideology, or where we might have legitimate differences, I speak to you all in solidarity that we as a whole must take back our country. This is how, we must remove the ways they usurped our ability to stay informed and elect who WE THE PEOPLE wish to elect, and not who makes the most backroom deals during the elections cycle.

I've posted here before but then most of the forums stopped appearing on the site. I've been refining my points as I talk to people so you'll find various revisions of the same over various comment boards on OWS for news media sites. But my larger goal is to help the movement by honing messaging and ideas to a razor's edge. So I want to talk and engage as many people as possible, debate and do my best to find good ideas and speak for them every chance I get. Secondary to that is work on messaging and sort of honing the tenor of any official demands or goals. We must remember, good politics is inseparable from good policy. The best plan in the world is useless if no one will vote for it.

We know what works, we know what we need to do, maybe not individually but as a whole, and do you know why? America is SMART, it just doesn't always apply its full potential. The process though gets short-circuited when petulant children attempt to manipulate human nature away from pragmatism in government. Suddenly honest debate becomes impossible because you have parties not advocating that they must tackle a practical problem or solution, at this point you just have parties arguing so they don't win or lose elections.

Every time I'd see an idea that made sense die, it died not because of legitimate objections in the congress, it died because people just did or did not want to vote for something. There's another reason we elect representatives. It's because we don't want to have to do all of the math ourselves and do the really HARD work at figuring out ideal policy and balancing concerns. We elect people specifically to do this hard work, but long ago as a society we lost track of something.

People aren't always rational, people aren't always going to make the best choices, and you can't force anyone to make a choice. But what you CAN do, is you can empower everyone with the facts and you can empower them with debate and inclusion to air their grievances. If done right then the side who has created the strongest case should prevail and obviously any legitimate minority concerns should be addressed. And after that? Well, kids will be kids. If someone insists on being a goose they aren't going to stop whatever you do. We must understand that absolutely any society will have professional malcontents whose aim is only the pursuit of institutional power to further their own personal greed and whose tool is a cunning wit and intelligence. It is beyond our ability as a species to truly know another's intent. But it is not beyond our ability to judge the effects of their actions when they reveal to us in advance their plans.

Here are some key principles I'm trying to refine/convey regarding I guess my grander ideas regarding government and the good/bad of the current system. I'm probably going to revise it more, but everyone, please if you have comments or ideas respond. I'm sure we can make a truly excellent proposal together. So right now consider the below my "CURRENT" interpretation of how things are and how they went wrong with a bit of possible solution fit in. Not so much a list of demands in this case but rather what I would hope to be possibly the start of a new attitude and philosophy in general towards government and governing.

Principle Concepts

1: Governing IS PRAGMATISM

Any vote without a clear and reasonable justification (which should be recorded for posterity's sake) should be considered an act of contempt against the American people. And any politician who consistently votes not on the facts, not on informed and well-researched studies that show what the potential effects, ups and downs of a policy are, and instead chooses to vote entirely on ideology, emotions or other nonsense should be given a swift boot from office.

The best remedy I can see for this is to adjust the barriers for entry into politics so that one's ability to get into office rests soley on their ability to sell their ability to empathize with our problems, identify them, and efficiently solve them and to be an effective advocate of their solution.

Right now a lot of paralysis is happening because of three sources

A: People think their vote doesn't matter (often because no elected official represents their more nuanced positions)

B: People vote for the "lesser of two evils" instead of who they really believe in because of party politics,

C: Because of the above two it serves to destroy the ability for politics to change at anything other than a glacial pace. Essentially politicians aren't even jockeying for the hearts and minds of voters anymore. They're jockeying to increase election turnout. Each year the Democrats hope more people vote and the Republicans hope more people stay home. Their actual support bases never change, only elections numbers change. What few good politicians do get elected slowly find themselves burried under the weight of those who wish to do nothing other then play electoral games.

That to me suggests that people are not being given an ability to make their voice heard in politics. We need to allow new people or parties to appear when there is an urgent need.  But most importantly we must divorce "party" from "power" in politics.

A politician should be elected on their capacity to solve objective problems and advocate those solutions effectively, NOT which party they belong to, not because they can out fund raise their opponent. They should be elected because they've done their duty and they know about real problems Americans face, they've got the facts and they've got a solution. Parties should only exist to provide an ability for those with like minded ideas to organize and effectively research, debate and hash out policy.

They should not decide who gets to run, they should not influence who gets to run, they should not decide who sits on what committee. Indeed, Washington himself warned us of the danger of parties. There is also however another danger we must also remember, we elect representatives also because they will be willing to do the hard work and research on ideal policy. That also means that the other half of that is when they find an ideal policy that may not have public support but they know is ideal it is their duty to educate and inform us on why we should also believe it's ideal.

What defines Tyranny is not an arbitrary threshold of pain and suffering, but rather when a choice is unnecessarily forced. Therefore a majority may not be tyrannical if a minority cannot make a sound, logical case for why the choice made was unnecessarily forced upon them.

2: Government must be INCLUSIVE

All must be given fair, just and most of all EQUAL treatment under the eyes of the law. We must understand then that money works against this. Those institutions within which we divest power must put this duty before all else. Once you are elected, whatever sort of a person you were before, you are NOW GOVERNMENT and you must discard any part of your past, present, future or person which would in any way impede that duty. There are other areas I'd like to tackle such as lobbying reform but I'm not entirely versed on the laws and policies related to lobbying yet. I may add it as a subsection, it is for exactly that reason that we must reject identity politics.

A person's identity should never disqualify them from holding office. But if a person is beholden to THEIR identity and not to THEIR DUTY, then they are committing an offense so supreme it should almost be criminal. Fortunately we can prevent this simply by embracing a policy of all-inclusivess: And any person or group which centers their IDENTITY around denying or disenfranchising another group should not be given any ability to enforce that belief in practice in their capacity of an elected office. We must SHUN at every instance those who would insist that their freedoms are abridged when they are not allowed the "Freedom" to make use of government office to enforce their own private animus whether towards an individual or group of any kind.

3: Money IS coercion.

Legal tender in all forms is coercion, it is unique in that this is an unavoidable byproduct of money's purpose. Legal tender enables society and commerce but we MUST remember what those things are. They compel someone to perform an act for someone else. It's a mutual agreement but it is still a DEMAND. Money enables us to command others to do as we wish, not in every case or every form but it enables us to form power relationships with one another to achieve specific means.

So money becomes a natural power relationship. It is the grease that enables us to pursue our dreams by soliciting compliance. So the act of giving money to a person is therefore always an act of control because it will always universally ease the effort one needs to expend in controlling others. It creates a connection within our minds and it creates sources and structures of dependence and necessity. So collusion of money is also collusion of power. And what happens when power colludes? Dictatorships, regimes, horrible things that just shouldn't happen.

This doesn't mean money is always bad for us, or a universal evil that need be expunged. For certainly we can see how society has developed both for better and worse under its reign. Which brings me to my next point:

4: CAPITALISM within reason

Capitalism is all about enabling the ideal flow of goods, services and power amongst the people and institutions of the day. It was rooted in certain enlightenment ideas about people and human nature that we know were partly true and partly not.

Capitalism is not a tautology though! We use it because it works, and when it does not work we revise it! Thus we must understand that consumerism is also not inherently moral either. It is not universally good but not bad either. When is harm done? When it is unnecessarily inefficient. Just as I spoke earlier about the pursuit of money being an inherently tainted one, capitalism is a means to an end, and should NEVER be the end itself. We believe in capitalism because we believe that a market economy is a good way to get certain tasks done.

For as much as we know there is still so much more we do not. We as a people wish to naturally pursue certain ends and as a collective society of Americans we wish to pursue these ends together. Thus the duty of both the government and the market is to be the means to achieve these ends as efficiently as possible.

Thus we must always put a fine toothed come to BOTH to ensure that they are doing their jobs. The private sector is not a tautology, the invisible hand of the free market is not an omnipotent, omniscient being which will guarantee optimal prices. Why is this? Because one of the most fundamental principles of any functioning market is the ability of consumers to obtain all information needed to make their purchasing decision and understand it.

Unless all humans are omniscient this is simply impossible in some cases. Therefore we must understand that certain needs or goods which provide immense benefits are not always ones a person is capable of making an informed decision about. Key point: Pharma companies, why do we allow them to advertise directly to consumers? A consumer has not gone through medical school, a consumer does not know medicine, and they do not know how to gauge whether or not a product has truly succeeded or failed.

You know who will? Their Doctor! So why do we allow this? Does this serve anyone's freedom? We must REMEMBER, the private sector can over-reach just as much as the government into our lives. When is there over-reach of either? The moment a case can be made that a choice was unnecessarily forced by either. Look at what Mastercard and others did to wikileaks. Private businesses decided to unilaterally refuse service and because these PRIVATE COMPANIES control so much of what we use to conduct 21st century commerce they effectively removed an entire organization's ability to function and for no other reason than "Just because we wanted to!" Does this mean that we should enact drastic changes to contract law or nationalize the credit card companies? No not necessarily that at all. But what we MUST HAVE are mechanisms by which society at large may enforce consequences against bad actors in the private sector.

Voting with one's dollars is all but a myth, thanks to globalization, technology and many other changes we have centralized business to such a point that it diverts power in few individuals to make sweeping choices over all sectors of the world. Could we just boycott Visa, Mastercard, Discover, Amex and Paypal? No! we'd be just as cut off as wikileaks was, and that's the point. No rational human being will give up their ability to be paid or pay others just because of wikileaks. Does it in any way lessen the supreme wrong done? No, but it does underscore the point. Government provides us a mechanism to remove malefactors from its places of power, business does not provide a comparable alternative. Are we to starve and choke the gutters with the dead every time we wish to remove them from the private sector?

Finally

5: Liberty is choice, it is good because it empowers us to be happy, and for choice to be empowering it must be MEANINGFUL

A lot of the doublespeak we get from our current politicians is filled with poisonous disingenuity with regards towards liberty. Liberty is at its core, the ability for each individual to pursue their happiness, a guarantee to every American by the constitution. As such though liberty is defined by being given a choice or set of choices rather then being compelled to take only one path.

But merely being given a choice is not enough if those choices are meaningless. For WHOSE LIBERTY do you advocate? For WHAT AIM do you desire freedom to accomplish? HOW does the presence of this choice enable greater happiness than would be there if it were not? Is my choice to use an inefficient incandescent light bulb so I can save $0.10 per bulb when for that extra $0.10 my bulb will last ten times as long and I will be 25% more likely to still have an earth to enjoy in my golden years?

Such choices are absolutely meaningless because they have in effect already been made for us. Being offered a choice of "Heads I win, tails you lose" is not freedom, it is the ghost of freedoms robbed from you. Should an individual be able to use incandescent light bulbs they have? Absolutely! that choice enables them to find meaning and value without cost, should we allow individuals to MAKE incandescent light bulbs? If it can be done without causing great harm I see no reason why not. Should we allow businesses to continue manufacturing incandescent light bulbs en masse? Only if it could be said that a public need were reasonably being serviced in a way not otherwise achievable. If the choice is between saving ten cents or getting extra efficiency plus saving the environment then that choice does not serve any purpose except to act as a weapon of mass distraction by politicians wishing to steal your true freedoms out from underneath you.

For indeed it is often these same politicians who have divided us and separated us by manipulating sentiment, by manipulating identity. They have balkanized the American people to maintain their power. But while sunlight is an excellent disinfectant I would also put forth that an even greater one is: The Question. How do you know if a politician is lying or misleading you? When they do not have a completely valid case of facts behind their decisions in office. It is not that they use sound bytes or dodge questions, this is merely a symptom they use to cover the fact that they have made a decision not in the true interests of the American people. If they cannot articulate that to you when asked they are either a failure as a politician for improperly doing their job at advocacy or are a failure of a human being for purposefully abdicating their duty to ensure all decisions made in office are sound.

Now, happiness is a very nebulous and personal concept. So exceptional care must be made with regards to limiting the ability of individuals to pursue their own forms of bliss. We must be inclusive without alienation, but we must be wary of ANY who refuse to include themselves unless we meet demands of alienation or tyranny. If I cannot be happy if my neighbor's mailbox is blue and not red is it my right to demand to the city he change it? No, for what is guaranteed is the pursuit of happiness, and not the conclusion. All demands are not reasonable and while it should be my right to pursue him in changing it, it is NOT my right to enforce it. It is NOT within my rights of free speech to harass him, spread damaging lies about him, or insist that he is spreading a "Blue Agenda" and then to petition government that they must immediately recognize my freedoms by requiring he change his mailbox. It is NOT within my rights to demand that the government increase his taxes or DECREASE its service to my neighbor because I refuse to allow "My taxes" to fund his "Blue agenda."

The question that never gets asked is why this choice has any real meaning? Why is it so important he change his mailbox? What is it that I seek to achieve by doing this? If I simply cannot stand blue mailboxes it is obviously I who 'ought change and not my neighbor. If I am merely offended by the color blue then that choice is meaningless. Offense may be taken for any cause, just as all demands are not reasonable neither are all offenses. Does the color blue harm me in any way? does it harm him? For if the only harm done is an offense to my eye or ear then again, that offense is not reasonable. It is through this sentiment that we can at last notice how business has used doublespeak to turn freedom on its head and weaponize it to great effect against us.

We are told that the choices that do matter don't and the ones that don't matter do! We are told that it is important we allow mercury and lead in our drinking water because it saves money! Yet we have a vested interest in enshrining entirely subjective morality into law. I REJECT this, I reject the belief that encourages selfishness as the only definition of happiness. If you cannot be happy unless your way of life is the law, then you do not deserve to be happy. But do NOT confuse to whom I am addressing that statement. It is to those who define their way of life as hatred, it is those who define their way of life as intolerance, it is those who cannot be happy unless ALL children are learning bigotry in school for no other reason then they cannot stand the loss of control they suffer when their own children do not grow up just as filled with bile as they are.

These people were entirely created because of money, because of structures of power. They are the unfortunate effects of human nature. Business funnels no small amount of money to these individuals and seeks in no small part to engorge their ranks as often as they can. They give paid-for media megaphones to blast their vitriolic message of misinformation across every corner of the nation, spreading lies and misinformation under the guise of authority. They prey on human nature, on trust and they hijack religions they hijack politics, they hijack unions, they hijack movements. They use their influence and hammer, chip and grate away at us until we start to believe them and then, after finally collapsing intellectually under the sheer weight of their ability to divide and conquer us they pit us against one another so we would never realize how it all got started. That we would never realize who our friends and enemies really are.

We all can achieve equality and justice under the law, there is no reason that your freedom and my freedom should EVER TRULY be in conflict. And anyone who tells you otherwise is TRYING TO CONTROL YOU! (or has been coerced into it by someone else who is) Yes, there is some overlap. The rights of individuals to freely organize is tantamount to democracy and the foundation of this movement. But the right to freely assemble is one thing, the right for individuals to reach a collective decision is one thing. It is another when you enter a legally binding contract to enter a commercial enterprise? Why? It all goes back to money, money IS coercion, and while money is not evil the pursuit of money is the pursuit of power, and it must be regulated justly so that neither may create tyrants over our lives.