So what do YOU plan to do about it?

[Lorien]

Poll question: So what do YOU plan to do about it?

“The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences.”
-Prof. Carroll Quigley
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7829678&mesg_id=7829678

"The Corporations rule this Inverted Totalitarianism almost completely, that's the bottom line, although anyone with eyes can see that the Republicans (Authoritarians/Neocons) are the FISTS of this New World Order, and the Democrats (1985 Republicans/Neolibs, with damned few exceptions) are the shield."

-DUer tom_paine

As so many have noted lately, the system is working quite well for the wealthiest 0.5%, while stripping the rest of us of our rights, jobs, health, homes, futures, and even lives in some cases. Our reps, with a few notable exceptions, no longer seem to be on the side of the working people and middle class. What are your plans to change the status quo?

[demigoddess]

1. keep my money in credit union and keep the pantry full.

representatives do not listen any more. All we can do is wait for the civil disturbances to begin.

[omega minimo]

2. Wonder why people wait until the shit hits the fan to notice the stench

:thumbsdown:


Good luck undoing 30 years of orchestrated corporate rule, ya'll!! Glad ya finally woke up from your zombification! :toast:


(Lorien, real answer: change the world, 2 frames per second).

[Lorien]

4. But people still need a road map-or some general plan-for changing the world.

Most of us have been awake all along or we wouldn't be here.

[leeroysphitz]

6. We need what people have always needed to get things done: LEADERSHIP.

Oh well.

[omega minimo]

9. Good point. Excellent poll

As you prolly know, DU is allergic to the ones with DO something or the R word (responsibility)


Yes some of us "have been awake all along or we wouldn't be here."

But more of "us" have "gone along to get along," with all the usual excuses, and LIHOP.

That's not to be snarky or rub it in again, it's mere fact.

To your commendable poll list, Other might be "continue to use my purchase power to (not) support what I (don't) support." How else do you make a point to soulless corporate "persons"? DON'T GIVE THEM MORE OF YOUR MONEY THAN YOU HAVE TO. DON'T BUY THEIR SHIT. DON'T WORK FOR THEM AND THEN COMPLAIN HOW THEY SCREW YOU OVER. :rant:

IMHO, if more folks had figured that out a lot sooner, it might have been a force to be reckoned with. Now, purchase power has been reduced to survival level.

Conspicuous Consumption Uber Alles!!! :toast:

[Lorien]

11. I did consider including a consumer boycott option

but since so many of us have been reduced to only buying the bare necessities I didn't think it would get a lot of support. With only ten options I just included the ideas I've seen posted here most frequently.

[omega minimo]

12. Exactly

The idea met here with chucklehead defensiveness and Either/Or blindness, when times were merely approaching this level of corporate screwedness.

Good job on the poll. And the energy. :thumbsup:

[Lorien]

3. Unrecced already. Someone finds the idea of doing anything at all offensive

apparently.

[Lorien]

5. I'm glad to see that two DUers plan to run for office!

:yourock:

[Kablooie]

7. You left out "Have parades and wave flags to celebrate the new world order."

I like sitting back and living the life of a toady now and then.

[Lorien]

10. That's kinda what the teabaggers are already doing

they just don't yet realize which master they're truly fighting for.

[tinrobot]

8. Our voting system is stacked firmly against third parties

Until you change the system, third parties do nothing but split the vote.

Change the party from within or change the voting system to allow third parties a chance.

[omega minimo]

13. Our voting system is stacked firmly against second parties. SCOTUS made if official

[DisgustedInMN]

14. Until what has happened since this last election cycle...

.. in terms of how We the People have been treated by those WE got into office, I would have agreed with you. No more, I will never again WASTE my vote or support on the lesser stinking pile while holding my nose. That is over. Period. End of story. If a candidate wants my support, they WILL work for MY interests. before and DURING their term in office. Period. End of story. No compromise. No capitulation.

[upi402]

15. Volunteering and donating to real Democrats too.

I will never vote for a corporate Dem again. No matter what it does to this nation. It's worse to have the facade of Democracy than to decline a bit faster into a 'Blade Runner' world.

[Lorien]

16. I guess that would fall under "Work to change the party from within by organizing at a local level"

Organizing= volunteering. I don't know how far our contributions will go after the SCOTUS ruling. They can't hurt, certainly.

[omega minimo]

22. Organize women

and men and youth who want to shift the paradigm, the dialogue, the whole presentation and WAY of organizing. Forget topdown, bureaucratic boring authoritarian men-hold-the-talking-stick BS. There are a lot of strong, fierce/funny feisty women already working to change the world at the local level, still telling themselves (and being told) to "tone it down" or otherwise alter their righteous and right and rightful comments. We NEED that ENERGY and need to quit playing the authoritarian BS game that IS the problem.

:thumbsup:

[omega minimo]

19. Too late! This is what's wrong with thinking there was a "Next Time"

after the first (and second) stolen election 2000 and 2004. With all du respect to the OP. THAT was the TIME that any of this would have actually MATTERED.

[upi402]

21. agreed

but i'm laid off so i revert to decades of activism

[omega minimo]

24. Thanks

You're one of the "still here" Lorien mentioned :toast:

[closeupready]

17. Other. I plan to do some mix of all of these choices, if necessary to bring about progressive value

values, vote 3rd party. And yes, that may mean I get tombstoned here, though that's debatable, as I have too much respect for the mods and administrators here to engage in post behavior that is clearly at odds with DU's terms of use. I'd probably just simply stop posting here.

Though I think the problem is less about the party and more about campaign finance and the ensuing corruption of public officials in DC.

[Lorien]

23. Campaign finance reform is key. I should have thought of that

as well as ending corporate personhood and reinstating the Fairness Doctrine.

[closeupready]

25. Amen to all that.

n/t

[omega minimo]

26. and bust the media monopoly

"Other"? :hi:

[Lorien]

29. I think that busting the media monopoly only works if the media

ends up in the hands of someone other than various mega-corporations. That's why the Fairness doctrine is so critical. If Walmart or Halliburtan bought a station or newspaper it still wouldn't vary the viewpoints much-other than to make them even MORE pro-war and pro consumption.

[omega minimo]

30. yes, independent owners and operators as in Ye Olden Dayes

[omega minimo]

18. Encourage others to do what they're inspired to do

after doing nothing about it for decades.................. :yoiks: :spray:

and keep your thread kicked :hi:

[NoSheep]

20. I'm going to try to learn the facts before I form my opinions.

[progressoid]

27. Other: drink Big Gulps and watch American Idol

[Lorien]

32. That's what they are counting on. nt

[Lorien]

28. Kick

[Lorien]

31. You know, it doesn't bode well for us that only 45 out of 100,000+ DUers

are willing to answer the question. Is there REALLY so little interest in taking action?

[omega minimo]

33. I plan to kick this thread

(Sorry about the numbers, Lorien. That's why I said the R word and DO something aren't big winners here...)

[Hell Hath No Fury]

34. A combination of things.

If the Insurance Industry Giveaway goes forward, I am registered with another party and will focus on building that party locally.

I will support progressive Democratic candidates where I can nationally, but I will not be voting for any Presidental candidate who is behilding to those corporations. I will instead write-in my Democratic or Progressive candidate of choice.

I am working to free myself personally by addressing my consumption habits and my energy dependence.

[The2ndWheel]

35. The Parable of the Tribes

http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC07/Schmoklr.htm

"The new human freedom made striving for expansion and power possible. Such freedom, when multiplied, creates anarchy. The anarchy among civilized societies meant that the play of power in the system was uncontrollable. In an anarchic situation like that, no one can choose that the struggle for power shall cease. But there is one more element in the picture: no one is free to choose peace, but anyone can impose upon all the necessity for power. This is the lesson of the parable of the tribes.

Imagine a group of tribes living within reach of one another. If all choose the way of peace, then all may live in peace. But what if all but one choose peace, and that one is ambitious for expansion and conquest? What can happen to the others when confronted by an ambitious and potent neighbor? Perhaps one tribe is attacked and defeated, its people destroyed and its lands seized for the use of the victors. Another is defeated, but this one is not exterminated; rather, it is subjugated and transformed to serve the conqueror. A third seeking to avoid such disaster flees from the area into some inaccessible (and undesirable) place, and its former homeland becomes part of the growing empire of the power-seeking tribe. Let us suppose that others observing these developments decide to defend themselves in order to preserve themselves and their autonomy. But the irony is that successful defense against a power-maximizing aggressor requires a society to become more like the society that threatens it. Power can be stopped only by power, and if the threatening society has discovered ways to magnify its power through innovations in organization or technology (or whatever), the defensive society will have to transform itself into something more like its foe in order to resist the external force.

I have just outlined four possible outcomes for the threatened tribes: destruction, absorption and transformation, withdrawal, and imitation. In every one of these outcomes the ways of power are spread throughout the system. This is the parable of the tribes.

This parable is a theory of social evolution which shows that power is like a contaminant, a disease, which once introduced will gradually yet inexorably become universal in the system of competing societies. More important than the inevitability of the struggle for power is the profound social evolutionary consequence of that struggle once it begins. A selection for power among civilized societies is inevitable. If anarchy assured that power among civilized societies could not be governed, the selection for power signified that increasingly the ways of power would govern the destiny of mankind. This is the new evolutionary principle that came into the world with civilization. Here is the social evolutionary black hole that we have sought as an explanation of the harmful warp in the course of civilization's development."

[omega minimo]

36. .

[hunter]

37. I'm still enjoying my Obama honeymoon.

Go away and don't bother me.