Why "Occupy Wall Street" captures the moment
Protestors at Occupy Wall Street's media area coordinate news updates on laptop computers powered by a portable gas-powered generator in Manhattan's financial district's Zuccotti park, Sunday, Oct. 2, 2011, in New York. The Occupy Wall Street demonstration started out small, with less than a dozen college students, but has grown to include thousands of people in communities across the country. / John Minchillo
Everybody has a piece of advice for the protesters at Occupy Wall Street. They should put their clothes on. They should stop raising their fists. They should fact-check their handwritten signs. They should appoint leaders who can give pithy quotes to reporters. They should get with an electoral program. Nicholas Kristof even offered to help them out with a neat list of demands, in case those holding signs saying “We Are the 99%” just needed to have the unfairness of the carried interest rule explained to them.
Indeed, their failure to present demands is the most frequently heard criticism of the OWS protesters, not just in the mainstream press but from veteran leftists as well. What do these wan, angry young people want, anyway?
If you spend an hour or two down at Liberty Plaza, as I did with my 8-year-old daughter this past weekend, it’s clear enough. She got the point, at least: especially from the signs that read, “You should teach your kids to share,” and, “Give my mom her money back!! A single working mom…not fair!”
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And in the recent past, even the most smoothly organized, expertly messaged mass demonstrations have not made a whit of difference in this regard. Consider the last big march on Wall Street this past May 12. The coalition behind it was admirably diverse, including unions like the teachers and SEIU’s 1199, as well as local community organizations such as Citizen Action NY, Coalition for the Homeless and Community Voices Heard. The “May 12 Coalition,” which turned out thousands of protesters on the appointed day, presented the Bloomberg administration with a proposal that exhibited great thoughtfulness in its rigor and detail, asking banks like JPMorgan, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley to take a 20 percent cut in their contracts to handle functions like child support disbursements or income tax remittances for the city. This would have saved $120 million, part of $1.5 billion that could have been extracted from the banking sector to prevent the city from having to slash education and social services, according to the coalition.
The May 12 marchers were many things the OWS protesters are not. They were orderly; they truly represented ordinary New Yorkers. They were concrete: they had a plan. But needless to say, the Bloomberg administration did not immediately recognize their plan’s superior logic and fairness and adopt it as a new template. In fact, it received no attention in the wake of the march. It was such a nonstarter that the city didn’t even bother to respond to it. And the media snoozed.
Or consider another very well thought-out mass action in the age of Obama: the “One Nation Working Together for Jobs, Justice and Education” mobilization, which brought throngs of protesters to Washington, DC, on October 2, 2010. Garnering a turnout organizers estimated at 175,000, the march won endorsements from 400 groups, including all the major national unions, the NAACP, environmental organizations, gay groups and progressive religious forces. Organizers were explicit that their goal was to fire up the liberal base and showcase the diversity of the progressive movement. They also came brandishing a plethora of proposals. Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, told the Washington Post, “The truth is there is a lot of focus on the march itself, but a march without a plan of action … is simply a one-day event. What this is about is using this march as a launching pad for policy change.” Shortly thereafter, of course, would come the devastating midterm elections, and President Obama’s cave on the Bush tax cut extension. In terms of media impact, One Nation was almost entirely eclipsed by both Glenn Beck’s rage fest a month prior and Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s jokey “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” later the same month.
Of course, we need policy ideas. And the progressive groups that have staged previous rallies—like the ones that are sponsoring the “American Dream Movement” spearheaded by Van Jones, convening in Washington, DC, at this moment—are the crucial building blocks of the coalitions necessary to make long-term campaigns around real policy proposals work.
But sometimes, you also need a spark. “Occupy Wall Street,” as an idea and an action, is a stroke of brilliance. It’s not poll-tested or focus-grouped, but it expresses perfectly the outrage that is the appropriate response to the maddening political situation we find ourselves in today. It succeeds as symbolic politics: taking back the square is just what we need to do. And it’s wonderful that unions and community groups that have been working in the trenches will be linking arms with the denizens of OWS this Wednesday.
Maybe this will go nowhere too. The odds are against it, after all. But what do we have to lose? We have to try something new.
Bio: Betsy Reed is a contributor to The Nation. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.Recommended
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Stop trying to re-write history and stop trying to downplay the American Autumn. The protestors deserve our praise and our assistance. Get used to this.
If this movement actually evolves into a genuine non-partisan grass roots movement across all ideologies for a restoration of fundamental American common sense and the end of corporatocracy and endless warfare, this **** could get real interesting. I surely hope it does and they have my full support. See you at Occupy LA!
When the first Egyptians showed up on Tahrir Square, their grievances were a lot more focused. Once thousands started showing up, the focus got blurred and it became just about the dissatisfaction of the Egyptian people with the way they were being governed. Of course, the result was the call for the resignation of Hosni Mubarak. And it eventually worked. Only after the resignation did the Egyptian protesters really concern themselves with what they wanted to fill the void.
I think the lack of "focus" with the Occupy Wall Street protests has become not so much a protest of stock brokerage firms or big banks, but an overall dissatisfaction with the way our government has seemingly become deadlocked. It's bigger than just finances now.
Since we don't have life-time presidents, who can then pass the office to their offspring, and we do have a 2-term limit for our President, we don't need to agitate for a resignation. We have the right to vote a President out of office. We've done it many times before, and without bloodshed.
So this protest isn't about a President. It's about our elected representatives (both the Senate and House) and how they aren't even bothering to do the job we elected them (and are paying them) to do. They're all just sitting around worrying about their own re-election campaigns.
And it's about the bone-headed US Supreme Court that came up with the moronic decision that corporations are "people" when it comes to financing those campaigns.
So let Romney talk about how it's "class warfare." It is. And he's on the losing side, although he's too stupid to know that yet. And let Cain talk about how, if people are poor, it's their own fault. Again, he's too stupid to see the plain writing on the wall in front of his face.
History repeats itself, for those who don't learn the first time. The Russian czars learned that the hard way. The French aristocracy learned that the hard way. Career politicians are about to learn the same lesson, the hard way.
1. It takes hard work up front.
2. It takes a long time to build a fortune.
3. It's not Wall Street, it's Capitol Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.
Most of the fortunes of this country have been earned through hard work, careful investing, diligence and patience. Stocks, bonds and mutual funds are publicly traded, anyone that chooses to use their brain and a modest amount of money can invest. There are millions of investors that are certainly not "fat cats." They saved for years in IRS's and 401k's. I will not be made to feel guilty for G_d's blessings. The OWS crowd want free stuff, they want it right now and they want someone else to pay for it. They are a product of an affluent society that didn't teach it's children the valuable lessons of hard work, saving, diligence and patience. Betsy Reed is either just out of journalism school and is still impressed by the twisted teachings of ultra-liberal professors or has been so completely corrupted that she believes that rot. Ten years of work will usually cure the former; there is little hope for the latter. Take away the incentive to invest and this country will enter a real depression, not some "economic downturn."
Laissez faire economics is unsustainable and we see the evidence of that every day right here in America. Some of us have nothing to lose and taking to the streets is a very democratic movement. I applaud those who do so. We need a revolution.
youtube.com/watch?v=uZmPWcLQ1Mk&feature=player_embedded