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I continue to believe that the crackdown on the Occupy Oakland facility will only grow the movement of the 99%. But I know the establishment has scratched their heads wondering what the goals of the movement are. Dahlia Lithwick sets them straight:
I don’t purport to speak for anyone but myself here, although I spent time this weekend at Occupy Wall Street and my husband spent much of last week adding his voice to the protesters there. I saw an incredible array of people that defy any simple demographic characterization and a broad range of signs that made—imagine!—more than a single point. But if I may hazard an opinion, it would be this: One of the most fatuous themes of mainstream OWS coverage is the endless loop of media bafflement at this movement that doesn’t have a message. Here’s CNN’s Erin Burnett in a classic put-down of the OWS’ refusal to tailor its message to her. It takes a walloping amount of willful cluelessness to look at a mass of people holding up signs and claim that they have no message.
Occupy Wall Street is not a movement without a message. It’s a movement that has wisely shunned the one-note, pre-chewed, simple-minded messaging required for cable television as it now exists. It’s a movement that feels no need to explain anything to the powers that be, although it is deftly changing the way we explain ourselves to one another.
One benefit to this multi-channel, multi-platform, experiential anti-messaging is that it has set the establishment scrambling to placate the protesters, even while they claim to not know what the protesters want. And so you have the born-again populist in the White House, and Republican Party leaders making speeches that reference income inequality, and so on. The entire conversation around out politics has changed, and those who wind up on the wrong side of the conversation simply lose their legitimacy. A popular movement, by definition, is popular. That makes it dangerous for the political class to take up unpopular positions against those themes, like whitewashing Wall Street crimes, or making the poor or elderly pay for a deficit caused by financial malfeasance.
As Matt Stoller points out, it’s a testament to how precarious the established order is that a bunch of people sleeping in mildly unsanitary public parks can upset that order. In truth, these broad themes of justice and accountability and fairness and a voice of dissent against crony capitalism were lying around, waiting for someone to pick them up. And when forces try to silence the protests, sometimes with force, that only makes them stronger.
I’m interested to see how this will evolve, especially in the next month, with the Super Committee and a return to the deficit talk that indirectly sparked this movement. Maybe it will evolve into an electoral force. Maybe it will just be a symbol of how to live off the grid, outside the system, a model for a different kind of societal structure. I don’t have any idea. But I know this: the Occupy Wall Street protesters have done more to change the political dynamic in the country in a month than national Democrats have done in 30 years. So I’m not going to be giving them any advice on how to further their movement. They seem to be doing just fine.
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well said.
Yes, these issues were lying around waiting for someone to pick them up, but a lot of people and groups had picked them up, but OWS — for reasons that historian will chew on — took off.
I do think, though, in retrospect, you can see a lot of pre-9-17 sparks. The outrage in 3-09 during the AIG bonus scandal that the White House quite actively sought to suppress, Wisconsin, U.S. Uncut and all the other groups that held anti-bank demonstrations, and
“we don’t need to provide the media with any answers, we are asking a question !”
true.
it’s remarkable hearing repeatedly on AM radio, mention of things such as who has benefited, who has lost, and by how much, over the last thirty or forty years.
I have never heard that sort of thing on mainstream radio before.
This is true —
“the Occupy Wall Street protesters have done more to change the political dynamic in the country in a month than national Democrats have done in 30 years.”
–though that’s because the national Democrats haven’t wanted to change the political dynamic. They could have and should have made economic inequality the focus. They chose not to.
My only question is, “What is the result of the Occupy movement?”.
At some point all this outrage should result in changes. But what changes? I fret over a movement that allows the side they’re protesting against to concoct a guesswork response, as in, “How about we change the law on X? Is that what you want?” That approach is, of course, putting the cart before the horse. At some point the movement is going to have to move away from general blandishments into specifics, whether it’s abolishing corporate personhood or reinstating Glass-Steagall, or repealing the Bush/Obama tax cuts.
Absolutely true. My concern is that as the media start to lose interest (not the shiny new object of the moment) some in the movement will push more confrontational measures to keep in the public eye. I hope no one gets hurt or worse. The actions in Oakland could be detrimental to the cause.
As I mentioned in another post, I do not see what even causes OWS to pull up stakes and leave the park, or their locations elsewhere. And if that is true, does it go on all winter long? Is there a point where the politics of the moment overtakes the protests? Will the presidential primaries push the OWS folks off the front page? And how will it impact on the house races?
BP, you are falling into the trap of thinking too small. This is a Revolution not a barganing session. What does the Occupy Movement want? They and we should want it All.
We the People have been reduced to begging for crumbs, this must end. The Occupy Movement is about demanding Power not politics and change will only come from the taking of that Power from the few who control it now.
We still have the very real problem of the eventual push-back from the 1%.
Like all con-artists, they stole all that money fair and square. They are NOT going to give any of it back without a fight. It’s a matter of principle.
Oakland looks like the poke-with-a-sharp-stick to see how far we they get.
DHS is probably working on a comprehensive plan as we speak.
Consider this as a “crisis of legitimacy”, writ large. As such, persons and institutions are being challenged.
Jaango
Okay, how do you propose to take that Power, and what do you intend to do with it when you have it? Are you proposing a new Constitution? Restructuring Congress, and if so, how? Who gets to wield that new power, and how will they be chosen?
Good questions BP, i am not the one making this Revolution so i’ll leave those questions to those who are. They appear to be educating the people who are directly involved and discussing alternatives to the status quo.
From what i have seen the GA process and their rejection of vertical leadership may offer some hope for returning control to the People.
We are a long way from reaching the point when your questions need to be answered. For the near future the building of the Movement and gathering the support necessary to overcome the coming violent repression is the task.
Revolution is not a easy process but we have no choice if we truly want a free and just world. Reducing it to a few good but inadequate demands will guarantee it’s failure.
I didn’t think i would live to see The People rise up again like many of us did in the ’60s but i am pleasantly surprised and hopeful for the future.
We are already seeing the ripples and reactions from the PTB, they are frightened at the Power generated by a relatively small number of Occupiers, mainly because the Movement isn’t following their rules.
I’m so glad we can stop asking ourselves, “why aren’t people marching in the streets?” Maybe this will help the SuperCongress austerity agenda to fail.