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For me and many of others, the OWS movement is an outgrowth of the Arab Spring, of the protests that took down Ben Ami in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt.
Those occupations did not tweak their political systems. They replaced them with big, huge changes. There was no waiting for the end of a political term. The occupiers re-set the terms.
Now, in Tahrir Sqaure, hundreds of thousands protesters are standing up against violent military and police, laying their lives on the line for true democracy, backing the police down and demanding an end to military control of government.
flickr image of Tahrir Square By Al Jazeera English
I say, continue to follow the Tahrir Square model of breaking up the old, making massive new change. The sacrifices and suffering Occupy Wall Street activists are experiencing deserve big changes, not tiny incremental adjustments. It is time to be bold. When OWS makes its demands known they should, every one of them, be seen as so big, so far out of the box that the opposition characterizes each one of them as crazy, dangerous, bizarre. If they are NOT that big, that aggressive and visionary then they will be letting the thousands of young people sleeping in tents in the occupied territories down. The OWS movement is not about moving inches. It is about revolutionary, quantum change.
Here are some thoughts on BIG changes that are consistent with the messages, conversations and signs prevalent at the occupied territories.
Demand a total end to the control of government by the existing members of congress elected under a corporation funded election system. Demand that all corporate funding elected officials step down and that it be totally illegal for corporations to in any way influence elections, with the death penalty for violations by corporations or their representatives.
Take the money factor out of elections. Elections should be strictly government funded based on eligibility rules. This has already been mapped out.
Eliminate all current gerrymandered districts and replace them with districts that have the simplest geometric shape, based on scientific mapping by non-partisan boards advised by experts.
Reinstate the fairness doctrine on TV.
That's a good start. Once the corporate selected "legislators" are purged and replaced by real legislators, elected without corporate interference, then,
pass a constitutional amendment, officially ending corporate personhood and putting corporations back in their place, including setting rules that prohibit companies from becoming too big to fail from existing or operating in the US.
This is not something that has to take a long time.
It could be in place for the 2012 elections. There will be the matter of the two thirds of the senators not up for re-election. Sorry. They all have to go. Run elections for EVERY senate seat.
Totally change the undemocratic Model for the Senate:
