Two weeks into Occupy Wall Street protests, movement is at a crossroads

What the hell is OWS all about?

OK - maybe we're getting somewhere.

What does the OWSters want to happen as a result of these demonstrations?

What needs to happen before they will believe Wall Street was properly held responsible?

And, as with any democratic movement and judging from the comments section, the twinkles are all over the place -- some up, some down. Not everyone has mad love for the drummers, others disagree. (I'd probably want to shoot myself if someone was percussing 12 hours/day outside my window). There may have to be a revolution within the revolution.

So how is this conveyed to people who can actually do something about it?

Irishk wrote:

And, as with any democratic movement and judging from the comments section, the twinkles are all over the place -- some up, some down. Not everyone has mad love for the drummers, others disagree. (I'd probably want to shoot myself if someone was percussing 12 hours/day outside my window). There may have to be a revolution within the revolution.

Someone once observed that anarchist groups eventually realize that they need to be more organized. When that happens, a leader emerges that tends to be even more dictatorial than the regime the anarchists were fighting in the first place.

Interesting. There haven't been many female dictators throughout history, maybe this really isa new beginning.

Been waiting for this reaction. The powers that be left them alone to start with because they thought they would tire and the movement would fall. But it is gaining momentum so its time to get tough and break the movement with force. The powers that be have the politicians and the police to front for them and break the movement. The power brokers have been use the police for 130 years to enforce their agenda. After all politicians only listen to their employers in order to keep their jobs. Those citizens who think they are the employers of the politicians havent been paying attention to the political system.

Cyclo listed things that could help the economy but I dont think he listed the people who constitute the membership of OWS. they are the people who have lost their jobs, homes, savings, and the ones who cant find jobs because the capitalists have moved them to china, india, mexico, and all the other countries where they can buy cheap labor. But these same capitalists want the protection of our military, and our government to bail them when they make bad decisions that caused all our economic problem

But there definitely are some core ideas at play here:

- Make it official that banks will no longer be 'bailed out.' Gov't policy should be to nationalize banks that fail and fire their management. Investors and bondholders should take a bath instead of being rewarded for the company's failure. Banks would be rehabbed, broken up into smaller institutions, and sold off to private investors - hopefully recouping some of the cost of nationalizing them.

- Bring back the Glass-Steagal act, it hurt nothing and nobody at all for these common-sense limitations to be in place, and we - as a society - don't profit whatsoever from mega-bank-investment corporations. Return banking to the simpler, predictable-profit business that we enjoyed for 60 years - until this act was repealed.

- Change corporate compensation law (there are a variety of ways we could do this) to end the practice of ever-increasing executive pay. Top executive pay should be tied to performance of the company; nothing is more infuriating than the 'golden parachute.' Promote shareholder control of executive pay and bust up the crony-filled system that currently guarantees high pay for mediocre results.

- Banks should at this point be willing to engage in some cram-down of mortgages.

- Beef up the SEC and give them a more aggressive mission.

- Heavily investigate the credit ratings agencies, and change the way that they are allowed to profit from doing businesses with companies. Currently there are big problems with the negative incentives around the security ratings process...

- - Change the way Mortgage Servicing works. Currently, most of the people who actually manage the mortgages that have been sold in Mortgage-backed securities make higher profits if the mortgages default! They have no incentive to actually help anyone stay in their home, or to help adjust mortgages. This part of the system is totally screwed.

-- The Fed needs to get their thumbs out of their asses and recognize that they have a responsibility to ensure maximum employment, not just keep inflation low. The inflation hawks have been consistently wrong, for decades, and yet, they still are holding undue sway amongst the financial elite - probably because the fortunes of the very wealthy aren't helped by job creation measures, to the extent that they are by controlling inflation.

-- - Finally, a WPA-style jobs bill is what our country needs - and I would eventually like to see this replace what we currently use, welfare. If these college kids who can't get a job, and have crushing debt, really want to work, put them to work doing manual labor fixing roads, bridges, and beautifying our country. If they were smart enough to graduate, they are smart enough to learn how to work a shovel.

-- Those, I would say, are the top concerns of the movement - and most of them are common-sense moves that all would agree on. This is why I think this movement can have some success; even partial realization of their goals could be both politically acceptable AND effective.

Cycloptichorn