Message Committee

[Franklin]

This will be the forum for message committee correspondence.

[Franklin]

repost from facebook for the Message Commitee Researchers

To our researchers:

Please include ALL citations. If you can't recall the source for a
piece of information, at least make explicit the need for a source.
Multiple-sourcing is preferable, where possible. Also: never cite a
source of mysterious origins without including an explicit caution.

Don't get too hung up - this not a paper to be sent to a teacher. It's
a draft to be cross-checked and consented to. Final formatting is
secondary to accuracy.

Essentially - if you can plug a hole in your research do so whenever
possible.

[Franklin]

Matt C.

Some of the criticism of the Occupy Wall Street movements has been
that the message seems muddled, that no clear coherent objectives have
been outlined, and that the movement lacks focus. To the careful
observer however, this is not at all the case. There are many
different people with a variety of concerns ranging from economics,
inequities of distribution of wealth, the power of Wall Street over
our government, corporate greed, and the effects all of the above has
on the standard of living for the other 99%, those who work and create
the wealth of the world. However, to the careful observer all of the
various complaints and concerns mentioned by the protestors are
symptomatic of the same disease: the abominable greed of Wall Street
despite the abominable consequences for the rest of the world.
Instead of attempting to legislatively medicating these symptoms
separately, I would suggest we cure the disease. Putting together a
hodgepodge of bills which will only be watered down during the
legislative process, and chipped away at during the repeal process,
while this movement has momentum it should focus its message to a few
objective will ultimately address and solve the other problems and
complaint.
The first of the five following proposed objective satisfies many of
the complaint made by Occupy Wall Street protestors, and the other
four tie up many loose end that need to be addressed. The first one
listed below calls for a laborers rights amendment to the constitution
of the United States of America governing and mandating
constitutionally obligatory profit sharing.



Though the basic principles I have outlined below have not been voted
on or approved by the Occupy Wall Street organization in Knoxville, I
firmly believe these are the general objectives the movement should
adopt if it is ultimately to effect any social and economic change
worthy of a social movement whose professed goals are to abolish
economic slavery in America. This is the last civil rights movement
the world will ever need and we are the New Abolitionist.

Below are a few proposed amendments and laws for the Occupy Wall
Street movement to adopt along with a general description of the goal
of each. The list will be followed by a brief and basic explanation as
to why they are needed so that America can attain the kind of moral
high ground it has always aspired and often imagines it possess.



Proposed Objectives of Occupy Wall street, Knoxville

1. Fruits of Labor Amendment: an amendment to the constitution of the
United States of America guaranteeing the labor force of every
business a fair and equitable portion of the profits and wealth they
create for the company. The goal here being to insure that dividends
paid out to investors and other non-producer’s such as absentee owners
and/or upper management are distributed only after the labor force
receives a fair portion of profits in the form of bonuses, benefits,
or some mixture of each.

2. True Democracy Amendment: an amendment to the constitution of the
United States of America which calls for: a) the restructuring of
campaign finance system with the goal of promoting free speech by
limiting campaign budgets to a predetermined allotment of public funds
in equal amounts depending on market value during a given election
cycle, b) abolishing lobbying, the goal being to end the profession
the sole purpose of which is to thwart democracy, c) dismantling the
electoral college and making the office of President of the United
States obtainable only by popular vote, d) and allowing for certain
controversial laws, and those laws with far-reaching social and
economic effects to be considered (at the sole digression of the
general public, after healthy public debate) as standalone
propositions subject to a direct up-or-down public vote administered
during public elections.


3. Citizen of the World Amendment: an amendment to the constitution of
the United States of America which compels the United States to act
militarily only in self-defense, and that all preemptive wars and
interventions are to be deemed illegal and immoral unless approved by
a majority vote by the United Nations Security Council. This amendment
would also requires the United States to place itself within the
jurisdiction of the World Court at The Hague and make U.S. citizens
charged with crimes against humanity subject to indictment and
persecution by that court. Furthermore, a Citizen of the World
Amendment should compels the U.S. to sign and participate in all
treaties and packs designed to conserve the environment, cultivate
respect for the other species we share this planet with, reduced
pollution, and stop global warming. Finally, the amendment should
regulate trade of foreign agricultural products with and by Western
investors, to include limiting sales by foreign growers in the U.S. in
an effort to stem world hunger.

4. Wall Street Accountability and Deterrent Act: a law that directs
the Attorney General of the United States of America to investigate
and prosecute in civil court the key officers and CEO’s responsible
for the financial meltdown that began with the collapse of the housing
market, imposing fines no less than the total net worth of each
individual as defined by cash, stocks, and property. This law should
also allow for those found guilty to be permanently banned from
working in banks, financing, insurance, hedge funds, the stock
exchange, and Wall Street in general.


5. Wall Street Research Act: a law requiring all state and private
universities receiving public funding to produce review papers
scrutinizing all research regarding addiction to money and power and
outlining areas where further research is needed. Such a law will
mandate that the appropriate departments at state and private
universities devote the resources needed to conduct this research and
publish all results in applicable journals.





A Fruits of Labor Amendment is an important and morally just as a
means to end the suffering and hopelessness of living under the Wall
Street regime, to reduce stress-related illness and death both
directly and indirectly related to the open theft of resources and
wealth by the Ruling Elite on Wall Street, and alleviate the pervasive
existential threat felt by the labor class.
This amendment is put forward in the belief that the economy is the
lifeblood of modern society and that the relationship between the
elite management class and the working class should be symbiotic in
nature, with management acting as facilitators that perform a valuable
service to society. The relationship should not continue to be a
parasitic one in which the elite management class falsely claims
ownership of world’s resources, robbing the working class of the
intrinsic wealth it alone produces, and draining society of it of a
vibrant economy.


A True Democracy Amendment is central to insuring that government of
consumers by big business, for big business shall perish from the
earth. We have the illusion of living in a democracy because we vote
and elected official come and go in Washington, but Wall Street is
always there, corrupting from within, we can’t seem to vote them out.
In a true democracy it seems we could if we wanted. It is very
important that we succeed for in booting Wall Street out of Washington
for one reason and one reason only—a false democracy leads only to
real revolution.

No one was ever so hopelessly enslaved than those who believe falsely
they are free.
–Goethe

A Citizen of the World Amendment is vital to insure that America, the
most powerful nation in the world, does not act as a bully in the
world. Every moral society must be held accountable for its action in
the world community, especially one as militarily superior as America.
Right now there is a campaign against bullying in our schools; I would
suggest our government pay attention. This amendment is also important
to insure that people all around the world can afford to buy locally
grown food. There are too many people starving in the world because
foreign food products bring in more money on Western markets.
Consequently, food is sold out from under populations of people,
shipped directly to American consumers who are already overweight, and
never reaches the tables of the people from the countries in which it
was grown. In other words, people are starving in the world because
the food grown in their countries can be sold to rich Westerns for a
higher price than the local populations can afford to pay; and yet
Americans are prone to believing we are wealthy because we are so
smart, and never seem to see the wealth actually comes from immoral
practices we allow to continue.

The Wall Street Accountability and Deterrent Act is needed to insure
that there are repercussions for behaving immorally on Wall Street and
for taking unwise risks, thus jeopardizing national security. Without
consequences for such immoral behaviors we cannot expect bankers on
Wall Street to stop pillaging and destroying the world economy as they
seek their million dollar bonuses. A very basic premise of the science
of behaviorism is that behaviors that are rewarded and not punished
tend to continue; and yet Wall Street, which acts more like an Ivy
League Mafia that patriotic Americans, is consistently rewarded for
its reckless greed, is rarely punished effectively, and so there is
little to prompt them to behave ethically.

The Wall Street Research Act is needed to insure that inordinate and
perverse cases of greed are understood, viewed, and treated as a
disease. The kind of greed that allows people to chase after their
addiction to money and profit while the American and world economy
falls apart is no different than the kind of addiction/disorder that
causes alcoholic, sex addicts, gamblers, or drug addicts to chase
after their respective addictions while their careers, social lives,
and relationships fall apart. All addictions are alike in that they
are self-destructive diseases with the same basic chemical basis.
Therefore, addiction to money and power is a sickness like any other
addiction.
It has been argued by Obama and others that the bankers did nothing
“illegal” to cause the financial meltdown and thus cannot be
prosecuted for their offenses; however, a builder who cuts corners,
uses cheap or substandard construction materials, or practices
marginal workmanship may not have done anything necessarily “illegal”
by cutting corners, but if the building collapses he can still be held
accountable in civil court. Wall Street bankers should be held
accountable for what amount to negligent stewardship of both the
national and world economies. The destruction and death and suffering
they have caused is far greater than any caused by the collapse of a
single building.

Everyone can agree you would not want an alcoholic running your
company because doing so would put your major accounts at risk and
leave the company’s overall health hanging in the balance. Likewise,
we as Americans surely do not want someone with what is fundamentally
the same sort of disease running the country’s finances. Doing so
would put our financial institutions at risk and leave the fate of our
nation and the world hanging in the balance. It’s really a no brainer
to think that we as a society have a vested interest in insuring
people with mental and emotional issues be kept out of positions in
which their decisions can have such far-reaching effects for all of
humanity.)

Abominable greed despite abominable consequences is a sickness like
any other and like any other it needs to be addressed by mental health
professions so that the people suffering from the disease can be
identified and treated. An alcoholic at a church picnic is going to
stand out, but an alcoholic at a bar where everyone is drinking
socially is a bit harder to identify; consequently, in a capitalistic
society where money is sought after and greed sometime glorified by
unenlightened people, it can be difficult to identify the people
suffering from addiction to money and power. We need the tools to
recognize and treat them. Research in this area would go a long way to
finding a cure.