We are here (#OccupyWallStreet)

Apologies for the extended radio silence (almost a full year since the last post, in fact.)  Blame finishing up graduate school, getting married this summer, and starting a new job recently.  All wonderful, joyous life-events; I am blessed.

So what’s changed in our world since November 2, 2010?  Anything much?

h/t Mike Konczal

Chances are you may have heard about the Occupy Wall Street protests currently going on in New York.  At the risk of opening myself to later ridicule if suddenly the occupation falls apart and nothing more comes of it, I believe that these protests happening all over the country are the start of something new (and yet quite certainly old) in our political/social/economic discourse.  The Occupation is, in the very broadest sense of the term, a great showing of people power. 

What have these protesters done?  They have reclaimed, at least in miniature, a part of the commons: those public spaces that are free and open for all to use.  They have reclaimed Zuccotti Park (renamed Liberty Park by the occupiers) and are holding it, occupying it by the simple act of gathering together en masse, in an ad hoc community of equals.  In the midst of the most powerful globalizing force in this world, the colossus that bestrides the world through its use and abuse of capital in pursuit of more capital, Wall Street, the occupiers have recreated a locality, a community of human persons, rather than corporate persons.  The physical act of being is, perhaps, the means and the end of their protest; the thumb in the eye of those who would subjugate others to modern debt peonage by a systematic deindustrialization, de-unionization, debasement of those who were at one point hopeful and perhaps even comfortable in their lives. 

h/t JW Mason

This protest, the fact that people from all walks of life feel that the most effective method of expressing their outrage is a purposely undefined and undirected occupation of a public space, reflects the profound disillusionment in and failure of institutions in our society.  Business, government, the media, various levels of education, healthcare…somehow all of these institutions have conspired to make Americans’ lives collectively far worse than they have been at any time in recent memory. 

For some elucidation of this point, at least in part, witness the media’s sudden interest in Occupy Wall Street, despite the ostensible lack of media savviness in the occupiers’ ranks.  Much of the media coverage has focused on the lack of a coherent message from the occupiers, or attempts to fit OWS into accepted “protest paradigms;” witness this sad example of both at once:

A question was asked of me yesterday about the Occupy Wall Street movement that has been a presence in lower Manhattan since Sept. 17. Are there any parallels between it and the Tea Party movement? Yes. But if it doesn’t do four things — 1.) broaden its base of support to include those who share its values or goals; 2.) get specific about what the goals are; 3.) bring the protests to Washington; and 4.) get support from members of Congress — it could squander its momentum.

I have problems with all four of the author’s points he makes, but I’d like to draw out what I see as the overall tone of this response – bring it to Washington or it doesn’t exist.  Present the powers-that-be with a specific set of legislative goals you’d like to achieve and let them VOTE on them; that’s how you define and achieve success.

This movement does not fit into the left-right paradigm that is necessary for the media to comprehend it, except to the extent that in many of the occupiers’ state opinions, re-establishing some semblance of justice in this country tends to require what are considered “liberal” policy responses.  BOTH parties in this country are bought off by the money machine, enabled by our Supreme arbiters of justice, for whom speech and money are equivalent in the political sphere (thus ensuring that those with more money by definition have more “speech”).  Washington is a morass of corruption, legalized.  When politicians say that Washington is “broken,” they simply mean that their political donors are not able to extract as much legislated wealth as before due to the gridlock that is currently wracking our nation’s political process.  What OWS is saying with their physical presence is that yes, Washington is broken, and it’s time to clean house and re-establish the norms so that they work for all, not just those at the top.  The failure is bipartisan in nature:

Occupy Wall Street and its spin-offs have found little support so far among Democrats, outside of a few lawmakers on the left of the party.
“The message of Occupy Wall Street is we think both political parties are owned by the same guys,” said David Graeber, a former professor of anthropology at Yale who joined in the protests. “If democracy is to mean anything, it means that everybody has to weigh in on this process of how money is created and promises are renegotiated.”

Democratic politicians don’t want to upset their precious campaign donors, so they stay studiously away from the most authentic outpouring of the populism that their party claims to represent in years.  That fact exemplifies the outsized role of money in our politics – if you hew to the party line, you get campaign bucks; if you deviate, we take it away and give it to your opponent, simple as that.

What will this Occupation come to in the end?  Who knows?  I am thankful it is occurring though, and I will have more to say about this topic in coming days.  Where do you stand?  Support or oppose?