After tent cities fade, Occupy turns to specifics

For more than two months, they were open-air communes where people came to rebuild society and start a nationwide discussion on how to close the wide gap between the rich and the poor. But as Occupy Wall Street tent cities fade away, protesters are pushing to put a clear message ahead of the movement. Alan Collinge has his list ready: Return bankruptcy protection to student loans, bring back the bank industry regulations that were removed in 1999, an act that many economists say contributed to the 2008 financial crisis. “They should come up with a short term list of no-brainer agenda items,” said Collinge, standing in the rain at New York’s Zuccotti Park calling for student loan reforms. More than a dozen other protesters interviewed by The Associated Press also came up with a wish list of specific demands to address what they say is corporate greed and economic inequality. The list ranged getting corporate money out of politics to having Washington politicians act with a moral conscience. Collinge, 41, of Tacoma, Washington, said he has unsuccessfully lobbied Occupy’s general assembly meetings in New York to develop a strong platform, but has been rebuffed. “A lot of people, they think that this should be sort of a catchall” for every issue, he said, the goal being to expose economic problems in the country, not solve them. Other cities’ movements have held meetings to discuss strategy, but haven’t agreed on listing specifics as a movement. The greater purpose isn’t to influence the government or the financial system through classic demands, but to foster broad cultural changes that will gradually empower people to stop depending on big corporations and Wall Street money. “All the energy has gone into an outcry over economic conditions, with the hope that others will join us and pick up issues they care about,” says Bill Dobbs, press liaison for Occupy Wall Street in New York. “Our best hope is inspiring other people to take action to bring economic justice.” Some observers and experts predict that Occupy groups may spend the next few months focusing on smaller actions while waiting for the summer when the Republican and Democratic conventions would give Occupiers a world-wide audience. But ask around, and protesters who spent weeks living in encampments have a clear idea of what they want. A number have called for limiting campaign donations and getting big money out of politics. Some Occupy members want to limit the amount of money a person is allawed to give a politician. Others want to ban corporate donations or the number of campaign ads. “How did Abraham Lincoln ever become president without a television set?” asked Ryan Peterson, an entertainment company worker from Chicago who lived for weeks in Zuccotti Park. Paul Lemaire, a 20-year-old visual arts student from Brooklyn, wants the two-party system eliminated. The influence of money in politics is one of the greatest factors behind the gap between the super-rich and the poor, said James Parrott, chief economist at the Fiscal Policy Institute in New York. “They’re very focused in understanding the root causes” of the country’s economic issues, he said of the Occupy protesters. The call for tighter regulation of campaign contributions won’t gain traction anytime soon. The Supreme Court, in its landmark Citizens United decision in January 2010, cleared the way for corporations to spend unlimited funds to influence elections, often using money from anonymous donors. Campaign regulation, stopping wars that strain resources, halting corporate personhood — the spending power given to corporations in a 2010 Supreme Court ruling — and addressing higher education costs have emerged as key goals of the Occupy movement in Los Angeles. “We’ve been collecting ideas, seeing what the priorities are, vetting and researching them,” said activist Suzanne O’Keeffe, a member of Occupy LA’s Demands & Objectives Committee. Los Angeles member Mario Brito said the movement plans to pressure elected and bank officials for a moratorium on foreclosures, and said members would “occupy” bank lobbies, boardrooms and executives’ homes to force the action. In Minneapolis, Occupy members queried protesters and found economic justice, democracy, education and campaign finance reform as the common themes. Kalle Lasn, the co-founder of Adbusters, the Canadian magazine that helped ignite the Occupy movement, supports a 1 percent global “Robin Hood” tax on big financial transactions. Similar taxes and increases have been proposed for years, including the Obama administration’s “financial crisis responsibility fee” tax proposal of last year, intended to raise $90 billion over the next decade. As individual protesters and movements fashion a platform, experts and organizers warned that defining the movement more broadly keeps everyone in. “They’ve achieved a lot by having the open ended process that they’ve had so far,” said Parrott, the Fiscal Policy Institute’s chief economist. Will Birney, who left his job as a waiter in Westport, Connecticut, to join Occupy’s New York movement, has one wish, although it can’t be passed into law or regulated by the Treasury Department.