Occupy Wall Street--that diverse group of left-leaning idealists that has been camping out near my old firm's haunts at Broadway and Liberty in Manhattan--is beginning to coalesce into a movement. And that's good news.
For months, the mass media has been focusing on, and thereby enhancing the attention to, the right-wing "Tea Party" movement. Its leaders make statements devoid of connection with history or fact, but they are interviewed incessantly and make those same statements over and over again--how private enterprise is "always" better than government, how tax cuts are good for us even in a time of deficits, how we need to cut spending on safety net programs, food safety, disease control or whatever (just not military spending) in order to return to the Founders' vision. They forget the lessons learned from the Great Depression and the New Deal--that corporate titans that care not a whit about anybody but their owners and managers can destroy workers and ruin the resources that belong to all of us, and that government spending to create jobs directly can make a difference for millions who are on the verge of financial collapse. Government can protect workers from brutal employers, and can establish air, water, food, consumer safety rules that no citizen can do for himself.
The media has loved the Tea party, simply because the radical right-wing fringe talk makes money for the media and pleases the corporate masters of the major media-- Murdoch, and the few other corporate empires.
Now there may finally be a stirring of life in the populist left--people who have figured out that the right's policies do nothing but advance the unheard-of inequality that is creating a US wasteland of joblessness for generations of teens and young adults just coming of age. The group of Occupy Wall Street recognize corporate greed (how can you miss it when corporate managers make tens of millions while they squeeze their workers) and bankster avarice (how can you miss it when banks raked in profits from the low cost-of-funds provided by the Fed, while refusing to make loans even to successful small businesses and are already adding on more fees for their small fry customers) and hedge fund bloviation (the managers who think they have a 'right' to treating their pay as preferential capital gains in the carried interest gimmick).
The protest at Wall Street has now issued a "Declaration of the Occupation of New York City" (Sept. 29, 2011). The declaration reflects a broad range of grievances, but several things stand out.
1) the group recognizes that corporatism, the tendency of governmental officials to bend their collective ears to corporate lobbyists and bend the legislative agenda to the corporate desires, is extraordinarily harmful to America, in that it corrupts government, distorts economics, and destroys democracy.
2) the group signals its emphasis on sustainable democracy, when it notes that "no true democracy is attainable when the [democratic] process is determined by economic power"
3) the group recognizes the importance of the right to unionize as a human right, when it notes that corporations "have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions" and also "have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay."
4) the group has created a culture of respect, in part because of the organization required to maintain an active protest site and in part because of the way the group repeats what a speaker says to pass the speech along (since no microphones are allowed in the park). Kudos to one commenter who noted:
I think the way the group has compensated for not having microphones has turned out to be a major benefit. When everyone present must repeat and amplify the words of each speaker, it encourages respect, even for those we disagree with.
If we’re really talking about 99% of the country, that number’s obviously going to include a lot of people who disagree with each other, maybe don’t like each other, maybe don’t respect each other. We must continue to welcome anyone who thinks they belong here. As long as we keep dialogue open, we can learn from one another, and eventually arrive at the really big ideas. The kind that no one could come up with alone.
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