99% owns Trillions of $ of POWER

[hedgehog]

hey OM. we could DO this. read on:
dear friends, family, fellow occupiers, fellow 99%er's,
some of you have my other gmail address. please note that this sonic.net address thru which i am sending this email, i consider my 'business' email address. i'd appreciate it if you continue to send personal emails and notes to my the gmail address and use this one for big downloads and media, informative or 'business' type emails. it would help me enormously.
thanks,
~~becca

i cannot find it now but in late october i received an email about an idea that the 99% withhold payment of certain bills in april 2012 - in april because it's income tax filing month, a good month to have our voices heard. (we pay our taxes but not our loan payments. the message being that we support america vs corrupt corporations. i don't recall this last supposition in the letter but maybe it was there.)

the letter reported i think correctly, that it will take 7+ billion dollars to bail out Greece. think of the power expressed by the powers-that-be by awarding Greece that kind of money. think of the implications if the money is not awarded. very powerful. this is big news, isn't it....

now, think of this: the letter stated that the sum total of the entire 99%'s debts in mortgages, credit cards, college and auto loans is somewhere around 3 trillion dollars!

if 7+ billion dollars represents a lot of power, how much more powerful would amounts in the trillions be? what is the total sum of just one month of minimum payments on that amount? it's huge. the email suggested that the 99%, right now, has that kind of power.
so hello OCCUPIERS, the 99%, we know we've been complacent. but we're waking up. we're figuring things out. listen up:

....giant corrupt businesses and loan companies, multinational corporations, some that have wealthy undeserving CEO's, use predatory practices and otherwise impose unfair and excessive percentage rates and fees on us, have client abuse histories, these 'too big to fail' businesses that WE bailed out with our tax dollars, these insatiable greedy capitalistic companies that are squeezing out the middle class with the support of our government ARE the biggest unifying reason for the OCCUPY movement....

you've heard the phrase "vote with your dollar"? what if we millions of americans unified in protest by agreeing that we could simply not pay these particular bills in april 2012? what if we even just rumored to skip payment for just one month? i'm pretty sure we'd get the attention we need for change. these companies would have to respond to how serious we are when we say "stop corporate greed".

somehow i deleted an email that had a fairly well thot out brief list of 'demands'. (please google discussions on OCCUPIERS non-violent use of the word 'demand', more like a firm plea.)

the email suggested that the 99% send to our government and these corporations a 10 or so item list of demands aimed at correcting corrupt and unfair common practices in use by our government and these companies. we would send these demands to all the loan companies and corporations such as fanny and freddie mac, fannie mae, bank of america, wells fargo, visa, chase, citi-bank, mastercard, discover...all of them. we would send them our list of demands and promise to withhold our payments in april 2012 unless we see clear evidence that our demands are being addressed towards resolution. (we could insidiously remind them what a disaster withholding future payments would be also?..my own idea).

the email suggested we millions of us, the 99%, in mass protest consider, indeed withhold, april's payments unless we are heard and changes towards our demands are visibly, tangibly in motion by then.
it seems to me that this would be a VERY POWERFUL bit of leverage, while at the same time *meeting our peaceful non-violence **commitment**, *which continues to be important to all of us and is at the base of the OCCUPY movement.

has anyone else received an email like this? i'm pretty sure i didn't come up with this idea myself and i don't think i dreamed it, altho i'd love to take the credit for such a great idea.

no matter what tho, i want to rally mass interest on this plan but i've little idea how to implement it. OCCUPY MISSOULA - legal, communications, occupymedia, direct action work groups....anyone want to form a work group on this. i'll join. we need to recover or reinvent that original email with the list of demands. someone else must also have received it?


email me: hedgehog, occupier [e-mail] and thank you. ~~becca

[hedgehog]

haven't heard from anyone about this idea. no posts or comments here either. so i presume no one thinks this idea can go anywhere.... sadly. i'll let it all go. :-(

[brooklyn]

I like the idea.. It's just I am already not paying my debt.. because I cant afford it..

[josh]

hedgehog, I don't think it's that people aren't interested. Don't get too down just yet. Traffic on this board seems to have slowed down a little recently. It may also be a matter of people not wanting to come up with a list of demands, since that is something that the Occupy Movement has shied away from thus far.

I do like the general idea though which, as I see it, is just pointing out the fact that WE, the so-called 99%, actually have a large amount of resources at our disposal. We generally think that only governments, corporations, or other large institutions have access to the necessary resources to affect mass changes in our economy and society at large. Because of this mentality we end up trying to force the hand of governments and corporations rather than trying to effect change on our own.

I like the idea of a debt strike, and I think there's a fair amount of support for the general concept among occupiers. The question is, what to do with the money instead of sending it off to BofA and Citi. Like I said, withholding payment until a list of demands is met may not be an idea with a lot of legs (although maybe it could/will be, who knows). I would suggest doing more research to find out what other groups around the country are looking at on this front, and I'm pretty sure there are a number of people with similar ideas. I know that there is a student-loan debt strike being organized right now: www.thomhartmann.com/bigpicture/hartmann-ows-student-loans-are-student-debt-strikes-coming

Don't give up just yet.



One of the problems that

[katydid]

I agree. Don't give up yet.
I think we need to start feeling around for our biggest strength in numbers, and well, Missoula is not the biggest population base to build from. Any thoughts on how to incubate an idea that takes many thousands of people, if not millions, to make it work? A viral youTube video? I'm outta my league in even suggesting such a thing, but we have some skills here.

[josh]

I think that communicating with GAs in the larger cities will be one way to go. If we come up with a proposal that we think deserves national support, we send it off to LA, NY, NOLA, Boston, etc.

[nicole]

I like the idea too and I feel like I saw it somewhere as well, although I can't remember where now. I will look around and see if I can find it again.

[hedgehog]

oh yippie! :-) i'm all excited again to have heard from some folks in such a positive way. brooklyn, i too am not paying on some of my CC's, on purpose, altho a lack of funds gave me extra courage. josh, i suggested in april 2012 we use that tax month's withheld payment $ to pay our taxes in support of america altho some may argue that we should. and instead of making sure BofA gets what they want, (sometime i'll write about the success i've had: how does a 2% interest rate sound?) i've been paying back folks who have loaned me $ in recent years. i've also been (trying to) set aside some in a jar, to pay for that illness or accident that keeps me from working for money, you know, so maybe i too will not become houseless in such an event. i think with the saved $ creative folks can come up with many ideas. heck, just think 'transition town'! get in good, share and co-opt with your poor neighbors because in the face of (i think pending) infrastructure failures or war in the u.s. we are going to rely heavily on eachother, especially those close-by. support your favorite local businesses better, replace your tires, invest in manually operated tools and kitchen gadgets..... or support the organizations you find locally that really do care to provide a meaningful service and never have the funds to take off.
thanks for the link josh. i have emailed thom hartman, hoping to pin OM on the map. i wonder if i'll hear back from him?