As someone who is largely centre-left, I believe in personal responsibility but I also think that the government has a role to play, with things like universal healthcare (which is actually not that bad given the fascist death panels and the 18th century medical equipment). The problem with this ridiculous manifesto, is like you say, who is going to pay for it? While it's possible to say that some things on there should be paid for, like retirement pensions, health care, and to an extent public media, a lot of the other things are not feasible. The world isn't black and white, even if this movement likes to paint it that way.

Also, the free market is awesome. Imagine if all TV and pop music were produced by the government. It would all just be bland and generic.

Occupy is great example of how "you can't please all the people, even over any one thing"; and how community can still work despite itself. It's been done in parts before. At various points throughout human history. Diversity, freedom and open trade. Comfortable living wage for all employed. Opportunities to work more to earn more. Or work less to learn or play or whatever more. And the choice to work for someone else, or work a little for a few different people, or hire people to work for you. Launch a regional chain of stores, with aspirations to go national. Free market for all, such as we don't have now. And not free as in free beer and snacks, rather free as in free for all to use as they will.

Meanwhile.. Every person on the planet has access to water, food, shelter, health care, education, protection from crime (from people, business and government), insurance against injury and illness, a pension and dignified role in our societies for our elders, peace and security for our children, tolerance and togetherness, individuality within solidarity.

Complete... math... fail...

I'm glad you at least acknowledge the need to provide for everyone's basic needs, though.

I have a huge problem with public media. When you are funded by government, you are beholden to government. If you've ever listened to NPR for your political news you'll know exactly what I mean. I read most bills coming through the House of Reps and the Senate and watch a lot of Youtube CSPAN. If Americans really knew what was going on in our government we'd be one big step closer to reaching the Occupy end-state. Instead, it seems most MSM and public news sources (NPR) are complicit in weaving the narrative our government wishes to propogate. Isn't it odd that we don't have a multitude of perspectives amongst our numerous MSM sources? Why are they all focusing on the exact same nonsensical matters rather than subjects of gravity?

I agree that government has a role to play but I am a Jeffersonian. As he so aptly put it, government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take away everything you have. Consider America's healthcare bill, PPACA, the 2600 page absurdity that not a single person in America has read in its entirety. Do you think it really provides universal healthcare to Americans? Wrong, it will lead to rationed care and employers (mine included) will stop offering healthcare in a heartbeat because the fine is only 25% of the cost to pay the care in the first place. Worst of all, the bill was pushed through by a trade group (lobbyists) of insurance company executives because they knew it'd be unlimited government money for them with no additional costs.

Obama has been a corporate scum bag since day 1 and I'm sad to say that's always been the case for most Democrat politicans throughout my lifetime. Speak to the plight of "main street" one minute then turn around and give our tax dollars to corporate theives the next.

And every (R) POTUS in the last 2 or 3 decades hasn't? If you said, "no", you're the reason I don't vote.

That's a valid point when referring to POTUS. George W. Bush was a disaster in essentially every regard, but especially fiscally. .What I find amusing is that Obama is for all intents and purposes the third term of George Bush but for some reason people who hate Bush seem to like him.

Your point isn't so valid when you spread that out to all legislators. Granted, politics is a game of quid-pro-quo but Rs have hell of a lot more fiscal hawks than Ds. Ds are all about spending and pandering for success. A much larger ratio of Democrats buy special interest votes than Republicans when you look at the House of Representatives, for example. Democrats can't wait to waste your tax money on things like public worker unions or subsidized healthcare for people who use their money for luxuries rather than real needs or whatever else with the same incredibly consisent outcome of zero net improvement.

(R)s haven't spent a penny less for decades, they feed at the trough like the (D)s, they just spend it on different stuff (stuff that is actually worse for most Americans I might add). I don't like (D)s, lest you think I do, but (R)s are just as bad (actually, normally a bit worse, as they love spending money on shit that destroys the products of human labor). Check the number of earmarks (aka pork) on bills passed under Bush. They were 60% higher in number than they ever had been before and almost all added by (R)s. Bush never said "No" because he claimed to want unwavering support for his pet legislation.

There is a mythical idea about small government conservatives but they were rapidly disappearing even under Reagan. There are a very few congressmen that are not like this but they aren't confined to either party and by themselves could be counted on two hands.

I've always found the American version of public media beholden to government (pro-establishment) and beholden to corporate interests - just look at the countless amounts of corporate underwriting on PBS or NPR. The media as a whole needs to be reformed in some ways, but the idea of public broadcasting to me still appeals to me. It does work in other countries, but not in the US, it seems.

Bush's $400 billion deficit was a record at the time but consider that Obama has TRIPLED that in every year of his presidency. I understand what you're trying to say and you are right in that even those who have shifted toward fiscal convservatism in the last few years partied it up under Bush. The fact remains there are far more deficit hawks, supply-siders, etc on the Republican side. Also remember that 240ish Republicans voted for a Balanced Budget Amendment back in November. That's hardly a small contingent.

For the love of god the Democrats haven't even drafted a budget in three years (despite it being constitutionally mandated).

Screw vote just do. Find those of similar mind and get to it. That's what Occupy is. That's what they do. People marching in the streets, and picketing the institutions at the heart of our severe economic downturn amidst rising corporate profit, and so much more.

These Occupiers and Allied groups and others, are performing a pure patriotic duty. They are standing, and suffering selflessly for something greater than themselves. They are putting their money where their mouth is. Working by day, occupying a tent by night. Elders and children planting community gardens with the help of strong youth. School teachers teaching in the streets after school. Students organizing their own schools after being suspended for protesting local school closures, and other ills of an underfunded education system.

Homeless people and families being feed and sheltered and shown opportunity for more. People with substance addictions finding a fresh way to get clean by engaging with other people "who've been there, but are back, and are there open to share and empower. And so much more. A great deal of work has been afoot. Real people, doing real things, which are having real and immediate affects.

All that listed above, are things already done and continuing to be done. There is much not yet done, but in process. And the rate of new things getting done is accelerating rapidly. Like it or not the revolution is here. It's a slow moving, organically driven, social movement towards the humane treatment of humans and planet. Change occurs like the invasion of a wild flower to field of weeds. Seeds germinate. Pants grow then bloom to spread more seeds. Which germinate to grow and on and on.. with the number of seeds cast each season, growing exponentially more numerous. It's a process. A natural and organic one. Human evolves. We enter a new age.

So you want to build a utopia. Good luck with that.

"As long as banks exist, separation of commercial and financial banks, avoiding banks 'too big to fail'."

This is some rather confused wording. What exactly is the difference between commercial and financial banks? Aren't all banks financial?

A better phrasing would be to separate investment banks from deposit banks. Which I would agree with fully. Still, many of the major casualties (and near casualties) of the financial crisis were pure investment banks.

That's kind of the point. All the reform in the world cannot relieve people of their biases or their ambition. Ben Franklin noted during the Constitutional Convention that you can develop a perfect institution but you cannot remove the imperfections of man from it.

Sure you can change the rules for media outlets but rest assured that they will be bent to the point of breaking regardless. Where you see a free and robust media vehicle through a public entity, I see the inevitable transition to state-run "official" media like you see in Iran, China, Korea, etc. We already have Democrats in congress at this very time calling for restrictions to the 1st amendment. Media manipulation has been traced as far back in America as FDR, who would literally pull the plug on media outlets who contradicted his narrative. Thereafter, his opposition would often find themselves imprisoned because FDR would stick the IRS on them and force them to find something. He even did this to Andrew Mellon which was absolutely insane. This is the sort of behavior you'd expect from Putin or something not American presidents. Are you familiar with Obama's Attack Watch or Truth League? Really scary stuff.

See the fourth paragraph: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_Lincoln_Irey

I have no faith that that had anything to do with any philosophy beyond fighting Obama every step the of way. The total amount of a deficit has a lot to do with tax income, which during a recession tends to drop. I'm not sure there's even a way to make an apples to apples comparison of who did a worse job (which very well might have been the (R)s) so I'm just going to look at their actions, which are deplorable, and reiterate that they deserve exactly no credit. They are awful people, their fiscal conservatism is clearly a lie. And I'll leave it at that.

I do know that (R)s tend to like spending shit on tanks and fighter jets. At best that shit will never get used, at worst it will actively destroy shit we've poured some of our ever dwindling resources into. I detest both the (D)s and the (R)s (with the aforementioned handful of exceptions being excluded from said disdain), but the (D)s do disgust me a hair less.

If I'm not mistaken, banks were already separated in this manner prior to the recession. Afterward, investment banks were allowed to become deposit banks as the Fed considered that a clever way to help the banks "recapitalize."

Or maybe I just misunderstood and you're saying that deposit banks shouldn't be able to engage in proprietary investments using depositor moneys. If so, that is covered in Dodd-Frank under the Volcker rule. Dodd-Frank is another disaster but it's too late to get into that.

It is interesting that covered in the original post, were pre-replies to many of the responses which were to follow. They were predictable. I see them across the net. I've watched them morph from day one. Being predictable proves the premise that some people will miss or ignore the reality of something, to instead perpetuate erroneous assertions slanted towards politically centric points of view.

It is also interesting the responses which are negative and one-way minded.

Change is afoot. The people move. There is power in unity.


A powerful demonstration of unity... .

A lighter share of unity (kid safe, fun for all)..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RQtFp3wY0SQ