Quo vadis, Occupy? With the encampments folding or forcibly shut down -- for reasons of public health or winter weather -- and with eulogies already appearing, what next for the earthquake known as Occupy Wall Street?
Rather than go dark 'til spring, inventive activists are pressing on with useful actions like Occupy the Classroom -- protesting for example the teaching of economics, specifically the school of thought promoting the predatory market capitalism that produces, and tolerates, the large-scale social suffering we have today. Occupy the Campus protests have sprung up across the country, with students protesting hefty tuition hikes, unbearable debt loads, and a future short on jobs.
Other actions, like Occupy the Ports, are arguably less productive. How does preventing a worker from getting to his/her job on the docks---a job all the more precious in a recession that grinds on and on -- defend and advance the interests of the 99%, the constituency Occupy purports to represent? Tellingly, a growing number of unions are disavowing the "aid" of these particular occupiers (here and here).
To the question of what next for Occupy, best guide might be a look back -- at New York's Zuccotti Park, where the earthquake began. Locating the first protest within hailing distance of the beast -- Wall Street -- was symbolically so powerful that millions of us non-New Yorkers got it quicker than a New York minute: This is about economic justice -- a banner and a deal that the 99% could eagerly embrace.
I submit, however, there is unfinished business there in Zuccotti -- and it has to do with a figure operating just up the street: Gordon Gekko, predatory Wall Streeter of recent myth and creator of mass economic injustice. This unfinished business is not about hoisting tents again, but hoisting a metaphor.
We need to occupy the Gekko myth and revise his nefarious motto---that "Greed is good"---a "truth" that has seeped deep, deep into American culture since Wall Street, the film he featured in, came out in 1987. While intended as a cautionary tale by its creator Oliver Stone (here, here, and here), how often have we heard real Wall Street figures---and, let's be fair, a fair number of the 99%---say they embraced "Greed is good" as their operational mantra, greed having been legitimated as a cultural OK thanks to the film, with the cautionary part pretty completely ignored?
A quarter-century later, we see that the greed, with its money-power, has gone too far, is not OK. (As my Republican mother established, "Greed is killing this country and we have got to turn it around.") Were we to create a counter-motto, "Greed is not good," or more realistically and also much better for economic recovery, "Greed is OK---within clearly defined bounds specified by the U.S. Congress and enforced by the S.E.C.," not only Wall Street might be reformed but our culture repaired.
Call it sustainable greed. Imagine: Responsibility and prudence would again become good things, not laughable or uncool. Might a sense of shared fate follow?
Occupying the Gekko myth is doable because it's about the culture, not (polarized) politics. It's safe to talk with Republicans about how greed distorts the grand American experiment of capitalism-and-democracy and to agree in principle about economic justice, whereas to talk about, say, raising the debt ceiling, not so much. Such culture-focused talk enables supporters to better counter two big knocks on Occupy: that it's anti-capitalist and pro-"free handouts." We want capitalism with a human face and without the thumb of the 1% on the scales. (Note to economists from a dummy on the subject: Isn't there a theory that proves a humane capitalism is also the most productive?)
Sooner or later of course we must return to politics -- where some Occupiers disdain to go. How else do we achieve the economic justice that Occupy proclaims? The to-do list is long. Finally we could press, for example, for serious campaign finance reform, to reduce the influence of money-power and greed in politics; and for a Constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, the one giving the 1% way more than 1% of a voice.
Significantly, also: Stepping back into politics will separate the anarchists of Occupy from the conscientious...
Speaking of greed and anarchy, a note: At a Seattle Town Hall meeting set up ostensibly for Occupy Seattle and the community to interact, the Occupiers brought things to a quick halt -- with incessant "mic checks," twinkling fingers, innocent questions shouted down, and with political "contamination" vehemently rejected. This is anarchy not democracy, said I to myself, and I walked out -- along with droves of others (see news report). Memo to Occupy: Primal screams -- for economic justice -- can't be copyrighted or occupied.
Happily, none other than President Obama has taken up the call for economic justice in a major way, with his recent speech in Kansas (here and here). In it he cited Wall Street for "breathtaking greed" and "irresponsibility all across the system" and made a ringing defense of the middle class -- a strategy with which he can (to risk overuse of a dandy new verb) occupy the 2012 presidential campaign. To reoccupy both houses of Congress -- only way to break the present logjam -- other Democrats might follow suit. Meanwhile, Republican contender and former financier Mitt Romney expects to be Gekko'd (here and here).
Finally: My enduring problem with Wall Street the film was that the villainous Gordon Gekko was never forced to face off against a proper antagonist, a challenger of equal weight, one who could put the "cautionary" in the tale. The character who ultimately brought Gekko down and sent him to prison was an underling who was if anything even more greedy and predatory than his boss.
Wouldn't it be wonderful -- not to say nation- and culture-saving -- if We the People stepped up and, lo these many years later and in our maturity, decked Gekko the Greedster ourselves?
Carla Seaquist is author of Manufacturing Hope: Post-9/11 Notes on Politics, Culture, Torture, and the American Character. Also a playwright, she is author of the forthcoming volume, Two Plays of Life and Death, and is at work on a play titled, Prodigal.
I believe I once heard Doris Kearns Goodwin comment that the one protest that kept LBJ up all night, wracked with guilt and looking for a way out of Vietnam, was the chant: Hey, hey, LBJ, how many boys did you kill today? A masterpiece of simplicity.
And many states have property tax waivers or reductions for seniors, especially low income seniors.
Now in those states that do not have some sort of property tax reduction for seniors, that would seem like something that you should take up with your state legislators. That's one reason it's important to pay attention to more than the national elections. Those state legislators are the folks that make most of the laws we deal with on a daily basis. (Actually, Ms. Seaquist's husband is one of my State Representatives, and does a really good job there.)
So, what state do you know of that allows income taxes as a deduction from property taxes?
How can America produce new wealth for all, rather than just redistribute existing wealth? This is the issue that not just US leadership but we all should focus on. Judging from the record of the last half century or so, since computers were first introduced in US offices in 1966, information technology significantly failed to achieve what everybody at the time fully expected: lift incomes and living standards, provide jobs in quantity, create a 'quantum leap' in innovation, make us work less and earn more. Broad technological progress - the kind of progress that lifted incomes and provided jobs during the industrial era - actually stagnated. We significantly failed to secure new cheaper and sustainable energy sources, or achieve breakthroughs in robotics or AI, sectors that were once expected to lead technological advance.
So, rather than 'Occupy', shouldn't we focus more on 'Invent'?
I agree, GREED is what is ailing this country: the greedy old expecting the hard-working young to take care of them through the Social Security intergenerational wealth-transfer ponzi scheme, the greedy poor taking advantage of the hard-working wealthy by getting the government to expropriate from the wealthy and give it to them in the form of welfare, the greedy unemployed who expect the government to borrow from the future’s children to pay them benefits today, not to mention greedy unions, greedy students, greedy unlucky natural disaster victims, greedy auto companies, greedy green energy, and even the occasional greedy bank.
The best thing that OWS can do is to join the Tea Party and to protest this greed.
As for greed, no system better channels greed, or as it is commonly called. ‘self-interest’ better than free market capitalism. Since self-interest is a condition of man and exists in all economic systems, encouraging a system that does not let one group of people use the government to prey on another group is the best way forward, small limited government and all else left to free will and free exchange is the best system. People that are too greedy, fail and do not get bailed out under free market capitalism, and as such….greed is good.
Kai
You forgot the greedy Citizen's United who likes to change the rules so the dice are loaded.
You forgot the American's for Prosperity who like the upper 1% to prosper but not the other 99.
You forgot the duped Americans who were swindled out of their life saviings and home equity because of the monetary fascists who have the money to dupe Americans such as you in to believing their next marketed mantra.
Greedy kids living at home? Did not forget them since living under the charity of your parents is not greedy…though it is self interest as I pointed out. More power to them
Cit United…shareholders of companies seeking the same freedom of speech as big labor is not greed, just justice. This could have been easily reconciled under Obama, but he could not get his NRA, Union carve out in the legislation that he proposed to be passed by his compliant congress. Even they knew it was evil.
Americans for Prosperity…seeking to let the 1% keep their own money. Not greed. What si greedy are the people that want to continue to unfairly continue to take what they did not earn from the 1%...now that is greed.
Americans who took on too much leverage because they were greedy…no I covered that above. Greed is good and these greedy housing speculators were wiped out.
Monetary fascists…I hope you are speaking about the Fed. I agree. This non-free-market, non-capitalist institution is a device of if government. And their ruinous polices to promote employment over stable currency is the reason we are in this mess. Let’s shut it down.
Thanks for illustrating how big government and a lack of free markets is the problem, compounded by greedy welfare-state takers is the problem.
Kai
Un-deniable fact. People/politicains work for those that pay them.
We must pay for political campaigns to re-gain our political reresentation.
Get the Money Out of Politics
People/polititians work for whoever pays them - not for those that vote for them.
Citizens must pay for political campaigns to re-gain citizen representation.
Get Money Out
Get off your duffs.
If you read the biography of any successful entrepreneur you will find they were not handed money simple because they asked for it no matter the condition of banks. They scraped by working 2-3 jobs to get the capital needed just to get one location opened.
The thought process behind your post is the problem with the occupiers. I want. . . I want. . . I want. . . Pay my student loans. . . I deserve it. . . Its so hard out there. . .
Second, your comment about India shows your irrationality. How many weeks of unemployment insurance did people get in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, etc.? We did just fine then during much higher rates of unemployment.
It is not harsh to say that we simply cannot afford it and there is no history of indefinite unemployment payments in this country and we did just fine.
The only thing that will allow change is fear. The wealthy interests, the one-percenters, will only back down if they fear their world is about to collapse. That's why FDR was allowed to make his New Deal. The rich were seriously spooked by the rise of (real) socialism in the US; they were afraid the country was about to go commie.