I ran across a great opinion piece by Paul Farrell on Marketwatch.com which I think does a good job of wading thru the OWS noise and gets down to the core concern of OWS supporters. In it he writes :
One citizen. One dollar. One vote. Anything less is failure
Warning: Don’t be fooled. Occupy Wall Street knows exactly want it wants. The tea party, GOP’s proxy, isn’t fooled. They feel threatened, counter-attacking, worried their role will be lost in the 2012 elections, fearful they’ll lose sway over Republicans, so they’ve got a smear campaign against Occupy Wall Street. Won’t work:
Amid all the noise surrounding Occupy Wall Street we hear their “one simple demand.” Missed by most outsiders, that demand echoes down through American history, first heard in 1776 in the Declaration of Independence. Earlier the Occupiers voiced their one simple demand:
“We demand that integrity be restored to our elections. One citizen. One dollar. One vote. Only citizens should make campaign contributions. Campaign contributions by citizens should not exceed $1 to any political candidate or party. Help us reclaim democracy.”
Yes, one simple demand: “Stop the monied corruption at the heart of our democracy.” That one simple demand echoed over and over. And no compromise when dealing with so fundamental a principle of democracy. Compromises the last generation surrendered America to Wall Street and the Super Rich. Compromise this principle again, and we all lose, destroy America. No compromise. Period.
Basically, overturn Citizens United and restore integrity to our democracy. Farrell doesn't mention corporate greed, the wars, etc....... . Those are SYMPTOMS of the problem. They are not the problem. One of the biggest mistakes you can make in diagnosing a problem is diagnosing a symptom of the problem as the actual problem. This leads you to making changes that don't fix the problem. I know this sounds so basic that you may be thinking "why is he telling me this?". Because, as an IT guy , I see it happen everyday. Sometimes it takes time to correctly find a problem even if it's right under you're nose.
Well, if OWS has diagnosed the problem correctly why am I writing this? Because as Farrell writes :
Amid all the noise surrounding Occupy Wall Street we hear their “one simple demand. Missed by most outsiders, that demand echoes down through American history......
The important phrase being "MISSED BY MOST OUTSIDERS".
OWS has correctly diagnosed the problem but because of the many "symptoms" being
publicized as "problems" by OWS supporters, outsiders are confused as to what OWS really wants. It also leads to a list of so many "problems" (all symptoms, except for one)which causes outsiders to become confused as to what OWS supporters really want. If outsiders and insiders aren't all on the same page, how can we fix the problem? The only way to fix the problem is to make sure EVERYONE knows exactly what the problem is and how we're gonna solve it. Without outsider support , we can't fix the problem. In a true democracy, It's going to take many people being on board to fix the core problem.
"One citizen. One dollar. One vote." traverses party and affiliations. It has traversed American history. It's a winning talking point and correctly diagnosises the problem with American democracy today. Anything else is just symptoms.