Dan Kervick's picture

    Occupy the Election

    By Dan Kervick on Wed, 11/02/2011 - 3:21pm |

    There is a general tendency right now among many in the Occupy movement to claim that the movement will never be associated with a legislative agenda, because everyone in the movement has realized “the system” is irredeemably corrupt and can’t be reformed through electoral politics and legislation.

    I don’t buy that, and I believe that as 2012 evolves we will indeed see a clear and very ambitiously progressive - and even radical - legislative agenda take hold that is shaped and ultimately endorsed by the Occupy movement.

    The idea that the system is too broken to be fixed electorally is based on the idea that money rules electoral politics, and there is no way to take that money out of electoral politics. But the whole reason money plays a role in electoral politics is that getting elected requires a mass communication effort, and money buys access to the standard means of communication.  Can OWS take the money out of politics? They are already succeeding in doing just that.   Each day, they succeed further in speaking over and around the gatekeepers of the mass media.  It is not too far-fetched to believe that by the summer of 2012, many tens or hundreds of millions of Americans may be getting their information through online access to publications such as “the Occupy Oakland Tribune”, or through local Occupy chapters that are even now in the process of spreading out from the large cities, to small cities to towns.

    When that happens, it won't matter how many spots the 1% and its political soldiers can buy on television.   The Occupy movement has the opportunity to rot away much of the media superstructure that now rules the American mind.   That media system is sick and decadent, and will rot away rapidly from the inside as the new movement grows.

    There is nothing wrong with this country that can’t be fixed by throwing out each and every millionaire member of Congress, and replacing him or her by a right-thinking progressive from the 99%. If we get two vigorously progressive houses of Congress, modest reforms like the transactions tax will just be the smallest of changes on the table. We can get much more: radical transformations of corporate governance and workplace rules, a much more egalitarian income and compensation system, a vigorously progressive tax system, a national full employment program, a public sector banking system, a publicly run health care system, a fully funded public education program and an expanded public sector program for building up and democratically controlling our national infrastructure.

    If the towns and states and community organizations of this country seem short on cash right now, that is because an obscene proportion of our national wealth and output is wastefully diverted into the bank accounts of the most wealthy members of our society.   Our nation's capital is being wasted on the luxury of the few, rather than the needs of the many.   But we can vote that wealth into the treasuries of our own communities and the needs of struggling, ordinary people.   In short, we can take control of the existing institutional power structures of this country, through entirely legal and constitutional means, and use those institutions to make new, radically progressive laws.  We can use the electoral system to commandeer the vast wealth of this country; to promote equality, human dignity and the public good; and to drain the luxuriant overgrown swamps of capital waste.

    Comments

    Since we've butted heads a number of times already on this blog, let me say I agree with this post 100%.  Your skeptical take on OWS (until recently, when you seemed to switch to 100% support) has been very similar to mine.

    As I thought about (rather facile, IMO) comparisons of OWS to the Civil Rights movement, I thought that what most distinguished the two on  a tactical level is that, in spite of some attempts at revisionist history, the CRM had a fairly specific set of demands; namely equal access to public accommodations and to the voting booth.

    While I think that OWS' refusal to get specific or political has worked to its advantage up until now, the movement's power will be wasted if they don't at some point start engaging in the political process.  On the train in to work this morning, I started trying to come up with a set of legislative demands that would satisfy the goals of OWS and would gain moderate and independent support.  These were the first few items I came up with*:

    1) greater progressivity in the tax code (among these, a 50-60% rate on incomes over $10MM, elimination of the carried interest loophole, and further restrictions on the deductibility of mortgage interest for high income taxpayers);

    2) reinstatement of clear divisions between the investment, insurance and traditional banking arms of national banks;

    3) a Tobin-type transaction tax;

    4) settlement of underwater mortgage loans and student loans guaranteed by the government on below dollar-for-dollar terms.

    Maybe OWS could even approach the CBC, Progressive Caucus, or Al Franken or Bernie Sanders in Washington, and get some bills along these lines sponsored in Congress.

    (I know these aren't unique to my thinking on these issues, and this is a back-of-the envelope type list. I would like to hear what other peoples' legislative priorities would be.)


    by Ethanator on Wed, 11/02/2011 - 3:56pm

    Edited I would add, take the caps off of Social Security withholdings

    I believe it stops at (106K?) why not collect it with no caps.

    Rather than increasing the retirement age first.

    As people retire earlier because they can, it makes jobs available for the next generation.

    Medicare has no caps. 


    by Resistance on Wed, 11/02/2011 - 9:06pm

    On Friday night, after weeks of asking for revisions, the Occupy Wall Street General Assembly finally approved a Spokes (sic.) Council structure:

    http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/31/occupywallst-roundup-day-45/

    Here is the

    Draft Proposal for Fri 10/28 General Assembly: Structure

    http://www.nycga.net/2011/10/27/draft-proposal-for-fri-1028-general-asse...

    Excerpts, my bold:

    OWS Structure Proposal       
    (A Living Document) — Submitted by the Structure Working Group
    Summary

    Since September 17th Occupy Wall Street (OWS) has grown and inspired occupations around the globe. The General Assembly (GA) is at the heart of this movement.  It provides a forum for political discussion and a plurality of ideas. It is, however, struggling to meet the day-to-day operational needs of the Working Groups and Caucuses.

    CHALLENGES: (Identified in discussions in the GA, Working Groups, and Caucuses) [....]

    Time for Visioning: Broader political and community visions are rarely discussed in the GA because it is consistently bogged-down with logistical and financial decisions....

    In order to address these problems, while maintaining the non-hierarchical nature of OWS, we propose that, in addition to the General Assembly (GA), we create a directly democratic Spokes Council of Operations Groups and Caucuses.

    PROPOSAL:

    Definitions

    The Structure Working Group recommends the following definitions: [....]

    Seems to me that if one wanted to have an effect on issues addressed by OWS, now is the time it starts. Someone interested would be wise to check out the workings of the new structure which will no doubt will be copied by other related groups in the U.S. They have also done this:

    http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/31/news/economy/occupy_wall_street_trademar...

    They also bought the occupywallstreet.net domain

    http://www.nycga.net/groups/internet/forum/topic/did-we-just-buy-occupyw...

    read the proposal linked to there and see that it was out of concern for controlling the messages.

    One very prominent and controversial possibly related "start" I noticed is that in the past few weeks, there was a big controvery over the "Demands" group. It was removed from the website after some of the members spoke to media as if they were representing the whole:

    http://www.nycga.net/groups/accountability-transparency/forum/topic/what...

    (This was covered some in the MSM as well.)

    Since then, a new Demands group has been started, however:

    http://www.nycga.net/groups/demands/

    From reading on that whole thing over time, seemed to me that some kind of purge of a few guys that were problematic (in not working through General Assembly) happened.

    New controversy along the same lines, the even more controversial and older "“99 Declaration” group just disappeared from the website, apparently in anger:

    http://www.nycga.net/2011/11/01/the-nycga-true-hollywood-story-the-99dec...


    by artappraiser on Wed, 11/02/2011 - 6:09pm

    Now THERE's the Dan Kervick I'm talkin' about!

    I have been thinking a lot about your early critique of OWS. It kind of shook me up and made me examine my assumptions about it.  I am glad you are seeing more potential for success now.

    I think that as more people get involved, the movement will gradually move toward the mainstream, weed out the most anarchistic and libertarian elements, and finally settle somewhere well to the left of the shambling, money-hobbled, triangulated mess that we now know as the Democratic Party. (Or the party platform, anyway.) And it's a good thing. 

    People willing to march on the Port of Oakland will be willing to knock on doors if they know there's a place for them in the government they create. Right now, somebody with two jobs, three tattoos, fifty thousand dollars in student loans and a kid on the way doesn't have much of a future in the political system. How is that person going to go out and ask corporations for money? But if you're right, at the end of all this, that person will have a spot.

    Some OWS supporters feel comfortable in politics, some don't. If the ones who don't feel all that comfortable can build a politics that does work for them (and the Democratic Party can get smart enough to make room, which is by no means certain in my mind) then we have a real shot at the kind of future you describe. 

    If no political infrastructure welcomes them, then I wonder how it will shake down, but it seems like the ideas are not going away.

    I do think one of the keys will be to find out what a comfortable politics would look like to people who now feel that the system is broken or they have no place in it.


    by erica20 on Thu, 11/03/2011 - 1:32am

    "If no political infrastructure welcomes them, then I wonder how it will shake down, but it seems like the ideas are not going away."

    This is my basic problem with OWS; many of its participants see a solution to political problems outside of the political system.  We live in a democracy, and votes do ultimately matter.  The mirror image of too much money in our politics is too little rank-and-file participation in the process.  While I would love to see laws permitting mail-in ballots everywhere, or Saturday voting, or making Election Day a paid holiday, I still don't think it's that onerous on even the most harried individuals to get to the polling booth once a year or so.

    The easiest way to combat corporate control of our government is to take back that control from the corporations by voting out elected officials who are too beholden to them.  If we had a citizenry that was minimally informed about the issues and where particular candidates stand on them, and could be relied on to vote in service of enlightened self-interest, we would not have many of the problems plaguing our government today.  I hope that the OWS participants realize that the power to change things for the better has long been available to the average American, and that it doesn't require camping out in a New York City park in January.      


    by Ethanator on Thu, 11/03/2011 - 9:23am

     

    Oh but change does require camping out in a New York City park in January, Ethanator. 

    We have elections every year. And every year the right wing agenda wins. Some years Republicans sweep the joint and the agenda leaps forward. Other years Democrats take a majority and the agenda creeps forward. The right wing agenda, always moving forward.

    Focusing on the next election keeps us from dealing with the problem. Camping in the park changes the conversation.

    I know many on this site do not believe in the power of narrative. But humans are creatures of narrative. Narrative has the power to change the country. OWS is changing the narrative.

    Change the narrative, elections will follow.


    by Red Planet on Thu, 11/03/2011 - 10:09am

    I agree that the direct action and public demonstrations are needed to change the conversation.   The questions then are: when does the conversation evolve into a coherent vision for change, and how does that vision of change become embodied in an organized plan of action aimed at bringing those changes about.

    The thing that is holding the movement back, in my estimation, is the lack of anything close to a coherent message and intelligible pan of action.  If a curious outsider decides to try to find out what the movement is about, and even what its fundamental purpose is, and visits one of the websites or discussion boards in an effort to get an answer, they are likely to be very disappointed.

    That said, it seems to me that the movement is slowly but discernibly sharpening its message and agenda.  This will disappoint those who are not really interested in effective political action, but only in gathering with others in order to engage in cathartic expressions of their feelings.  It will also disappoint those who are interested in exploiting disorder to foment a violent overturning of everything, in a manner that only a small minority will support.


    by Dan Kervick on Thu, 11/03/2011 - 11:43am

     

    I'm not in a hurry to put too fine a point on OWS, Dan. The first protest was in mid-September. Six weeks and growing. I'd like to see it fester for six years, or sixty.

    Well, maybe I'm exaggerating. But in six weeks OWS has gone from zero to 453 million search results on Google. That's a start. And as you pointed out in another post, the basic message is pretty easy to understand and it resonates. The financial distortion field emanating from Wall Street is hurting 99% of us and that needs to stop.

    I've read articles recently comparing OWS to civil rights, looking back on that movement and presuming to see a clear set of goals and a laudable simple-mindedness of purpose. The parts that I lived through, beginning with school integration in the late 50s, were messier than that. Everyone remembers Martin Luther King, Jr. and the SCLC, of course, but there were the NAACP, SNCC, CORE, the Urban League, the Nation of Islam, the Black Panther Party and more. Messy, often at odds with each other, with demands that ranged from ending segregation, to ending capitalism, to others that were quite extreme. And that's only a snippet of time plucked out of the middle of a multi-generational effort.

    One striking thing about civil rights is that the movement did not identify itself with one political party or the other. Instead, it drove the national dialogue at a critical stage in our history, without being captured by either party. Change followed.

    Here's a headline from CNN today:

    Bernanke chides Occupy Wall Street 'Misconceptions'

    Bernanke says that OWS doesn't understand that the bailouts were motivated by "what's in the interest of the broad public," and not just to "preserve, you know, banker salaries."

    That's what you'd expect him to say, but what's interesting is that CNN and Bernanke are talking about this now because of OWS. Even more interesting, the reporter goes on to say:

    And are their [OWS] complaints really based on misconceptions? Just last month, an investigation by the Government Accountability Office turned up numerous instances of conflicts of interest on the boards of the Fed's 12 regional banks.

    Among the findings, it identified 18 former and current members of the Federal Reserve who have personal ties to companies that received bailout funds from the Fed.

    Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who spearheaded the report, called it "exactly the kind of outrageous behavior by the big banks and Wall Street that is infuriating so many Americans."

    As if high unemployment and a distressed housing market weren't enough to bring Fed bashing into vogue.

    Wow. That's CNN (Fox Lite) talking.

    I'm hoping OWS does not allow itself to become the pet of any political party. Does not define itself too narrowly, too soon. And I'm hoping it is here to stay.

     

     

     


    by Red Planet on Thu, 11/03/2011 - 2:09pm

    Hi Red Planet,

    I agree that the OWS movement should stay outside the political party structure.   I do think they should participate in advocating ideas that candidates can run on and enact into law.   But it would be good for the vitality of the movement, and its moral and intellectual integrity, to avoid entanglements with established party structures.

    I also think the movement needs to continue with various kinds of direct actions and protests.  They shouldn't turn entirely to conventional politics.  But participation in winning elections and influencing legislation should be part of what they do.

    Also the tent encampments are good.  Keep the tents.   They show dedication and commitment.  But the movement is much bigger than the people living in the tents.  And there don't have to be as many tents.   The tent encampments are the home base and the visible symbol the movement's attempt to claim the future of the country.  They are a place where meetings can be held and around which people can rally, especially in times of crisis.

    I do think that there needs to be some better focus on general political goals and philosophy - strong and unwavering commitment to non-violent change, commitment to democratic government; commitment to economic justice and equality - and effective communication of those goals and philosophy to the general public, in word and deed.

    I am very heartened by the self-reflection that is going on over at the Occupy Oakland website.  There seems to be overwhelming majority sentiment that the violence late last night was harmful and wrong, and undermined the message of the rest of the day.   There are lots of thoughtful and constructive statements.  The movement is undergoing an impressively rapid political maturation:

    http://www.occupyoakland.org/openforums/relfections/


    by Dan Kervick on Thu, 11/03/2011 - 8:58pm

    By the way, this is pretty funny stuff from Colbert.  Watch both parts:

    http://occupywallst.org/article/ketchup-and-justin-foil-colbert-optation/#comments


    by Dan Kervick on Thu, 11/03/2011 - 9:32pm

     

    Great television. 

    Gotta love when Colbert accuses Ketchup of "dehumanizing the corporation."

    Thanks for the link, and the one to Occupy Oakland/reflections, too.

    Thoughtful comments on the Occupy Oakland site. I've been impressed by the reaction today from the movement, and from officials. Looks like both sides are learning how to avoid overreaction.

    It is pretty remarkable, to me, that this movement, in its infancy, is self-reflective, learning, inclusive and developing a voice. For the first time, really, since the 1980s, I'm beginning to feel hopeful. 

    Now where did I put that lithium carbonate?  


    by Red Planet on Fri, 11/04/2011 - 12:12am

    I think I have a crush on Ketchup.


    by Dan Kervick on Fri, 11/04/2011 - 12:14am

    ^_^

     


    by Red Planet on Fri, 11/04/2011 - 12:43am

    I agree that the effect that OWS is having on the national conversation is exciting, and long overdue (and, frankly, given my opinion of our media, more than a little surprising).

    That said. it's a sad state of affairs when this type of action has to be undertaken not by the marginalized and truly oppressed in our society, but by and on behalf of people who have always had the means to effect positive political change readily available to them.


    by Ethanator on Thu, 11/03/2011 - 12:55pm

    Your civic idealism is touching. As a sophisticated cynic type I think its a bit more complicated then that but it is good to see folks fighting the fight.

    You don't happen to live in a battleground state do you? 


    by Saladin on Fri, 11/04/2011 - 1:55am

    I'm hardly an idealist.  And I'm sure it's more complicated than I laid out in a five sentence comment on a blog, even though I'm apparently not as sophisticated as some about these matters.  I would further suggest that your cynicism is every bit  as responsible for the lousy state of our politics as the apathy of the less sophisticated, more apathetic types that can't drag themselves to the polls once a year.

    But it's a little unfair to lay all of the blame on politicians for their failure to listen to average Americans when those Americans don't even expend minimal effort to hold those politicians accountable for their failings.   


    by Ethanator on Fri, 11/04/2011 - 11:32am

    Oh, in my case my idealism creates my cynicism. I just see endemic structural flaws and I have a hard time seeing ways around them.  Its easy to blame the voters, but they are often powerless. When 40 douchebags representing 11% of the population can essentially control everything but war-making, its really hard to see how votes everywhere else count.  Its even easier to blame politicans but they are hemed in by the same structure.

    That said, of course I vote--one is foolish not to use what tools one has, limited though they may be, but it doesn't really matter as I live in a safe blue district where the candatite is often pre-determine. 


    by Saladin on Fri, 11/04/2011 - 6:08pm

    It matters little to me whether the OWS folks get with a party, or streamline their agendas. I like the diversity of the messaging. I just hope they vote when the time comes for whatever candidates and legislation that are closest to their purposes. The rubber has to meet the road at some point.


    by Kudra on Fri, 11/04/2011 - 2:36pm

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