I want to thank you, thank you Thank you, thank you, Thank you, thank you, Thank you, thank you. ~ Natalie Merchant, "Kind and Generous"
This week's holiday mandates giving thanks. For many Americans, that is complicated by the harsh years since 2008.
There's the bitterness of lost jobs, foreclosed homes and diminished opportunity. There's the resentment over bailing out Wall Street, then watching banksters grant themselves sensational bonuses while denying Main Street loans to save businesses. There's the fear generated by county club conservatives demanding draconian cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
It's hard to muster gratitude while suffering, to feel appreciative while dreading a meaner future.
The past two months, though, produced glimmers of hope -- the occupation, the election and the mid-November demonstrations. These events suggest empowerment of the 99 percent and emergence of change. They're reason for thanks giving, especially by those formerly in the middle class who will for the first time experience this holiday without the traditional feast.
Change began in September with the launch of Occupy Wall Street. Previously, the disaffected had rallied and protested. The newly-homeless had held signs. The jobless had marched on Wall Street, the epicenter of the economy's crash. But this was different. These rabble-rousers didn't protest and go home. They dug in. They offered no end date for their cries for justice. Like the sit-down strikers who inhabited the General Motors plant in Flint, Mich. for 44 days in 1936 and 1937, these protesters are determined to stay as long as necessary.
The New York occupiers' gumption and message -- "we are the 99 percent" -- inspired a movement worldwide. Activists encamped in more than a 1,000 cities. And when police tried to rout them, the occupiers defied the official oppression, just as the sit-down strikers did. Emblematic is the 84-year-old Seattle protester who said after police pepper sprayed her in the face that the experience energized her.
Before this movement began, country club conservatives had confined political discussion and concern to government deficits. No one acknowledged the unemployed, the impoverished or the foreclosed on -- except to condemn them. The occupations changed this. Suddenly, the media talked of the problem of sharply higher income inequality and wrote about highly profitable corporations dodging taxes. Abruptly, politicians recalled the agony of joblessness and homelessness. Amazingly, there was new emphasis on polls showing massive majorities opposing austerity for the 99 percent and supporting higher taxes on the 1 percent.
For those of us in warm homes, Natalie Merchant's words send a perfect message to those encamped:
"For your kindness, I'm in debt to you, And I could never have gone this far without you, For everything you've done, You know I'm bound -- I'm bound to thank you for it."
On Election Day, the majority put the 1 percent and their purchased politicians on notice. The problem for the 1 percent in a one-person-one-vote democracy is that they're outnumbered. In referendums on Nov. 8, the majority rebuffed attempts to restrict the ability of citizens to vote and to collectively bargain.
Mainers reversed a Republican attempt to limit balloting. The majority there restored Election Day voter registration -- a right they'd exercised without problem for 38 years before the state's GOP-dominated legislature and GOP governor passed a law eliminating it. The 60 percent vote for reinstatement served as public censure to Republican lawmakers nationwide who have worked to suppress voting.
In Ohio, citizens reversed a Republican attempt to sharply constrict the right of public employees to collectively bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions. Ohio citizens affirmed their belief in unionization as a way to move workers into the middle class. The vote was 61 percent in favor of union rights, a margin that chastened country club conservatives, including Ohio's GOP Gov. John Kasich, who said afterwards that he would "pause" to reflect because: "The people have spoken clearly. You don't ignore the public."
To the voters in Ohio and Maine:
"Oh, I want to thank you for so many gifts. . .
I want to thank you for your generosity . . .
I want to thank you, show my gratitude. . ." ~Natalie Merchant
The following week, two demonstrations reinforced the election's message of hope for the 99 percent. On Nov. 16, two dozen millionaires climbed up Capitol Hill and told Congress they wanted their taxes increased. Really. The following day, on the two-month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street's birth, activists and unionists took to bridges nationwide in demonstrations for jobs.
The rich guys, the Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength, told Congress to eliminate the Bush tax cuts for the rich to help balance the budget. This group of 200 members of the 1 percent offered a solution very different from the Republican austerity demand that had dominated discourse for months.
Similarly, the protesters who occupied bridges across America sought federal investment in infrastructure to create jobs, which would help relieve the recession. Jobs, not cuts.
To the Patriotic Millionaires and the protesters,
"Oh, I want to thank you, thank you,
Thank you, thank you,
Thank you, thank you. . ." ~Natalie Merchant
Because of them, because of wise voters in Ohio and Maine, because of the Occupiers, there's reason for gratitude this Thanksgiving.
Follow Leo W. Gerard on Twitter: www.twitter.com/uswblogger
Justin Zorn: The Progressive Case for Moving Backward
you see what you wish to see. The movement is in EVERY STATE OF THE NATION now.
what you calculate as the majority is just a fox news? talking point
= fail
This is the problem with OWS,they think they just figured out our problems. As if no one was aware of them or complained about it. Their idea of fixing the problems is disruption,intimidation,violence,and vandalism. They have a small tiny percentage of them that gather to rethink how man should be governed,but they don't actually have anything. Right now all anyone is really talking about are the stupid antics the OWS are pulling. The talk is about causing a disruption and forcing the police to react, a business to close, or the stink, mess, noise, lewd acts. Not ideas. Its getting to the point where even if they did come up with good useful ideas,no one would listen. They are tired of the OWS.
So I am very far from delusional. Maybe you should take off those rose covered glasses and take a real look at your OWS.
I do though. Real American here and proud of it. I've been paying an enormous amount of taxes for many many years. I've got real skin in the game and no time for the pretense of faux protesters.
More to come, stay tuned.
The system has failed. Period.
Ths is disingenuous on two counts. First, what about conservatives who do not belong to country clubs which represent the vast majority of conservatives? Of course that fact does not fit the narrative of the disingenuous author.
Second, what "draconian" cuts soc sec, medicar and medicaid? There have been none proposed. In fact the left talks about severe "austerity" with the new budget and the federal budget has not gone down in two generations!! There is and has not been ANY austerity so far -- NO CUTS. But again, this does not fit the narrative the closed minded author wants to put forth.
I gives me hope to see people like you and Rich Trumpka taking such a progressive stnace on social issues. The Labor Movement ain't dead yet! Solidarity,
-Mike Olszanski, Past president Local 1010 USWA
Steelworkers? Fine.
Under United Nations norms and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the right to form and join a union, and bargain collectively, is a Universal Human Right.
Does "American Exceptionalism" exempt the USA from treating its own citizens as well as we say the citizens of the rest of the world have a right to be treated???
I beg to differ, most of the articles I've seen about the movement haven't been about addressing the protesters demands, but making sense of them. For every article I've seen about empowering the middle class and giving them a voice in politics, I've seen a half-dozen questioning their motives or their sincerity. And for all the press this movement has received, positive and negative... I fail to see many
Since the Tea Party has practical goals, limiting the size and limits of government, they have the support of conservatives, so will survive. The OWS has already been abandoned by the Democrats so will have to fade away at the first snows.
OWS, by contrast, isn't beholden to anyone.
So you don't think unions or George Soros have anything to do with OWS?
Despite the lies of the conservatives, we have found ourselves here.
We now own: "Oh, only government knows best for you and me!"-
while they own: "Question Authority"
We have finally arrived, now that our Washington reflects our grand thinking!
Let's regulate labor further. Let's all belong to unions so that we can retire early!
Money isn't a problem as it's simply that conservatives don't understand Keynesian economic theory.
Let's imprison those evil 1%'ers - clearly they are out to get us just like PepsiCo, Seagate, General Foods and of course Halliburton. Get the lists, and elect those with progressive insights into who knows best for you and me.
Finally as really smart people, I urge you to sing with your family:
(Soprano)
"Oh, only government knows best for you and me!"
(Alto)
""We all can retire early because of unions!"
(Tenor)
"Costco and The Outback have declared war on us. Let us have the money as we know best"
(all)
Fox news is bad. It is all lies. Only Rachel Madow knows best for us!
(repeat after chanting Oh, I am a democrat!)
But most of all it was extraordinarily kind of you to remember to be thankful to those patriotic Americans and other citizens around the world who are exercising the right to free speech and peaceable assembly. It is a sacred right to freely express ones grievances with the system in which one is governed.