Occupy Think Tank Working Group
What We Do and Our Goals
The Occupy Think Tank organizes daily discussion groups to discuss important issues of the 99% and provides a forum for public participation.
We hold passionate discussions about politics, economics, social and philosophy.
Volunteer with Us!
Need facilitators and minute-takers for the daily discussion groups.
Contacts
Beth , Jane, and Melissa
MeetUp Info
This working group may not have a regular meeting.
Revision History
- 23 November, 2011 @ 21:33 [Current Revision] by yas
- 20 November, 2011 @ 22:57 by yas
- 20 November, 2011 @ 22:56 by yas
- 20 November, 2011 @ 22:56 by yas
Dear Beth, Jane and Melissa,
I hope that you are well. I enjoyed reading your site and your voting structure peaked my interest. Obviously, I am aware of the Occupy movements sweeping across the US. Seems like its Spring time everywhere, hunh?
I do feel like I am at a loss in truly trying to understand the movement, in particular:
Mission/Vision Statement
Intended impact
Strategies to attain impact
When I am reading your site, I feel that I don’t understand exactly what you want to change, and how you intend to fix it? Perhaps, because you are in early stages or I don’t get it. I do understand that you want your voices heard and utilizing peaceful methods is a very understandable tactic.
I am looking more for a mission statement. What are you about? Your vision? Do you have the goal in sight?
Just some thoughts.
Best,
Mark
P.S. What is URI? Is it twitter related?
Mark, I’m from #OBos, we want justice, fairness, end corporate greed: have the courts do their job; accountability; who’s responsible for the economic crash and they made BILLIONS of dollars, give it back.
We want many more jobs, if not for all then for most people. Fair mortgages. Participatory democracy … our civil rights back, our constitution back.
And a question for you … if the Super Committee, of paid professionals, empowered by the US gov, couldn’t deal with the problem … why do you expect us to in 2 months, while we are creating a new way to participate in our governance … look for Occupy Congress and a dysporia of actions. Occupy is a movement … are you the kind of person that asks one woman, ‘What do women want?’
Occupy is the fertile chaos, jump in and serve, find what you are going to do regarding the problems of our American ‘Dream’
Someone from ideas plz get in touch, eden
I feel that the think tank is coming unhinged due to our lack of communication and failure to choose a place to really work on hammering out demands based upon researched facts that support solutions that should become our demands. I also feel that there may be a tendency developing to shift towards becoming a white feminist or white privileged working group — which is how as a nation we got into this situation in the first place. If that happens we will just be repeating mistakes and shutting out parties that really have lost more than most and repeating the same patterns that lead to national destruction and segregated enclaves. So we need to create means of remaining in contact with each other through the internet and start think about solutions that are integrated and affect all of us positively not just some of us.
Raven,
The whole idea of Occupy Think Tank was to bring diverse groups together to have open discussion. The reason the Think Tank working group came unhinged is because nobody was willing to step up besides myself and one or two other people to be there, facilitate and recruit. Think Tank was open to everyone and anyone. If you felt there was not enough diversity, you are welcomed and encouraged to bring more people in and to encourage them to run or facilitate the group. Please re-start Occupy Think Tank and make it more diverse.
Please visit the Campaign for an Informed Citizenry website – http://www.cicorg.com – and especially note the Occupy article therein. In that context, we would like to encourage that a specific, long term, non-partisan, cost effective objective of the Occupy movement be directed at the post-secondary arena to help create better civic understanding and dialogue. With that in mind, we would like to work with your group in developing a proposal for your general assembly consideration. Please let me know your thoughts/questions accordingly, and hopefully we can go from there. Thanks – Jim Palombo
The Occupy Movement is a broad-based movement bringing attention to the massive concentration of wealth in the top 1% or even the top .01% of our population. When a small group controls our political, economic, and environmental systems for the purpose of accumulating more and more wealth, this works to the detriment of the well-being of the people, the children, and the sustainability of the Earth that we derive our sustenance from. The Occupy movement encompasses a diverse spectrum of people from varying political persuasions who recognize that this wealth concentration in the 1% is creating a military-industrial-banking-media complex that is syphoning off the wealth of the people to war, weapons, unproductive speculative investments, and a dirty fossil fuel based economy. Since the mainstream media is owned and controlled by many of the same people who run banks, weapons corporations and buy our politicians, the news is spun in such a way to justify this massive misappropriation of the country’s wealth away from people, communities, and sustainable infrastructure. Occupy is bringing awareness to these issues that the media otherwise ignores or distorts in favor of the status quo. The next steps are up to the 99%.
We are meeting to discuss the creation of materials for financial crimes and the criminals that commit them. Next meeting is Tuesday at 7:30 PM at Occu-Bucks (the Starbucks on Drumm).
Good luck! The research showing that countries with low inequality do well, while those like America do so poorly give strong ammunition for your groups. Opinions are cheap, but these are hard facts.