Also, today I saw a picture on my Facebook that was troublesome, and it brings me to discuss a point made by my Institutional Economics professor, Linwood Tauheed. The point is that Wall Street Occupiers should not be attacking the real economy, should not be striking against businesses and putting regular people out of work. Yes, historically, labor has had grievances with industry, and they should be able to engage in collective bargaining to get what they need to support their families.
But the financial system no longer needs industries to profit in order to make money, they can make money by betting against corporations (hedging) who make stuff when their workers go on strike. Tauheed's second point was that if the Occupy movement wants to grow, we must get regular people on our side, this will not be accomplished by attacking companies that provide good jobs (I am not talking about Walmart here) but real good jobs. Occupiers as a group need to know a lot more about how the economy works before we alienate the workers we want to help.
Our discussions need to take into consideration that the movement as it stands is not representative of the people we hope to help. There must be more community outreach and inclusion. We do not want the soccer moms against us. But we also need to find a way to reach out to transportation workers, employed persons, and minorities. 99% is a lot, but the spectrum of people included in the 99% have not yet been represented within the movement.
Another Tauheed suggestion: Occupiers should spend the winter using the Obama campaign techniques to organize house parties, discussion groups, library events etc. for the purpose of gaining popular support over the winter and showing up in force in the streets come spring.
Ok, I already respectfully responded to your argument on fb (and I do appreciate your opinions and like you very much) concerning this and you are welcome to post them but now I have some different beef. First off if you are calling me a "big oil soccer mom" you are sorely mistaken and making ridiculous generalizations. If you are calling the woman who wrote the sign a big oil soccer mom, you are also mistaken. I am a social worker; a class away from a masters degree in social work with an emphasis on community organization. I have a 2 year old child and my husband does not work for a big oil company. He is a small business owner and has worked his butt off despite crazy regulations and insurance theft. He grew up in this industry and has first hand knowledge of what most people hear about in classrooms but never experience themselves. As for the woman with the sign, her husband works on a drilling rig, and she would not be someone in big oil. As for your instructor, he might want to take a look at some of the 53%…go to the53.tumblr.com and read some of the profiles of the other people who are irritated with the unfocused agenda of the occupiers. Most of them are hard working non soccer moms if you can believe it. If you guys want to get the actual 99% involved you'll need some community organizers to help. Let me know if you guys need some advice for the spring. My first bit is this: get on the steps of the white house!
ReplyDeleteOh no, I was not calling you big oil soccer mom, I was referring to the lady in the picture. The reason I said that was because she references the pension funds in publicly traded stocks which are big oil. I did assume that she meant her husband worked for one of the companies that was publicly traded on the stock market. I guess you got this picture from somewhere else, not facebook, I thought this was posted on FB first by the woman in the picture. Even so, soccer moms are hard working, voting people who run their households, so their opinions are important. Since my blog is written for the Occupiers, I was trying to make the point that the message isn't getting across to the people we need it to get across to, and more importantly that our beef should be with the financial companies and some big corporation who (by law) put profits for shareholders above almost all other business considerations, including the health and well being of our world and its people. I have no knowledge of how hard your husbands company works to be environmentally sound. But the insurance issues you talked about are part of the financial sector where businesses who make stuff are no longer the prime concern of the financial sector, after all, they have our pensions, which gives them plenty of money to gamble with. They can spend their days hedging their bets and making money whether companies like your husbands succeed or fail.
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