[Vision2020] Let's talk about OccupyWherever

[Kenneth Marcy]

On Sunday, November 06, 2011 11:55:05 AM Jay Borden wrote:
<[snip]>
> I have no love for any organization that manipulates the system to achieve
> a goal… 

The exercise of power is manipulating the system ...

> but I have great respect for those that have achieved great wealth
> by playing by the rules,

So, you have great respect for those who designed, implemented, and benefited 
from the current system of protection -- put in place by the nation's founding 
fathers -- and perpetuated through generations of financial power executed 
self-preferentially and to the disadvantage of most unorganized individuals.

> and I hold no ill-will towards their success or achievements. I also hold no 
> ill-will towards wealthy folks that want to continue to hold on to that     
> wealth,

Given generally privileged starting positions, and enhanced greed above and 
beyond levels inherent in every living organism, that the wealthy evince 
inertia to preserve their masses of wealth is hardly news. Whether such wealth 
aggregations are optimally effective for the most productive well-being and the 
continued healthy existence of the society that contains large disparities of 
control of the means and uses of production is a more important matter. 

> and I continue to decry efforts to simply rob them of their hard-earned      
> success through lopsided tax policies that seem to find more public support  
> because of their ability to punish as opposed to being just fair.

Those who put in place the current tax policies are the ones who benefit from 
them. Tax policy is an exercise of power that has resulted in "lopsided tax 
policies" that favor the current power structure incumbents. To call efforts to 
change tax policy "rob[bing] them of their hard-earned success," which was 
stolen fair-and-square with well-paid back-room lobbyists and campaign 
contributions that brought the power of incumbency into corporate board rooms, 
is simply to disparage the analogous efforts that brought financial power and 
benefits to the incumbents in the first place. And they should be disparaged.

The question is how should we now go about changing the system to achieve a 
new set of national, regional, organizational, and personal goals, consistent 
with general notions of morality, ethics, and justice, and without general 
destruction of wealth, property, and lives.

In the technical world of computer networking there is a model of network 
architecture called the Open Systems Interconnection model. Its details here 
are unimportant, except for the general observation that there are seven 
levels of technical details between what one sees on one's computer screen and 
the precise, exact patterns of voltage switching that comprise network, and 
Internet, messaging through the wires and airwaves that connect us. The 
interfaces between those seven levels need to be very precisely specified for 
everything to work correctly.

What the Occupy Wall Street or Occupy Where Ever movements lack, at the 
moment, are the architectural designs and the implementation details of the 
necessary interfaces among the parties necessary to effect the changes needed 
at several societal levels. Just as electrical circuits embody resistance, so 
do political ones; therein lies a substantial part of the challenge.

The flow and control of political power needs newer and more flexibly designed 
political circuitry to fashion more effective contemporary systems for the 
benefit of more people. It's better that we design and implement such circuitry 
than more destructive routes be allowed to occur through inaction to reduce 
the pressures building on millions of people.

A few thousand very wealthy people need to understand that there are limits to 
the patience, tolerance, and forbearance of great masses of people whose lives 
have been, and continue to be, seriously adversely affected by social systems 
that are less effective than they could, or should, be. Woe betide us all if 
some American citizens start treating other American citizens as we have 
treated those in other countries with whom we have some difference. We need to 
design and to put in place interfaces and systems that will allow peaceful 
transitions to more equitable and ethical economic enterprises to benefit all.


Ken