Has a Harvard Professor Mapped Out the Next Step for Occupy Wall Street?

[Amazon D]

Has a Harvard Professor Mapped Out the Next Step for Occupy Wall Street?

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/11/has-a-harvard-professor-mapped-out-the-next-step-for-occupy-wall-street/247561/


MORE WRITTEN HERE BUT BELOW IS COPIED FOR YOU TO BRIEF::

So how do we begin a popular movement that might end with states petitioning for a convention? Lessig calls for mock conventions to happen all across the land: assemblies of regular people to think of these, and other, problems, and come up with solutions that might work. Not only would these conventions come up with a spectrum of solutions which could be evaluated and selected from, but they'd build national support for the idea that a convention like this could work.

It sounds unlikely to happen. But this is where Occupy Wall Street comes in. Properly leveraging its support, it could generate enough energy to do what Lessig, while writing this book, couldn't quite picture. In fact, the original call for Occupy Wall Street, from Adbusters, called on president Obama to "ordain a Presidential Commission tasked with ending the influence money has over our representatives in Washington." Already, "The 99 Percent Declaration  www.the99declaration.org " is calling for "a NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY beginning on July 4, 2012 in the City Of Philadelphia" to address the influence of money in politics and other issues.

Properly presented, the strategies and aims of Lessig's book could make it the handbook the protesters have been looking for -- and provide a pathway for them to ride out the winter ahead.

[tekla]

So we're trying to get rid of all Harvard/Yale et. all. types who have run this country into the ground and we're going to listen to some other guy from Harvard?  We need some new sources.

[Amazon D]

Well basically a guy named michael started the 99 group on FB and he contacted the harvard guy to get some publicity.. its working ..

[tekla]

Unlike showbiz, where any publicity is good publicity, in the real world PR that set's the wrong tone just turns people off, and HARVARD turns people off. (and nothing could be further from the ideals of 99% than 'expert authority' from academia)

[Amazon D]

Unlike showbiz, where any publicity is good publicity, in the real world PR that set's the wrong tone just turns people off, and HARVARD turns people off. (and nothing could be further from the ideals of 99% than 'expert authority' from academia)

Geez tekla do you ever agree with anyone here ?

You could have said it may get the non protesting 99% to go to the site.. sheesh

Yes i know the hard core protestors don't want any government .. and most of the 99% do..

[tekla]

It's not a matter of not having any government, but  - and this is one area of overlap between the 99% and the Tea Party - it's about returning to a more democratic system, one that has a lot of input from a lot of sources, and moving away from a government by a few 'experts who know better.'  We've tried the 'Harvard-Yale' way, and it got us to where we are now, and frankly the results are less and less impressive all the time.  To me it's just one more person who thinks they are 'the smartest guy in the room' having all the answers, when I don't even think most of the questions have been raised yet.

And the Occupy stuff is not going to be it either, it's a start, and if nothing else it's showing the moral, spiritual and intellectual bankruptcy of the current system and then proving it with the police state crap.  Really, last week we had two moments, the kind of stuff that just can't be imagined where the irony was so delicious that it hurts. 

One was the riot squad in Berkeley - doing that macho cop thing of beating up college kids while wearing full riot gear, on the steps of Sproul Hall.  Those steps, proclaimed in 1997 by the University as 'The Mario Salivio Steps' in honor of the Free Speech Movement.  Hell, what better place to unleash police state brutality on people for assembling to address the government for redress of grievances then the exact place that honors that exact same crap happening in 1964.  Well except the cops in 1964 were real men, and didn't need riot gear to beat up teenage girls.  And they did it the day before the annual "Mario Salvio Lecture" to boot.  It could have only been better if it was Lexington and Concord on July 4th.

Second was the police in NYC destroying everything in that camp, including trashing most of the library the Occupy people put together -  hell, they might as well have put the books in a pile and burned them while singing Deutschland über alles.  Sad, if they had taken the time to read and understand the Constitution - and the would have found it reprinted in lots, and lots, and lots of the books they tossed into dumpsters - they could have skipped the entire exercise.

[Amazon D]

Yale University Students Protest Morgan Stanley Recruitment, Chant 'Make Change Not Money' | As the majority of America's brightest college graduates head to Wall Street, Yale University students gathered at a Morgan Stanley recruitment event yesterday to urge a different path. Chanting "Make Change Not Money" in unison, more than 30 students "held signs and shouted for their fellow classmates to forsake a career in financial services in exchange for careers that could positively affect the lives of many people." Though 25 percent of Yale students seek careers in finance, protesters called it "a waste of brain power" and held signs labeling it as a "Brain Drain." "They could do so much more in this world," said one protester told the New Haven Register.

http://thinkprogress.org/special/2011/11/16/370308/yale-university-morgan-stanley/?fb_ref=.TsVf3Pcwtw4.like&fb_source=profile_oneline