Barth's picture

    From Occupying Wall Street to Changing the World

    Keith Olbermann was, for once, apoplectic.  They were doing it again!!!  The reactionary forces of the staus quo were at it again, sending the police after The People, intolerant of their cries of anguish and of their mission.   It was the Edmond Pettus Bridge again, Haymarket, the Moratorium Against the War, all wrapped into one.   And now, nobody would sleep on the slab of concrete off Liberty Street, between Church and Broadway a place laughingly called Zuccotti Park.

    To Others, watching the mish mash of political activists, people with nothing much else to do, tourists, Ron Paul libertarians, anarchists, artists, self described journalists as assorted passersby, and wondering what it all means, it was time to move on, so to speak.  The Village Voice, which has seen a protest or two in its time, front paged an article just before the onslaught which described  

    A recent Wednesday night in Zuccotti Park: A woman was hit in the face, an EMT broke his leg trying to break up a fight, and a drunk guy with facial tattoos tried to burn an American flag. People blasted tracks from Watch the Throne, the unofficial One Percent Album of the Year, while four or five brawls broke out over the course of two hours. Everyone was doing everything at once: fighting, eating, dancing, sleeping, smoking.
    Everything except demonstrating against our country's financial status quo, which is the occupation's raison d'être.

    It has been heartening, of course to see the sleeping giant start to stir.  It was a bit scary when people were galvanized to break up meetings discussing whether there might be a better way to insure our citizens against financial catastrophes brought on by illness, was met by indifference or lengthy mourning for a pop star who died under circumstances that some saw as mysterious.  It was awfully disheartening when all the people who demanded change in 2008, decided that if their dreams could not be realized in two years, voting was no longer worthwhile and stayed home, with disastrous consequences.

    We wondered where these people were when the money that rules Congress demanded no further talk of a "public option," much less a Medicaid/Medicare for all single payer health care system.  We asked why, with all the support for change, the new administration was unable to muster support for a second New Deal, but only a tepid program of "stimulus."

    But better late than never.  Here they are.  They are sick of this.  We are the 99, they tell us.  But some of them also say things like this:

     "The point is, we're holding Wall Street accountable because voting for politicians doesn't work" 

    or

     we cannot win from within the political system. So we have no choice but to go outside it

    It's revolution or nothing.  Music to those for whom the political system is nothing more than a vehcile to do for those who contribute to their political campaigns.  Why read newspapers?  They are the tool of machine.  Our wisdom, which we obtain by blogging to one another and, seeing the consensus that emerges, assume that these views are the correct ones and the ones than anyone would hold if they only thought about it.

    Yet, one look at page one of today's New York Times and something more important, more useful than setting up permanent tents under an imposing black building, and something that would mean something to the "1%" seems obvious:

    toward the bottom of the page:

    Older, Suburban and Struggling, ‘Near Poor’ Startle the Census

    and smack in the middle of the page:

    Vilifying Rival, Wall St. Rallies for Senate Ally

    Don't think these stories are related?  Think again.  Why does "Wall Street" fear Elizabeth Warren? Who are these "New Poor" and who is speaking for them?  Senator Brown?  OWS?

    There a plenty of places in Massachusetts to pitch a tent.  Maybe Walden Pond?  And while you are there the town you will be in is called Concord.  An OWS of sorts started there, too. The shots fired there started something, though, and was not an end to itself.

    Listen:  electing President Obama was a baby step.  Nothing more.  The Senate was not controlled by people trying to do what needs to be done:  it has people who said they were Democrats, but who voted as if they were Republicans, and, in any event, the rules of the body were perverted to prevent anything from happening unless 60% of the body agreed.  We need to do better; not for those who want change to make noise, sleep in public parks and believe that chanting  one another's words to each other will alter the world in which we live.

    It, too, was a baby step.  A very important one.  Electing Elizabeth Warren would be a bigger one.  Go forth, please, and make the world a better one.

    Comments

    The approaches are complementary.  People can support the occupation movement and also vote for Elizabeth Warren next November.

    In between the times when the participants in OWS are engaging in a focused demonstration or action, designed to send some very specific message, there will be a lot of down time when they are just living in encampments and sending no other message than "We are not going away."

    Their behavior might not always be exemplary during those down times.  The erratic behavior in itself is disruptive and frightening.  But that's part of the message.

    Visit the web sites of the various occupations around the country.  Almost every one of them is engaged in an action designed to put direct pressure on elected officials and promote some specific government action.  It's not all an anarchic free-for-all.

    The change through the elected political system starts locally.  In NYC, for example, some city councilmen have been arrested or harassed because of their direct participation in the movement.  I suspect a lot of young people will have their backs when the time comes to vote in November.  They won't vote for everyone, but they will vote for the stand-up supporters.

    It will take longer for national leaders and higher-level elected officials to figure out how to navigate the change.

    The occupiers are young.  They haven't read everything you have.  They are figuring it out as they go along.  Have some patience. 

    The fact that you are annoyed and irritable means it is working.   The fact that I am annoyed and irritable means it's working.  The point of the movement isn't to create universal warm fuzzies.  The point is to throw a disruptive monkey wrench into the smooth operations of a failed system.

    The fact that this uprising is occurring is an index of the massive failure of the political system.  The fact that the participants in the movement don't all have very clear ideas about what kind of social changes they are seeking is a further representation of that failure.

    College students are now participating on a national scale.  The demands will become more articulate.

    It's a big mess.  The near future will likely be much messier than the recent past.


    Thanks.  well put.  I hope you are right.


     It was awfully disheartening when all the people who demanded change in 2008, decided that if their dreams could not be realized in two years, voting was no longer worthwhile and stayed home, with disastrous consequences...

    The repubs in Maine and Ohio and Wisconsin and elsewhere told everyone what they were going to do; and once sworn in they did so.

    I am heartened by these recall elections as well as the referendums that failed to pass all the way from Ohio to Mississippi.

    I do not really know what Obama was supposed to have done, honestly.

    And as I have written several times, Pelosi could not have performed better in her important position as Speaker. All whilst the Senate pulled its pudd! ha

    But I take heart that our President has stayed in the mid forties to the upper forties this entire year while Mitt can barely reach the mid twenties among repubs!

    I am sick about the open graft in Congress, the bribery by WS and the kowtowing to WS.

    Oh that's enough for tonite. hahaha


    It was awfully disheartening when all the people who demanded change in 2008, decided that if their dreams could not be realized in two years, voting was no longer worthwhile and stayed home, with disastrous consequences...

    I wouldn't read too much into the 2010 elections. Historically, there's always been less of a turnout for non-presidential elections, and it seems to me (i.e., I have nothing to back this up with) that this is especially true for Democratic voters.


    what you say is true, but the change people want will only come when people vote every two years.  The Congress elected in 2010 has  not been, ummmm, helpful.


    You're preaching to the choir!

    Except… I like to emphasize voting every year, not just every two years. Also, voting in primary elections is very important, and again, not just every four years.


    Of course they are going to push back.  As they always have.  It is nice to have the evidence, but it doesn't really change the view of what we thought the way things were.  So what next? 


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