@gerard, do you suffer from a learning disability? Apparently you do because nothing you said corresponded to the posts I made, if you have a comprehension or reading problem then my apologies. Please cite where in my three posts I advocated violence or “bloodbaths.” And as always you never bother to address any of my points or points made in the article I posted.

“Movements of people in the Middle East, being historically governed top down, although they are functioning nonviolently, are much more painfully challenged as they face violence from governments obviously not much interested in protecting lives.”

So we’ve never been governed by the top down here? Are you serious? Go revisit some of Madison’s quotes. And you’re saying protest movements here don’t suffer the threat of violence from the authorities? Or movements in Europe? Again, if you suffer from ADD or something similar then my apologies in advance. If you don’t ever read any books, well, better start now, you can even download them into mechanisms known as Kindles if actually holding the book and turning the pages is too much for you.

Robespierre, my friend, your words come off as “stuffy”, like that picture you use when you post—autocratic, stiff-necked, removed from the blood and guts you advocate for others. Maybe I’m reading in too much, but ... consider:
“how popular movements must construct new organs of revolutionary force ready to overthrow the capitalist regime and the oligarchy.”
  If a “popular movement” is to be “new” it must NOT construct yet one more “revolutionary force” to “overthrow” the regime, the oligarchy, whatever.
The vast majority of people in the world are trying their best to say NO! to force and violence and find other, new, creative (not destructive) ways to make changes. They are trying to be truly “revolution-
ary” and not repeat the same blood baths once again to “overthrow.” They are pioneering new territory. They are more interested in understanding, creating something new, building more cooperation, saving lives, restoring community, listening, collating, putting pieces together.
  True, it hasn’t been done often before, and even today it isn’t being done everywhere with equal success.  Movements of people in the Middle East, being historically governed top down, although they are functioning nonviolently, are much more painfully challenged as they face violence from governments obviously not much interested in protecting lives.
  Everything coming out of the OW movement shows
signs that we just might be able to do something new here—because of a tradition of democratic laws.
To advocate a return to blood baths is retro, unima-ginative and lacking in a sense of more humane possibilities here and now.  IMO. 
  We should be proud of, and really believe in, democracy, and use its malleability to develop and strehgthen the humane methods it stands for at its roots.

@FRTothus, Now, of course someone will post here, “but that was South America! this is different!” But Pepe Escobar of the Asia Times made this point last week:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/MJ19Dj02.html

Look south, young man

Occupy Wall Street could also use a kick-ass manual of radical politics such as Hermeneutic Communism [2], by Gianni Vattimo, professor of philosophy at the University of Turin, and Santiago Zabaleta, research professor at the University of Barcelona.

In action-packed 140 pages - plus copious notes - Vattimo and Zabaleta eschew historical Soviet communism and the contemporary Chinese model to praise the present, democratically elected, South American governments, “which are determined to defend the interests of their weakest citizens.”

They are certainly right to believe that “this is the region of the world that best represents the communism of the twenty-first century, which, as Eric Hobsbawm said, must be first and foremost a critique of capitalism”; or a defense of what the great Walter Benjamin called “the tradition of the oppressed”.

Vattimo and Zabaleta produce a devastating critique of our “framed democracy”, in which the 1% “pursues truth in the form of imposition (violence), conservation (realism) and triumph (history). These metaphysically framed political systems hold that society must direct itself according to truth (the existing paradigm), that is, in favor of the strong against the week”.

Vattimo and Zabaleta naturally debunk the whole “end of history” fallacy as well as demonstrate “how within the system of metaphysically framed democracies, change is almost impossible”. The only possible alternative left at the moment is in the Latin and especially South American space, where, to quote Noam Chomsky, “People just take democracy more seriously than in the West, certainly the United States.”

As imperfect as the different national experiments may be, from Brazil to Venezuela, from Bolivia to Argentina, at least the new South American governments have been more representative of their people because “they have been detaching themselves not only from neo-liberal impositions but also from the attendant military presence, that is, armed capitalism”.

So Occupy the World has much to gain by analyzing the different political experiments in South America. Parallels with Europe are also very enlightening. Compare for instance Argentina - where in the next elections on October 23 Cristina Kirchner will be most certainly leading a third post-neo-liberal term, just like Dilma Rousseff in Brazil - to Spain, home of the indignados, where, believe it or not, the reactionary, quasi-fascist Popular Party is bound to win the November 20 elections.

@FRTothus, you don’t need to carry out a violent insurrection or guerrilla war, learn from our neigbors across the border who most Americans never care to know anything about. They went through the same kind of economic collapse, even worse in the case of Argentina, the people rose up and established popular movements divided into two main branches: A revolutionary political branch who participates in the democratic process and has taken power through elections in countries like Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil etc., and the street branch which are the original protest movements left intact who rise up and apply pressure when needed or when the elected officials swerve away from their original promises. Shut off the videogames and learn a little about the world, people are forming real alternatives and carrying out real changes more concrete than just wearing a V mask.

@Robespierre115

What in the world are you talking about?  Lack of an
alternative vision? Organized movement?  There were
millions of people in the streets.  Business as
usual?  They shut the country down for two days in a
national general strike. That IS organization. They
want the wealthy to be taxed, and they don’t want to
pay off wealthy foreign bond-holders with their own
livelihoods and their and their children’s’ futures.
That IS an alternative vision.  They are faced (as
are we) with a government that ignores their will,
that holds the monopoly of force and violence, and
you suggest that they overthrow them?  How, exactly? 
By voting?  With further protests?  More general
strikes that are simply ignored?  And what, then, is
the lesson that you say OWS is to learn from this? 
That all they have to be is a bit more inspiring and
develop some alternative organizational structures? 
Or are you advocating a citizens’ militia to face off
against the army and police, an armed insurrection,
perhaps?  That might have a chance of success, if
only the US and European oligarchs wouldn’t call in
NATO air-strikes, and the Greek army and police join
with the people against the State, or stands down,
but short of that, I cannot imagine what kind of
make-believe fantasy world you think we are living
in.

I guess non violent demonstrations weren’t enough…

When you have nothing to lose, it’s much easier to lose it…

The Greeks should follow the path of the Icelanders and let the banks fail.

Banks are a for profit business and should not be underwritten by the taxpayers.

The Icelanders decision worked well for them.

Although the Greek workers have carried out a tremendous, earth-shaking fight (48-hour national strike, almost a million in the streets of Athens, urban street combat), it is still a vital lesson of how popular movements must construct new organs of revolutionary force ready to overthrow the capitalist regime and the oligarchy. It’s a big lesson for OWS as well, protesting and speaking out are extremely vital, but without a disciplined, organized movement ready to inspire people with an alternative vision for replacing the old order, the fatcats will gladly let you vent as they continue business as usual.

One can’t help but wonder what kind of screws were applied to wrench so much from so many.  And whether parliament members were equally gouged. And when is tht world’s “money system” going to face reality. “Balancing” budgets by increasing the suffering of majorities is almost guaranteed to be counterproductive.