Given how extraordinarily successful it has been both in its own terms and in its capacity to grab the attention of the media, Occupy Wall Street has been conveniently misunderstood by its supporters and detractors alike. Recently, Mayor Bloomberg patronized it haughtily, saying "It's fun and it's cathartic -- it's, I don't know, it's entertaining to go and to blame people, but it doesn't get better by complaining about; it doesn't get better by disrupting commerce (and) vilifying people."
Meanwhile, Bill Keller of the New York Times wrote mockingly from India (where people like capitalism just fine, he explained): "I'm willing to celebrate when the Occupiers... accomplish something more than organizing their own campsite cleanup, demonstrating their tolerance for tear gas, and distracting the conversation a little from the Tea Party." Everyone wants to know OWS's "demands." And the names of its "leaders," because there have to be leaders, right? Friends worry the movement is good-willed but amorphous and aimless, while critics dismiss it as another eruption of hippie anarchism -- complaining kids who, standing for nothing, want to tear down everything.
To be sure, the occupiers themselves are a diverse lot. The encampments around the country (and the world) embrace a panoply of causes, and contain tensions and fissure the protesters themselves acknowledge and even welcome. OWS has become a vessel into which people pour their own fears and aspirations, but that is a strength, not a weakness. You can't build a movement on a single narrow demand, however compelling it may be. Which may be why the movement has been slow to produce a definitive document.
That is not to say there is not a unifying theme. It's called Occupy Wall Street for a reason: it's about the MONEY, stupid! The money that has put profits before people and left human values to be measured by price alone. The money that (with the complicity of the Supreme Court) has replaced votes (one for each of us) with dollars (one for the 99 and 99 for the one!) turning democracy into plutocracy.
Anyone who spends a little time at Zuccotti Park, however, quickly learns that those occupying Wall Street share more than the unifying conviction that money has undone the social compact; they share something even more precious: a belief that what democracy really is cannot be defined by how it is being practiced today. If the occupiers do not have demands and lack a palpable politics, they exemplify a powerful process that speaks to their principles.
To understand what's going on, look at what OWS is, not what it does. Start by taking seriously the ubiquitous signs asking "What does democracy look like?" and answering "WE are what democracy looks like!" Look at the process, which is a bold attempt to embody a "horizontal" paradigm of participatory engagement as an alternative to "vertical" big league moneyball democracy.
What the process offers is a compelling rejection of that crass instrumentalism so beloved of American politicians. You know, "the end justifies the means" so the Republicans condemn all government spending, except when it's for the military-industrial complex! And President Obama just has to raise funds from big-time bundlers and lobbyists despite his pledge not to do so, because how else can he get reelected? The protesters assail not only Wall Street and capitalism, but also the hypocritical cynicism of politics as usual.
The protesters' principles are in their processes, which stand in radical contrast to how we normally conduct business. For starters, all decisions must be submitted to the General Assembly that convenes almost every day and is the source of the movements' legitimacy. The GA's process is maddeningly open and transparent, with changing constituencies from night to night, and decisions are taken by consensus. Not majority, not two thirds or three quarters, but consensus or a staggering 90% super-majority. Most tellingly, every voice has to be heard, including those of participants who offer a "block" -- that must be responded to and overcome, if consensus is to prevail.
The process requires patience and tolerance. And a great deal of talk. And an extraordinary focus on addressing objections. It makes it much harder to decide to do anything, but every decision that is passed can claim a legitimacy that finds no counterpart in how we otherwise do business under the sway of special interests and rivers of cash.
Cynics on the right dismiss OWS as a bunch of socialists and collectivists, but find a democratic process more attuned to the autonomy and rights of individuals. Consider the "peoples' microphone" -- an innovation necessitated by the refusal of the city to allow electronic amplification. With crowds of several hundred or more listening, individual voices cannot be heard, so speakers voice their concerns in snippets that are repeated (echoed) by the crowd in an expanding circle, so that the words can be heard on the periphery.
The Peoples' Mic is a clumsy process and makes complex and nuanced speech difficult. But it has two considerable democratic virtues: it forces relatively simple, straightforward speech that enhances clarity and communication; and it requires that in dealing with naysayers and "blocks" the majority must mouth and voice the actual words of those who disagree. How better to kindle a sympathy for minority voices than for their majority opponents to have to rehearse their protests, word for word, and even mimic their affect? And how fitting that a movement wedded to moral protest should be attuned to protests against its own actions that come from within.
OWS may be naive and exasperating in its refusal to engage in ordinary politics and its disdain for voting when so much seems to turn on who is in the White House (think Supreme Court appointments, for example). Surely it would do better to recognize that capitalism is here to stay and that the challenge is to regulate and govern the system democratically rather than to abolish it.
Yet the occupiers know that greed, narcissism, avarice, self-interest and egoism -- radical individualism run amok and market ideology turned vicious -- have so corrupted the system, that it appears to them to be beyond saving.
So, take note Mayor Bloomberg and Bill Keller, protesters are not complaining or playing the blame game. They are engaging with one another to develop an alternative, a paradigm shift: self-government in place of corrupt central government, active participation in place of the culture of complaint, responsibility in place of cynicism. It may not be possible to govern a nation of 300 million this way, but it offers a powerful riposte to the tyranny of money over everything under which we now live.
Follow Benjamin R. Barber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/BenjaminRBarber
None so blind, as those whose price is known.
"wrote mockingly from India"
it could never ever happen here. Did it? Just shows how much I know.
"the movement has been slow to produce a definitive document."
One already exists. Its called the Constitution. If the 1% can’t be a**ed to read and regulate themselves by that (note the part concerning corruption), what chance does any other document have?
"The Peoples' Mic is a clumsy process and makes complex and nuanced speech difficult. But it has two considerable democratic virtues:"
Make that 3: It isn’t owned or intercepted, by Rupert Murdoch.
"the occupiers know that greed, narcissism, avarice, self-interest and egoism"
are roughly the same wayward traits, exhibited by the unaccountable elite that brought communism to its knees.
One that believes the economic system is about self-reliance, earning a living, service to one's community, and mutual benefaction.
And one that builds wealth for wealth's sake by cannibalizing other people's living, seeking unbalanced service-to-reward ratios, using their wealth to influence unfair political policies, and looking out only for self.
When George W. Bush spoke confusedly of "honest, hardworking folk" I don't think he was talking about the people he referred to as his base.
And no idealist has gone to work in Washington without running headlong into one very thick wall of "tradition".
Besides, a lot of people here talk about allowing the majority their way...since when do the wealthy and politicians comprise the majority of a country where the shrinking-in-the-name-of-profit middle class once comprised 70% of the employed?
Hell, we're reminded ad nausea that 50% don't even pay taxes; if that 's true then the will of that 50% added to the middle class would count if this were still a democratic state. When was the last time Washington asked the poor and working poor--or the middle class--how the government should vote or rule on important issues?
[end part 1 of 3]
And why not, the government is comprised of only two political parties and they have a stranglehold on the election process. Would you listen to a boss who couldn't fire you? Okay, you would, but that’s because you are those honest, hardworking folks.
The abuses of our society as practiced by specific but not few economic entities and, at the very least, ignored by our elected representatives have turned back the clock where basic civilian rights are concerned.
Corporate citizenship is just the start, so is it a wonder OWS exists or that it espouses a mixed message given the diversity of those suffering the ill effects of an ailing socio-economic system? That means the economic system is harming society as a whole; a society our elected officials are supposed to safeguard.
We have surge of conservative (not necessarily Republican) ideology that is being challenged by an opposite if not equal liberal (not necessarily Democratic) counter-movement. Action, reaction.
While the fight is against politics, the platform is not inevitably political. While the fight is against wanton greed, the movement does not seek
[end part 2 of 3]
to lobby politicians fiscally. This is a redress of grievances…not unlike the American Revolution.
The main concern I have with OWS is that we not go from teetering to the right, so to speak, to teetering to the left. And that can be tricky given that the corrupting influences in Washington are so commonplace no one there seems to think such a thing exists.
One way to avoid over-correcting the situation would be to remember the extremist rule:
All Tyrants are Anarchists because they think the rules are for everyone else, and wish to avoid responsibility for their choices through absolute power.
-and-
All Anarchists are Tyrants because they want to erase all authority, thus avoiding responsibility for their choices by forcing everyone to live without a central government.
Anyone who isn’t affluent, or at least getting rich by working for the affluent, should reject the relationship between personal wealth and political power.
Or do you really think even given the way you vote either of these groups actually cares about you?
A political entity is not fixed and can die a long or short death. Today in America we have the worst of two absolute parties fixed into their position and it is harming this nation. Both parties have a core of followers that are more fanatic then any mad bomber willing to die for their faith simply because they are educated are refusing to hear or see what their position is doing to this nation.
I will receive many complains from both sides that this is untrue and that they only care for America and if America would only do what their party wants every thing will be great. This is a lie.
America needs Average Americans in Congress to defeat the absolute hold each party has.
OWS has got all that touchy-feely attuning down pat. Now let it demonstrate that it can both keep that going AND do the work required of a democratic process. Aye...there's the rub!
Everyone must educate themselves. We have to start to pull together from the bottom up to save everyone in this nation in the 99%. OWS is the start of something that will eventually be an OVERNIGHT SEA CHANGE as a NEW Political Party of HIGH INFORMATION VOTERS starts to form out of the education and organizing communication resources of the Internet.
We must now deal with WHO is to have the MONEY POWER in a civilization. It requires knowledge of the last 3,000 years of the concept of "money" in organizing economic activity in society. The problem is the current Money-As-Debt Usury Extortion Fractional Reserve Banking System invented by the Bank of England in 1694. It has now come to a crisis point.
President Obama had done nothing about Wall Street but he will be re-elected. But he will be the LAST PERON EVER ELECTED President of the United States from EITHER current mainstream Political Parties.
THE SECRET OF OZ - Bill Still
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swkq2E8mswI
"THE LOST SCIENCE OF MONEY" by Stephen A. Zarlenga
http://old.monetary.org/lostscienceofmoney.html
“Stephen Zarlenga’s book entitled The Lost Science of Money, is one of the most important books published in the world in the past 200 years".
- Richard C. Cook,
Former U.S. Treasury official and author of "Challenger Revealed"
Check out Bill Moyers comments on this topic at the link below. As one of the most respected voices in America, Mr. Moyers eloquently explains his concerns. He ends with an appeal to patriots for change.
His hardest hitting comments start at 8:30
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOIQ5-W1Epw&feature=player_embedded
You're joking, right?
That’s why I opposed the Wall Street bailout, handouts to GE and Solyndra, etc. However, Obama supports those things.
Protest Obama.
So, protest everyone. But we still have to elect someone in 2012, and they are going to come from one of those two parties.
There is nothing democratic about them.
http://explainlikeakid.blogspot.com/2011/10/why-people-are-protesting-on-wall.html