The Occupy Wall Street prosters now have our attention. Everyone has an opinion from the President on down. Now it is time to act intelligently and do something meaningful. If they really want this to become a movement they now have to take it to the next level. People feel powerless and these young people have proven that people still have the power to change the world by hitting them where it hurts, their pocketbooks!
Just marching and holding signs won't accomplish a thing but it has gotten the attetion of the media.
Let us take a page from from the playbook of Gandi and Dr. King. They need to organize boycotts, peacefully targetting greedy corporations that arrogantly keep giving huge bonuses by cutting their workforce or sending jobs overseas. They need to get to the heart of their anger. There isn't a person in this country who is not angry about how the financial sector was bailed out with our money and then were made fools of by using our tax dollars to give the fat cats their bonuses.
Take a lesson fron Netflix. Netflix raised their prices at a time when people are really hurting. Customers dropped them like a hot potato and the stock plummeted. 600,000 people cancelled their subscriptions. Without even being organized people managed to turn the tide on the company and forced them to reverse their policy. Without the support of the people these corporations will fold like a map if their profits begin to be affected.
So let's start with Bank of America who plans to apply a five dollar per month fee to use a debit card. If the protesters organize a movement to withdraw their savings from Bank of America and direct people to banks that don't charge a fee, I can almost guarantee that their policy would change in a week. We need to target the corporate abuse one by one and have us act on it. We need to focus anger on specific corporate greed if we want to make a difference. Companies should be boycotted for sending jobs overseas, taking obscene bonuses while laying off workers, and evading taxes by moving their headquarters off shore. Organized, targeted efforts can and will change the way we do business here. Wake up, America!
corporate america is driven by their companies' stock prices. Major public companies today make short term decisions to cut costs and drive profits rather than consider the long term consequences of laying off 30,000 workers (Bank of America announced that this was their plan) will have on our economy, our country and the lives of these soon to be unemployed individuals. This is what capitalism has become. As long as this concept is the overall prevailing corporate guideline, corporate america will remain the same.
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