The Occupy movement has done more than anything in decades to highlight the corrosive effects of concentrated wealth on our economy and democracy. Indeed, seeing the 99% rise up in such inspirational fashion raises a question: Who exactly are the 1%? Or more specifically, who among them are abusing their power and making life more difficult for everyone else?
That’s what Brave New Foundation will be exposing with our new campaign, Who Are the 1%? We will highlight the villains in America’s economic story, drawing a straight line between their actions and the broken economy we’re now stuck with.
And here’s the twist: We want you to tell us which people to profile.
Here’s how it works. We’ve launched a new website where you can add your suggestions on the worst of the 1%. Once we have pored through all of the names and arguments you’ve provided, we’ll narrow the field down and have you vote on the worst of the worst. Then we’ll make videos about those special one percenters that you’ve chosen to expose.
As Fox News might put it: We film. You decide.
Whom to choose? There is no shortage of villains. The deceptive, backhanded practices of the financial industry played a major part in the recent financial meltdown, and numerous defense contractors have made a killing (literally) by lobbying for more and more weapons spending. In all, the top 1% have seen their incomes rise 275% in the last three decades — a period in which the tax burden has shifted from wealth to work and financiers have exploited increasingly weak regulations and even weaker enforcement.
These problems are not natural disasters. They are man-made. And with your help, our new campaign will call out those responsible.
When you make your suggestions, our only rules are that the individuals profiled must be in the top 1%, which means a net worth of at least $9 million, and use their wealth to keep down the other 99%. We’re not talking about run-of-the-mill rich people here, and we’re not talking about those who spend their money promoting the common good. We’re talking about those who take advantage of their position to create more injustice, inequality, and corruption. The rest is up to you.
Will you participate in this effort to show Americans who’s destroying their economy and democracy? Join us and the organizations supporting this campaign: AlterNet, Care2, The Center for Media and Democracy, FreeSpeechTV, The Nation, PoliticusUSA, Thom Hartmann, Truthout, Campaign for America’s Future, and The Young Turks.
We are excited to hear your thoughts.
9 Comments
99% of Americans have risen up?
Have they now? Well, no one has told us Europeans. And America seems to be doing still OK. It seems the 1% who haven’t risen up are still producing the same amount as before and are keeping all the schools open and are flying all the airplanes and are keeping America warm and…
Excuse me, but if you live in North AQmerican society that has access to clean drinking water and sanitation….THEN YOU ARE THE 1%.
I understand that some groups in society don’t have access to these basic rights (for example Canada’s First Nations’ communities, particularly up North) but if you’re an average North American, even a poor single mother, you still live with a standard of living that I would say a fair portion of the rest of the world don’t have. Talk about thinking locally…acting…like a fool.
Right, so nobody with basic human rights and access to food and water should complain?
Also, you seem to have some problems with math….
I don’t think those with a high quality of life have no right to complain.
However, those who earn a yearly income of $34k or more, adjusted to US prices, are part of the “global 1%”. That is to say, they are members of the global economic elite.
It is valid to criticize our own society on the basis of internal greed, but that criticism is a bit hypocritical if one looks at the larger state of the world. The very basis of these protests is that wealth distribution is unfair. That’s true. However, on a global level it’s true IN THE OTHER DIRECTION.
One ought not wear a fur coat to an animal rights protest, and there’s a certain amount of similar irony when people wear Nike sneakers or use an Apple iPad at these economic protests. It’s worth pointing that out.
I agree with others here about Americans being part of the global 1%, but i’m a bit confused about how that should equal hostility to something like Occupy Wall Street. Americans still have struggles, and a lot of people now have no jobs, no healthcare, and are in a consistent level of danger, living with no secure income, home, or health. While much more needs to be done around the world, it doesn’t change the fact that work needs to be done in America as well. The political system is broken by corporate influence, and I honestly believe if it doesn’t change America will be a third world country or cease to exist further down the line. Should we sit idly by and allow this to happen because other societies are worse? Should we wait until America is just like those places before we speak up? Regressing toward that certainly doesn’t help anyone.
America should be doing more to end global poverty. Many liberals who want economic justice in the United States believe that very strongly. But an individual has limits to what they can accomplish for other countries. I myself would like to vote people into the government that will work to end poverty, homelessness, and corrupt government domestically and abroad. But the American political system has so much corporate influence, it’s virtually impossible to trust any American politician to do so. That is the biggest thing being protested at Occupy Wall Street.
America has a government that wages war in other countries to “help” them. A lot of ordinary citizens have no idea how to “help” countries in a big way without government turning it into violence and imperialism. People are understandably apprehensive and cautious when it comes to stepping in and helping other countries.
It’s not about hostility, but rather about criticizing the innate hypocrisy of those calling for a fairer distribution of wealth when, in fact, they’re calling for a slightly less unfair distribution of wealth as far as the globe is concerned. The notion that OWS wants to eliminate corporate influence in government so that we can all give away our money to poor people is an absurd one.
The general goals of OWS are based on a more equal distribution of wealth and opportunity, particularly what’s bundled up in corporations, within United States society.
It’s essentially a battle over how much dues should cost to attend and maintain the country club.
That you use “Third World” as an insult and claim that the United States regressing economically wouldn’t help anyone (it would, it just wouldn’t help US) shows the fundamental flaw with OWS: it is an internal economic movement within the richest country on the planet calling for more fairness toward the lucky few who live in the richest country.
That is an admirable goal if you happen to be a US citizen. Less so if you do not.
You don’t understand what i’m saying. I absolutely didn’t use third world as an insult, and I can’t tell how anyone could take it that way, but since you did, i’m sorry. When I said the US regressing doesn’t help, I mean the US will then be another country unable to use their power for good. I believe the US government needs to be more generous, and that the wealthiest countries should be working harder, building systems and strategies to end poverty all over the world.
Occupy Wall Street is about getting corporate influence out of the American political system, that’s how it started. That’s why it’s called Occupy Wall Street. It’s not the least bit absurd to think better politicians with pure intentions to help people can be elected if corporate political power can be taken away. When you have to have corporations to help you win, you owe them favors. Ending poverty would be detrimental to corporations’ goals to have a monopoly over money, therefore most US politicians have good reason to do nothing about poverty and to make poverty worse.
I’m not saying the protests magically give money to the poor. I’m saying that American citizens will have more of an ability to vote for politicians that actually have noble reasons for being in politics. There’s a lot of change that has to be made before any politician with a chance to win from any party will not be sponsored by corporations. There’s a lot of responsibility America and other countries have to make the world a better place. But until American people can vote for a candidate who will honestly work to end poverty, there’s no hope for America to improve the world.
And yes, calling people who you don’t know hypocritical is hostile, and comments here are hostile. Comments implying they shouldn’t protest, and calling them fools is hostile. Do you know their hearts? Do you know what they truly want out of the US government? Getting American politics away from corporate money is a first step to me, and it can lead to making global difference if people stick to their goals and never give up. I’ve sure heard a lot of cries of global revolution from OWS protesters for them to only care about the US as you claim. These protests have spread internationally.
Wouldn’t it be great to see the most powerful countries come together and use their money not for wars or corporations, but to end the suffering of poverty? It seems cynical to me to think it couldn’t happen, or that OWS protesters don’t want that to happen. You have given me no reason to believe the protesters are against that, especially given the way it’s spreading across the globe.
It may be high hopes to go after something like that, but I have high hopes and will never let them go. It’d be pretty hard to be a feminist if I didn’t. I have to believe that women around the world can gain their civil rights and equality, and I have to fight for that no matter how hard accomplishing it might be. Even though it probably won’t happen in my lifetime, I have to, because it’s what’s right. The same goes for ending poverty.
No, you used what Zizek would call the post-modern “good capitalist” doctrine, which absolutely characterizes the Third World’s existence as insulting to one not burdened with being a part of it. This is evident in the “fix our problems first” attitude, emblematic of that line of thinking.
Eliminating corporate interest from politics doesn’t necessarily help those who are not US citizens. In actuality, the rhetoric coming out of OWS in regard to the concept of “American Jobs” is the exact opposite. It regards the good, high-paying jobs as “American”, and seeks to keep them for US citizens. That is decidedly part of the “country club dues” good capitalist mentality: we ought be allowed to be comfortably part of the global 1% first, then give away our table scraps to “eliminate” poverty.
Such a stance is the same, in principle, as that which feudal lords had in regard to alms houses.
There is a finite amount of economic wealth in the world, and the goals espoused by OWS in regard to the US and improving our standard of living suggest a desire for the same, if not a greater, uneven share of the world’s resources. That is very good for US citizens, but it is hardly “hopeful” for the rest of the world.
It is a fundamental truth that many OWS protesters are comfortably wearing or using, without a hint of shame, products made by corporations using raw materials and labor drawn from poor areas globally using exploitative methods such that WE benefit. That’s simply a fact. It is also, for one who is arguing for greater economic equality, hypocritical. That is not an opinion, it is self-evident fact based on their espoused positions.
Wanting the US to use its power “for good” has a fundamental supposition: the US should be inordinately powerful. That’s the core mechanism. It implies that US citizens and corporations ought to be powerful (which we are), and remain so. That we are but 4.3% of the globe’s population is of no consequence.
It is not cynical to believe that OWS protesters do not want to truly end global poverty. Their demands for changes to the US involve the use of so many resources as to make it impossible to end global poverty. It would be impossible to achieve what they want with the US operating with only 4.3% of the planet’s wealth. By definition they do not want global economic equality, at least not any time soon. Oh, they might like it in theory, but their manifesto fundamentally denies it in practice.
As such, they either do not believe that non-Americans are equal to Americans in terms of deserving equal economic opportunity, or they are hypocrites. Neither is a particularly flattering position to be in.
Hope is delightful. It is also not pertinent here. Hoping for global economic equality while advocating for continued inequality suggests that one’s hopes are falsely held or poorly understood.
How many assumptions must you make against me? I’m not using third world as an insult, I already told you that and I even apologized for it coming across that way. I don’t believe capitalism is good, and I’m also not saying that it’s good for America to have so much power. I’m saying it’s a reality that America and European countries as well as China do have power, and if you live in one of those countries it’s good to demand your politicians to do better.
How on earth is that a good capitalist position? Occupy Wall Street has plenty of death to capitalism signs. Please, don’t imply that I care more about certain people than others, because it’s not true. It’s not taking the scraps left over to me, it’s the fact that everyday individuals have many barriers to help others so far away from them. Have you heard the phrase, charity starts at home? Because I don’t have the power or resources to change the poorest countries, I only have a little for those that surround me, that I can speak to and lend a helping hand to.
Getting corporations out of politics doesn’t necessarily help non US citizens. I agree with you, I realize that. I’m saying that it’s an opportunity to elect politicians that want to change things. And what if it’s the only opportunity American citizens get for a long time? I truly don’t want America to have all its power, but you work with what you have. If America works with the other most powerful countries to help others, maybe we can have a more equal world and lose that power.
It’s really not helping ourselves first for me. I cried and now i’m sick to my stomach since I read you accusing me of that and using third world as an insult, and saying I practice good capitalism doctrine, because it matters so much to me to end poverty. I can’t tell you how much you hurt me by assuming the things you have about me.
Please hear me this time, I can’t change things for people in countries so far away from me right now. It’s not help America first, it’s help where I can.
Also, I don’t think America falling apart will help people like you say. America isn’t the only country that’s part of the 1%, and the rest of these countries would continue to get richer and have a monopoly over others if America didn’t exist anymore. America is expected to be out of its number 1 spot by 2016.
What demands from OWS are you talking about? Everyone criticizes the movement for not having demands, other than getting corporate influence out of politics. Maybe individual protesters have certain positions you disagree with, but as far as I know, people are still scratching heads about what the movement wants.
Saying there’s a finite amount of wealth disregards the ability America and other countries have to end poverty. Maybe if the very rich and powerful decided to be generous, the amount of wealth wouldn’t seem so small, and the goals wouldn’t seem so unrealistic.
I’m not sure what you want OWS to do when it comes to not using products. Should they walk around naked? It seems unfair to me to criticize them for wearing clothes. I have no iPad, or iPod or anything like that. I’ve got this really old computer that i’m borrowing from someone to write this comment on.
Please, if you reply to me again, just don’t accuse me of the things you’ve been accusing me of. It really, really hurts me. It’s fine to me if you don’t believe OWS can help poorer countries, but just because I happen to see an opportunity there that you don’t doesn’t mean I care more about the US and others are low on my list. It almost seems to me you think i’m a protester, which i’m not. I live nowhere near any of them, and have followed them as much as I could through media. I don’t see third world countries as a burden, and I don’t see the people that live in them as inferior to me, and you have no idea how much I want to help them.