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Shantastic Marie

Income Inequality Reframe: The 99% « Framed In Canada - 0 views

framedincanada.com/...come-inequality-reframe-the-99

inequality canada CCPA Occupy Thesis

shared by Shantastic Marie on 23 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Occupy Wall Street is shining new light on the question of how to frame income inequality.
  • growinggap.ca project
  • income inequality elicited many and varied response
  • ...23 more annotations...
  • ambiguous
  • gap between the rich and poor
  • couldn’t identify with the rich
  • preventing them from identifying with the poor
  • Rather than see the rise of the richest and the misfortunes of the poorest as a product of a larger system that treats people differently – unfairly – five years ago, the Canadians in our focus groups saw the problem of systemic poverty from an individualistic standpoint
  • struggles of the middle class trying to keep afloat
  • talking about it in terms of the rich and the poor was an unconscious form of ‘othering’
  • And so we shifted the frame, focusing the lens on the gap between the rich and the rest of us
  • systemic problem of poverty
  • show how much the majority of Canadians have in common when it comes to income inequality – that it’s a systemic problem which affects us all
  • inequality heightens social tensions and threatens the health and vibrancy of our democracy
  • Five years and a worldwide recession later (a recession caused by irresponsible financial schemes hatched by a handful of bankers and traders on Wall Street), social unrest has been slowly unfolding
  • Arab Spring
  • G20 protests
  • Occupy Wall Street
  • fed up with a system that has wildly rewarded the richest one per cent while 99 per cent of Americans grapple with a Great Recession whose impact doesn’t seem to be letting up
  • They are showing us they are ready to stare down powerful corporate interests that prevent America from dealing with its serious fiscal and social issues.
  • large groups of citizens taking to the street
  • viewed by the establishment as anarchy
  • threat to rule of law or radical
  • hard limits of the kind of post-9/11 authoritarian constraints on perfectly law-abiding citizens who simply demand their right to be seen and heard. The 99 per cent, the new income inequality frame, has been ignored by governments of all levels, in far too many countries, for far too long.
  • The Wall Street occupants are showing us that when the system isn’t working for the 99 per cent, something is dangerously wrong with our democracy
  • new frame with which to view income inequality in North America: it is about the 99 per cent. It isn’t about individuals or individual failure. It’s about a system that’s failing the vast majority of citizens who believe things can be better than this.
Shantastic Marie

Demand The Impossible | Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters - 0 views

www.adbusters.org/...demand-impossible.html

OccupyMovement Import

shared by Shantastic Marie on 21 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Some Occupiers feel strongly that the movement should demand absolutely nothing from the economic and political system it’s rising up against. After all, the argument goes, the strength of the Occupy Movement thus far has been its potent indictment of the ruling class, coupled with its refusal to make any discernable demands or empower any official spokespeople
  • However, by taking direct aim at the relationship between capital and the state, Occupy has raised the issue of class struggle in the U.S.
  • Having raised the level of political awareness, the movement must now fashion class consciousness into political action
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • The legitimacy of the system failed, revealing its true nature. The democracy of the 1 percent is a sham; their police are but armed mercenaries.
  • Repression!
  • And to this end, we do need demands, not to explain ourselves to the 1 percent, but rather to anchor Occupy in the daily lives of the people whom we aspire to involve in our movement.
  • determination to squelch free speech and the right to assembly
  • violence of the police
  • Occupy is the anvil of the people
  • The coordinated repression against encampments nationwide speaks to this–as well as the 1 percent’s penchant for answering a challenge with blunt force.
  • misstep made all too often in the movement
  • draw new people into the movement
  • message that has the potential to resonate within the awakening consciousness of the 99 percent
  • demand of “Tax the rich” implicitly operates beyond the scope of this current capitalist economic system
  • dialogue of wealth redistribution beyond the scope of the 1 percent’s project of capital accumulation.
  • “Where’s our bailout?” directly calls into question the bank bailouts of 2008 and begs the question of why the 99 percent were expected to sacrifice under this tremendous recession, while those responsible for crashing the economy have raked in billions of taxpayer dollars.
  • “Where is our bailout” is a fair statement in favor of both wealth redistribution and for a just and equal society
  • Giving the proverbial bird to the existing power structure in the face of unbearable living conditions the world over isn’t enough at the end of an equally unbearable day.
  • demands for reforms may also germinate broader, more radical platforms
  • CAN THE historic task in front of Occupy be accomplished in its current form? It cannot.
  • This presupposes a unity that the heterogeneous ideologies that flow under the surface of the movement have yet to achieve.
  • It is necessary to articulate demands, and grievances that are bound under a unified set of independent political principles. We cannot ignore the 1 percent–who control the media, poison our skies and seas, and whisper consumer nothings in our ears. We must topple them
  • What is needed is a more potent injection of politics, reclaimed history and the fortitude to continue to fight back
  • heal the fissures of the left
  • solidarity
  • The success of concrete political tactics is measurable.
  • “Going off the grid” isn’t an option
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